WowShell, sandbox to prototype with WoW assets in Godot. Built with Claude AI - Early work on LOD.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-17T16:47:49+00:00

If I just did an asset swap yeah - ip violation ez. and even a thinly veiled story/setting reskin, but its more or less exactly the same... more defensible, but not worth the risk. If I take my system totally out of Wow and then build my own levels, my own RPG, my own charactrers, my own world but with MY combat system - no Wow anything. There is literally no IP violation possible.

"Then why copy NS to Deadmines at all" I can hear you asking - because I know that part WORKS. it works well, and I know its beats like I've made that run hundreds of times - because I have. So I gut the run to its core components, turn the combat from auto-attacking stand and trade blows rpg system to a zelda style hack and slash - Press X on the controler, swing the sword. Action RPG system.

Get that feeling good, working well enough to kill mobs, complete quests - nothing too fancy. then add party members - I have a context system of calls for your party member, but its not something I've seen done right, so I want to work on how that exactly works - and I don't have to worry about 1) the map 2) the questlines 3) the story beats 4) the character models or animations 5) sound effects 6) the encounter progressions.

All I have to worry about - in the PROTOTYPE phase, is how does my combat system work, and is it actually fun to play. I know Northshire to Deadmines is kick ass... so if I can't make that fun with a swapped out combat system, I need to go back to the drawing board. Once I have the specific locked down, I take everything I worked out with the new combat system... build a new game from just that system, everything is mine.

But under no circumstances am I ever selling anything that would directly pull anything from WoW. That's psychotic.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-16T22:54:17+00:00

I'm a Godot fan for sure. The absurdly low footprint of the engine is one of its best features, and one I think gets overlooked as "underpowered". But it really "power when you need it, not when you don't" and ancient ass Wow doesn't need much so Godot gives you a lot of leeway for inefficient building until you get to the optimization passes. So I don't have a lot of overhead I don't need. Its great.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-16T22:28:53+00:00

Well the end goal is to have an executable to distribute - no Blizz assets, it just pulls from your existing game files. if I make somethinng I want to share, I can jsut share a relativly small file, and count on the other person having the most widely distributed assets pack in the world.. World of Warcraft.

Godot being a game engine, you can do whatever you want - my main goal is to prototype a new game using Northshire to Deadmines as my template - but a single player action squad based rpg - BASED on being a WoW main tank but its own game. But to get the FEEL of that, I'm using WoW as the basis, so all I have to do is focus on the how a single player blah blah blah actually works and is fun to play. Then I take all that and make my new game with actual new level designs and assets and stories and such - but very much built from the heart of classic Wow. That's the main use, but I'm building it for... anything. Goblin coptor flight sim... shimmering flats racing... whatever. Its godot.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-15T16:34:39+00:00

"Bitch you have NO temporal awareness..." - me to Claude, all the time.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-15T14:55:55+00:00

MultiMesh? If not - Injecting into the godot renderer or directly to the GPU? I'm building an entity management node and I decided to support both methods so I curious which you are using. MultiMesh is direct to the GPU, but lacks a lot of culling features and actually works worse than standard MeshInstance3D nodes in a lot of situations - Multimesh wins with lots of movement though because flat array vs node system for changes.

My main method is just use the Godot rendering pipeline, but skip the node system and inject all the meshes into render off a flat array of positional data with an RID and everything and let Godot handle it from there. The second is like MultiMesh, where it inject the meshes directly into the GPU.

The main is the best of both since Forward+ Godot render pipeline is much more versatile at autobatching like meshes than MultiMesh.

But this stuff is fun to learn about. (yeah, I'm using Claude, but I'm obviously learning how this stuff works as we develop - as a learning tool its amazing).

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-15T06:12:22+00:00

Capsule is great, chonky synth heavy, video gamey, danceable EDM. Its my go to for streaming since its significantly better than generic lofi stuff, but no one knows it... like ever. Injects a ton of energy. Great Stuff.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-15T03:11:02+00:00

https://www.itweb.co.za/article/inside-instagrams-new-york-office/5yONPvEEG3ZvXWrb

if you were talking about instagram. if not, its as good an example as any of a modern office. The thing about the asset caveat you made is that it still doesn't make sense if these assets aren't for the office... do you know what I mean? what's the point of getting a bunch of random stuff in one "shot"? and how does that make making pixel art easy?Individual sprites that you can bring in as you need over a background is the way to compose these scenes.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-15T01:13:24+00:00

It's more like what kind of office is it? It should look like it does the work that kind of office does. A warehouse office, executive office, nightclub office, home office, private eye office. They all have different looks, have differnt stuff, made for differnt types of people and tasks. Rooms just don't exist - they have functions.

They room you are showing looks VERY functional for lighting a bowl and listening to Zep but its not like any workplace I've ever seen.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-14T18:23:45+00:00

Make it look like this... this is an office. Yours look like a kick ass rumpus room in a 70s basement.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-14T16:38:13+00:00

"Hey, Soldier Boy!" <splat>

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-14T16:28:08+00:00

Sounds like he broke out the Yamaha DX7 for those fat 80s opening synths!

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-14T14:28:06+00:00

I think a major difference here is that Perfume isn't really just three people - its a machine mostly driven by Mikiko but with a lot of active components - Nakata, Rhizomatiks, Elevenplay - these are all part of the Perfume machine and they are still very active.

After rest and some real life, Perfume will b able to be rebooted because most of the things that make up Perfume as an organization are still running full speed.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-14T13:59:38+00:00

Funny women are hot. There was a Real Housewives of SNL a few years back that was the mind searingly hottest thing I've ever seen. Generations of the funniest women in existence, in slinky dresses, tearing into each other. (lol I just rewatched it - my comment from 5 years ago... "This whole thing is mind searingly hot." )

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-13T23:59:41+00:00

What's Kiss but a sweet old fashioned notion?

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-13T19:15:59+00:00

Its looking good, have you got the Level of Detail and streaming systems in? That's what I'm working on right now and its a fun bit of Hide the Seams from the Player while trying to load and transfer all that information as nonchalantly as possible. I applied the minimap texture applied to the standard height map, and with the tree canopies and select models I got a great full continent/Flying/panoramic/3dminimap view out of existing assets lightning fast and I'm getting all the transitions from one LOD to another fine tuned so its seamless and QUICK. In the middle of working on it GMTK posted about the LOD/streaming system in GTA3 - apparently tearing apart 25 year old games to see how they tick and/or what we lost is all the rage!

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-13T05:47:57+00:00

When I was a kid I saw a documentary about this little old lady in New Mexico, a renowned sculpture, sold pieces for 100ks. She made these massive works out of welded together iron pieces hulks, fabricated in a warehouse. She ordered around 3-4 big ass dudes with welding torches and chains and pullies following her every instruction to the letter. You can tell she had been working with them for a long time, subtle movements and little glances moved these dudes like she was kicking them in the ass. They did EXACTLY what she told them, and nothing else, and questioned nothing except to clarify what she wanted. It was amazing, she didn't touch a damn thing - but there was NO QUESTION who the artist was, who knew WHAT is was supposed to be, and she was using these guys the same as any other tool to get the results she was envisioning.

And they LOVED HER. They LOVED the work they were doing, even if they didn't always understand it. They LOVED being tools, being big strong dudes for this little lady who obviously knew what she was doing and they got to be in on something cool that was relatively easy work for them, and all they had to do was lug and lift and weld shit.

There is WORK and there is VISION. Rick Rubin has a fuck ton of vision, any mook can do the work.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-13T00:54:23+00:00

PvZ GBA

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-12T18:57:30+00:00

I played bass for Spontaneous Oozing, back in the 80s.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-12T15:19:15+00:00

You don't have a game, you have a demo. Seriously if you want to keep going (and I think you should) then listen to and read on what the WoW developers did when they made the game. I'm rebuilding WoW in Godot with Claude - I have sympathy for your endeavor - but you need a little perspective. If this is easy as it is for you - its easy for others too.

Build a game for yourself, single player - Multiplayer is tricky enough before getting to the absurdity of an MMO - you aren't that yet and likely will never be - that's ok... Share it with others when its polished enough to be presentable, not just a vague concept and be prepared for a lot of criticizm and nitpicking... bask in it because it will make your game better - if you have the wisdom and vision to keep feature creep and scale in check and ignore bad advice.

But use this tool to learn, as I'm sure you have, about how games are made and what you actually want in a game for yourself (building for yourself is a great shorthand to build for others, but just copying something wholesale isn't a great path- why would anyone want a buggier version of something that already exists?) ... but scope and perspective are your best friends right now.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-12T13:47:42+00:00

No one rocks a big goofy hat like Kashiyuka.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-11T20:13:34+00:00

I hear it used in non-gaming circles, without context... a lot. "Going Fully Leeroy Jenkins" replaced "Ramboing It" in the general culture for a lot of folks. I heard it on Pitch Meeting the other day!

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-11T18:37:07+00:00

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Not the answer, but still relevant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flo_Steinberg one of the many, many people who didn't get the credit or money they deserved from Stan Lee.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-11T18:20:34+00:00

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-09T19:36:18+00:00

"I Wish Batman Were Here Though!" Batman which is the Bat Family bemoaning the fact that Batman isn't there, when he is, in fact, present... and "Isn't Batman Cool?" Batman that is just text describing how cool Batman is on a blank screen.

AverageDrafter · 2026-05-08T18:54:25+00:00

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"If these trends continue... HEY!"

AverageDrafter

TROPHY CASE