FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Do you know Deliantra (www.delintra.net)

It's a MMORPG with a server (C++ and Perl) and a Client (Perl). Basically it's a beefed up version of Crossfire.

The game is (currently) strictly 2D. There can be lots of players online, which normally don't fight each other. There's a huuuuge number of different monsters. Players have different skills which help them fighting but also crafting. Oh, and crafting is very different than in minecraft.

Now my idea is this: make a mix between minetest & Deliantra. The monsters/spellcasting/fighting etc should be similar as in Deliantra. However, both the landscape and the buildings should be similar to minecraft.

In Deliantra, almost all rooms have a "reset" timer. When this timer expires, the map get's unloaded ... at the next entry, the map will again have it's monsters & loot. As long as a player is in a map, the map never expires. In my hypothetical game, one would define cubic areas with such a reset logic. And now comes the good part: some player builds stuff, e.g. a new house. He now submits this house (or, actually an area that contains this house) as a "please make this permanent" suggestion. Some dungeon master or voting logic would then look at the stuff and include it into the map database. But if some player just builds stuff randomly, e.g. he mines for minerals, then after some time the map will be like before, similar to how Deliantra works.

That would allow (like in Minecraft) collaboration of Players. Every player would be also a potential map contributor, every game client would be a map editor.

And yet one can "just" play the game, visit different contintens, solve Quests, kill Death Heads in the Hell and so on ...

Hi
I'll present my ideas to you. Feel free to ask some questions if you don't understand something. My english isn't that good.

At first here are some ideas about the account and right thing. Most of them about handling those destructive people.
[h]1. Accounts:[/h]
I would make reall acound that can cover more than one player (at least I'm using 6 of them already because of the large distances)
don't know how they are saved actually by the server, but this could be done this way:
BASEDIR/accounts/
BASEDIR/accounts/ACCOUNTNAME/
BASEDIR/accounts/ACCOUNTNAME/account.txt
BASEDIR/accounts/ACCOUNTNAME/characters.txt

having the account.txt containing things like privilegs (teleport and so on)
like:

and the character.txt containing the characters and there positions, inventory and those things.
could be of a formate like:



[h]2. Privileges[/h]
I don't actually know which one are already there. I know sth. of teleporting and so on but.
I'm suggesting privileges for:

1. logging in
2. moving the player
3. modification of the world (not set at creation of the account)
4. teleporting your self
5. teleporting others (you should really implement that to make administrating easier)
6. changing login privilege
7. changing moving of the player privileges
8. changing all privileges
9. reading/marking tickets

[h]3. Ticket System[/h]
there should be something like at ticket system to inform Admin/Game Masters about problems or player who are destructive.
Something like PMs everyone who has the privileges for that can read.

[h]4. Teleports[/h]
I think teleporters would be a nice thing to have because sometimes you have to go through very large distances.
They would be even more useful if you are able to decide who can teleport them. So there must be one side where you can change that, the first or the last of the teleporters. (every teleporter should consist of 2 parts)


I hope this are constructive and useful ideas, I will add some new if I have some new :D

And you are doing a really good work I enjoy playing your game really much.

Scale the blocks down, so we could create things with more detail. This would REALLY set this game away from minecraft.

It could also be nice to create more mechanics like this gif: http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/5402/1278452078211.gif
Notch even said that minecraft will never feature such "complex" enviroment, since it's supposed to be kept simple. Here you could also implement oil, engines, pumps and other ways to make more advanced systems/machines.

My ideas:
1. Better sprite handling
2. Player's sprite customization & server list

Open links, because I didn't want to write it 2nd time and didn't know about this topic when posting those two.

Plug-in architecture: In the Minecraft community there's a lot of modding and never ending stream of requests for this and that mob and item. Mods are all good but they are kind of a separate game. I'm agreeing with some ppl here saying that the game should be dynamic and scriptable. But a script engine seems like a lot of work and might not pay off anyway.

Instead, allow loading reoccurring entities as plug-ins. People always wants this and that mob. The answer is "Go get Mo creatures.". But they want it in the real game! So make general 'mob' interfaces and allow loading mobs as plugins from inside the game. Get the server to distribute the plugins to anyone connecting to it (following a consensual request of course). People want this and that biome. Biomes might be made as plugins (a tad more advanced for the general case I imagine). "I want this and that concentration of pigs spawning in my backyard" - So adjust the settings of default plugin x and replace the default one with your new.

I posted one idea to Reddit a while back that's more probably applicable to your project than Minecraft itself:

"Voxel"* Models

http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/he1iz/cubes_all_the_way_down_voxel_models/

Have only two basic entity types:

• Cubes, as currently used in the terrain map
• "Voxel" models

Voxel models would allow for more complex designs while retaining an essentially blocky style that would suit the world.

This is basically how character models work in 3D Dot Game Heroes. You can play around with an online version of their modeller here: http://designer.3ddotgameheroes.eu/

Each model fits in a 16 unit cube, and is built much the same as any structure in the map.
This technique could be used to model players & monsters, but also any other static map entities: flowers, fences, stairs, doors etc. (Larger models could work in multiples; eg. humans could 2x1 blocks tall, 32x16x16.)

Animated objects (monsters) could be made of multiple model parts, with some sort of skeletal or keyframing animation; or, if more appropriate, could cycle between different voxel representations (more like sprite animation).

Here's a mockup of a voxel creeper, with some subtle 3D details.

Aside from allowing more detailed shapes, it can also allows modelling of an object's interior, if that offers advantages. (Damage to an object could be visually represented, for example.)

Solid blocks wouldn't be rendered this way... but they could be defined in voxels. A player could place a stone or wood block on a sculpting table, and carve out an ornamental object that would retain the inner detail/grain of the original block.

This could be a massive boon to modders. You wouldn't need modelling & skinning skills to add new game entities; if you could build your design as a map structure, you could build it as an entity.

*I say "voxel" in quotes, because as was pointed out in the Reddit thread, that mostly refers to rendering technique rather than data structure. Minecraft-style cubic terrain is essentially defined as voxel terrain, but it isn't rendered as voxels. The same could apply to the models, which could be converted to polygonal representations for rendering purposes.

I just had an idea that I thought might be fun. Minecraft is very tool based, like you need to make and use tools in order to manipulate blocks. Minetest could be spell based in that a player could manipulate blocks and engage in combat using magic in a system similar to the game "Magicka". The player would arm themselves with some combination of blocks that creates a spell effect. Spells would consume blocks and rare blocks would be needed for more powerful spells. Spells to create the more commonly needed blocks would help solve the problem of using up all of the blocks in an area. (Maybe a spell to reset a region to its original form?)
Spells to quickly remove or add blocks in a large array (a wall or column or cube) would cut down on the drudgery of mining basic block types and building basic structures, while fancier spells would add new dimensions to combat. Spells affecting areas, rather than single blocks, would also allow the blocks to be made smaller (for more detailed building) without multiplying the effort in adding/removing them by the same factor.
You could also mix things together to have both tools and magic, or character classes that can use either with varying efficiency. I have noticed on the Minecraft forums that a lot of people use editors and server commands to shortcut boring stuff and the spells I am describing could replace these things with an in-game mechanic.

1. More rats! The rats are great. Don't ruin them by polygonalization.

2. As Kagato points out, "[m]inecraft-style cubic terrain is essentially defined as voxel terrain, but it isn't rendered as voxels..." This is true. Rendering voxels either directly (by tracing) or indirectly (by tracing for visibility and then rasterizing) is better in lots of ways. The second of these, the tracer-rasterizer hybrid renderer approach, is not well understood (yet).

Here are some suggestions:
1. Add doors
2. Add cows, sheep, chickens for food
3. Make it so the player needs food like health drains down for a certain amount of time without food.
4. Add minecarts.
5. Add sounds and music.
6. Add more blocks.
7. More monsters.
8. Sun and Moon.
9. Pets (Cats and Dogs)
10. Make a cluster of structures a town.
11. Empire building.
12. Leadership system.
13. Wars.
14. Swords need pictures.
15. Vehicles (Boats, Cars, Trains, Planes)
16. Achievement system.
17. Quests.
18. Furniture.
19. Crouching physics.
20. Jobs.
21. Currency.
22. Leveling System.
23. Flowers.
24. Fruits and vegetables.
25. Establish Laws.
26. Town and nation elections.
27. Markets.
28. Lava

OK Stormrider2, wtf do you mean by "19. Crouching physics." ????

benajamin wrote:OK Stormrider2, wtf do you mean by "19. Crouching physics." ????

Means the ability to crouch.

Suggestion for the crafting system:

Right now, Minetest is basically copying MC's crafting system, right? I've played Minecraft enough that the crafting gets a little annoying sometimes. Having to place all the ingredients in the correct layout makes it more time-consuming and irritating, because people have to remember the ingredients, the number of ingredients, and the positioning of the ingredients.

Has anyone seen Terraria? The crafting system they have is much easier and faster than in Minecraft. Basically, just let the player press 'c' (or some other crafting key) and then pull up a menu that displays all the available recipes given the player's inventory contents. If a player is away from a crafting table, then he/she can only craft a limited set of items. If the player is using a crafting table, then the player has access to more recipes. Right now, Terraria lists all of the available recipes in a single column that players have to scroll through, but I would like to see a 2D menu of craftable items so that players have to do far less scrolling to find the item they want to make.

No need to waste time memorizing the placement of items and putting the items into certain shapes. It would essentially be a simplified recipe book - the player just chooses the item to create from a menu populated by the combination of the available recipes and the player's inventory.

Moros: Something quite similar to what you just explained has been planned for a long time already. Will take time to get to making it, though.

Why not make ships and sail them to islands and stuff... make some villages where player gather and politics, jobs ( missions ) by colecting and a trading sistem ?

The most important feature of the game should be that it minimizes micromanagement. That probably means that the crafting system should be replaced by a much simpler one. One that does not require positioning the items, but instead just gives a list of what you can make with your current inventory. Food for replenishing health is also no option. Replenishing over time would probably work better. Being able to 'equip' tools such that they are used automatically and don't take up one of the 1-9 slots would also help.

One thing that would be cool, would be in-game script-able actors. In-game meaning that the script is written client-side and uploaded to the server from within the game (either using a file on disk or an in-game editor). These actors can then be used to do various repetitive and time consuming, but simple tasks (like mining, building or converting certain resources to tools). Or for controlling various mechanisms. This would require a special api (kind of like the one in robocode, but with some additional items that allow for in-game configuration and interaction.) for programming the actor. Also there must be a mechanism that prevents the actor from using to much processing time. And last, the state must be store-able and block unloads containing actors must be handled somehow.

I have to agree that its probably a good idea to drop the medieval theme. However that means that magic is also no option. A theme that minetest could adopt is high-tech (mostly '80-style with some futuristic stuff added). That would nicely fit with the idea of spaceships and space travel. Electricity can be used to drive various mechanism (like the actors (depleting energy by cpu cycles & movement) or something like an oil rig or monorail) and must be generated by a power plant. And a way to create pneumatic mail would be awesome.

For the idea of traveling to the moon, there is plenty of space up there (about 30000 blocks high) that could be used to contain the moon. Then only a single world is required, so it could be implemented relatively easy. (Yeah, you could fall off of the moon, or build a space ladder to the moon. But thats fun, isn't it?)

My advice is simple :) :
add content or easy way to add one for example write tutorials on how to add simple mobs (like chikens which dont have any real AI but a basic one which makes them wonder around ) and how to make new items (add them to crafting, give them skin, and properties when they are put down) - this wont make it possible for some random guy with basic programming exp like me to implement red stone but could probably give me the chance to implement something like a new weapon with new material you made freeing you to implement something else.

this way the game will get more tes^Wplayers

All the ideas here are very nice but hard to implement and will be pointless if there is no content . I think it's too early to make such big things as ships and my idea of implementation for all the planet stuff and others is to just make them like different worlds (with new coards maybe even on different server instance - which will probably be cooler :P and harder)

1. Combination lock chests (combination so can share with friends).
2. Doors! And please give them a combination lock too.

Pyro_Phoenix wrote:2. Doors! And please give them a combination lock too.

Locking a door doesn't achieve much if you can easily tunnel through the wall. Or do you plan to make your house entirely out of locked chests and doors?

Or we could skip a step and make a combonation lock item that you can put on anything. much simpler.

You mean, kind of like a sign? But that the block it is attached to can't be opened or mined until the lock/sign is removed, which requires a correct pin? That sounds like a very good idea!

yes like switches in Minecraft, same principal. Just bring up a screen with 4 wheels and you enter the right combo and it opens.

what's about just add new types of blocks,which can be crafted (it could be even mese combination, such as 1 mese + block), which couldnt destroyed by anybody except player who created them?

hijera wrote:what's about just add new types of blocks,which can be crafted (it could be even mese combination, such as 1 mese + block), which couldnt destroyed by anybody except player who created them?

Then blocks placed by a griefer will be impossible to break.

mstoykov wrote:My advice is simple :) :
add content or easy way to add one for example write tutorials on how to add simple mobs (like chikens which dont have any real AI but a basic one which makes them wonder around ) and how to make new items (add them to crafting, give them skin, and properties when they are put down) - this wont make it possible for some random guy with basic programming exp like me to implement red stone but could probably give me the chance to implement something like a new weapon with new material you made freeing you to implement something else.

this way the game will get more tes^Wplayers

All the ideas here are very nice but hard to implement and will be pointless if there is no content . I think it's too early to make such big things as ships and my idea of implementation for all the planet stuff and others is to just make them like different worlds (with new coards maybe even on different server instance - which will probably be cooler :P and harder)

Have to concur in theory at least. Adding a new block should be as simple as adding a texture and defining a few things in a text file, and maybe a sound file if/when sound gets added. New crafting recipes should be text defined as well. Basically, anything that behaves similarly to an existing item/material should be doable without touching code. That alone would do wonders to expand the content as people can contribute easily to expanding the game.

As the number of ideas in this topic is already getting rather large, I created a list of them in the wiki to keep them organized. Feel free to add items or give additional information to a specific idea. See http://celeron.55.lt/~celeron55/minetest/wiki/doku.php?id=ideas:index.

one more idea: what if there will be some admins (which took from trusted players) on big territories (500x500 blocks for example) and they will have exclusive right to modify them (dig or build on it), but they also will have ability to give somebody rights to dig or build on part of their lands. It seems like permission system in Second Life . Other lands which is not controlled by admins will be free for modifying as now.
Every admin will have some kind of region or city, and will moderate it. it could be interesting )

This again is long for some reason >.<


it will be nice even without moderators (as define there) just in the basic way of player saying to the admin - can you give me this 100x100 place (or any 100x100 place) just for me and then it's yours until the admin says otherwise. Then ofc the big map can be divided into areas to each moderator and so he gave this places.
In build system for this will be nice too.
This way griefers will be stopped (big problem right now for the ppl who are near the 0.0 0.0 0.0 ) and this way we can say something is to someone :) there will be less need of signs :).

on the item creation :
It will be nice if we can get some really simple text based item creation something like

for something like creatures which need AI there could be a predefined basic AI (the wondering around one) and a hostile AI (it goes for you and tries to get the flesh from your bone one :)) and then a field like AI: basic_AI for something like a pig(rat) :).
DISCLAIMER: the item idea wont be easy to implement and it can't (fully) remove the need for putting code in. For example we cant make something like carts this way without defining the code for how the cart works :) Though it will be possible to put in random misc stuffs like books, pictures, pots, flowers etc. It will need more options then this and it might be better in an xml or YAML format (easier to parse).
Another problem will be performance as the implementation I'm thinking right now is basically big item_class with tons of different fields and and id which could be an int but probably will need to be String in some of the calls (which is actually how the items are implemented now AFAIK - still looking trough the code trying to figure out how the thing actually works and will implement a bucket soon :)).
I'll stop now as I think this got way too long :)

I didn't know people are this stupid when I made that blog post, but now I do.

I don't need any more ideas. I want to not hear any of them. I have now learned I never needed any "ideas" in the first place.

Celeron55, dude, chill out. At least you don't have it as bad as Notch.

Look at it this way: You can always ignore "stupid" ideas, but at least with this thread, they won't be cluttering up the rest of the forum.

I understand that this is *your* playground, and everyone is grateful for you having shared it, but there's no need to be mean.

I like to not mince my words too much.

But anyway, adding the idea section in the wiki was too much. Whoever did that, did a totally wrong thing.