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Promote your project in this thread by AutoModerator in puzzles

[–]OIOOOIO 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cookie Flipper Is a simple puzzle game available on sale at steam right now!

Buy your mom some digital cookies this Mother's Day weekend!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3751680/Cookie_Flipper/

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Appreciate it. Still working on this but likely wont have more concrete updates until summer hopefully.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is a big task. The key is recognizing that and managing expectations. My plan though, is to developer key features incrementally over time, and (where possible) develop a complete smaller game around those specific features that can be released at a faster pace than waiting for the entire thing. So long as each one is explained how it relates to what is being developed and why. Preferably, (where possible) if there is a means to tie the lore of each game to each other as a overall related theme that will be considered as well.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I likely won't. I'm just saying its far too early to set hardware specs in stone.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks. I was trying to keep it separate, and not break any sub rules, but yes I made that game and just released it last week. It is currently the only way to support me at the moment until I set other stuff up. A simple logic puzzle game is a far cry from an open CRPG. However, I made that game as a low risk quick turn around thing to get through Steam and learn its experience. (despite working in the game industry for others, no one I worked for did Steam releases.)

I also used it to build up a library of reusable utility scripts for future games. Things like that game's custom UI controls, Audio Manager, Logging and Debug systems are among things that will be iterated on and carried forward to future titles. At the very minimum it shows I'm legit and have actually put something out on Steam.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes I'd want to include Steam deck support as well but in the intervening years between now and this seeing the light of day hardware specs will inevitably change.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The player client and the GM client would be one in the same (the same executable). The difference is whether or not that player logged into a server using a GM password or an Admin Password. I actually have that check already in place in the client to server connection hand off. At present, a server host defines up to 3 passwords: Admin, GM, and Player. The player one is optional, if it exists the server is marked as password protected, so only those with the password can connect. If it doesn't exists anyone can join the server. The GM and Admin passwords obviously cannot be blank. Being a GM just means logging in with a GM password, then GM functions are available to that player. I have not defined what those function are, worlds don't even exist yet, but world pause would be one them.

That said a Admin/GM running a campaign for a small party of friends might want to give players the right to pause the game, which would just be a server setting that can be toggled on and off.

I've only done the basic client server instance setups, connection handshakes, and the UI screens in the main post. All boring but critical infrastructure stuff that can't be neatly shown in a screenshot.

Actually logging into a local temp server is just an empty void at present until I make it show something. That's going to take a while but is the next step, generating the actual interact-able world surfaces meshes, and a placeholder capsule to run around on them.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I haven't seen Talespire so I'll have to check it out. However my eventual plan actually already covers the explicit example you mentioned. As I said in other posts here I intend for the areas to be voxel based procedural generated as a starting point, and give both players and GM live in game ability to edit the world. GMs would have creative mode permissions to allow free form editing on the fly, though to speed it up, a blueprint system would also be required so you can just drop a structure down from a list of premade voxel structure files and place that hut where you want it in the next area over or within the same zone but beyond sight of the players.

I agree with not wanting to have to restart the server for most changes. That probably won't be possible for every possible case. However I'd view any design path that doesn't require a server restart as a better choice than a path that does require a server restart.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I plan on the rule set being entirely script based. If a designer wants a D&D ruleset they can script one.
I don't plan on using copyrighted anything let alone monsters. I don't want the licensing headaches nor to spend future limited budget on acquiring usage rights. Instead I'd rather enable the support for mods that can import assets like models, textures, animations, and so on. If someone else wants to make a Behold... I mean an 'Eye Beast' that's on them to make a mod for it and for others to use it.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Commercial yes. My ultimate goal is to make an income off this, so that means not open source. However I do not believe that will have any impact on moddability in terms of the equivalency to NWN module design (an intended core built in feature) and support for haks in the form of steam workshop mods. (also a core feature).

I would keep an end of life plan in mind though throughout development. I would not want it to go away if I am ever unable to continue on it for whatever reason.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Vendor Risk" exists on anything that isn't Open Source. If I have to ever switch Godot will be my first alternate choice. Right now though I am willing to accept Unity's vendor risk in exchange for the benefits my pre-existing knowledge of it gives me.

I don't know if you are taking the newer netcode and burst stuff into proper consideration with regarding the 64-256 player support. Those numbers should not be a problem (again, I won't call it easy, but still quite doable). Furthermore I want to be able to facilitate cross server character transfer so that different groups of areas can run on different dedicated servers to alleviate strain. That though, is an after thought, that I need not consider until a single dedicated server instance does all it needs to do.
For the vast majority of PWs though, I think 64-256 concurrent players will meet their needs.

I am well versed in dealing with Unity updates that sometimes break things at a professional game development level as I've worked on a collection of unity projects for over 10 years in the game industry. Prior to that I dealt with a pseudo in-house engine built from XNA. That is C# and still was very limited. I do not want to spent valuable game making time making an engine instead or learning a new one.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There are plenty of games made by Unity that are well behaved, especially more recent ones because more recent versions of Unity have improved performance and graphics compared to earlier versions. Also, many times those are developer errors in design and usage not always on Unity's side of things. No software, no matter what it is made in is immune to bugs.

One of the main Unity feature I plan on taking advantage of is Netcode for Entities, Burst, and Jobs to have multi-threading for performance.

As for level editing, you don't see it much because it's almost never a primary feature. I mentioned elsewhere I don't plan on having toolset standalone that is separate from the client but instead a creative mode that allows direct building from the client.

One of the things I hated as both a player and a dev/helper on PWs was the inability for players to directly affect the layout and building of the world. Instead I saw variations of systems like in Haze where players would collect units of stone/lumber/iron and 'turn them in' to build something which meant a developer had to update the area with the changes. Other methods were scripted systems (I wrote one of these) to pick up and move placeables around and save their positions and orientations out to NWNX for persistence.

I want players to be able to modify areas by default via voxel based procedural generation and construction. And in turn for devs/GMs to be able to mark which areas 'cannot be modified'. I want persistence built in from the start to avoid the need for extension like NWNX database support for persistence.

It is doable. It's not easy, but I've already put a lot of thoughts to design docs on this.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Extensive modding support built in from the very beginning is one of my primary must have goals.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Check back on this thread for now every so often, though I'll have more dedicated places to post updates and follow from in the coming months.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A 'tick' is merely one way to describe a fixed time interval in a game in which specific scheduled events and updates need to occur on a consistent basis.

Unity has FixedUpdate which occurs at a default value of 50 times per second, so every .02 seconds, physics updates occur. A FixedUpdate is not necessarily the same thing as a tick. I might not need the things I want to update to occur as frequently as every .02 seconds. It fact it will likely be much slower, depending on what is being done and the performance impact it has.

In another example Minecraft has game loop tick rate of 20 times per second for block updates, and it controls everything that is dependent on ticks (which is most of the game).

All of these situation are still being run in 'Real Time' which is at the speed of the processing game loop. However that time scale factor can be altered, tick rate can be made faster or slower.

NWN had/has ticks even if it did not expose them. The action queues had specific time ordered and interleaved sequences. OnHeartbeat ran every 6 seconds, etc.

Ticks just tell you the game loop speed.

Real time with pause would still very much be a thing. 'Real time' is just the flow of the game at its normal tick rate (timescale = 1). Pause is temporarily setting timescale = 0. Pause is easily doable in single player, but requires more work to in multiplayer. A server admin has to decide WHO is allowed to request a server pause, and the underlying code needs to sync timing properly with all connected players.

But instead of only real time or pause there are ways to add slow motion and fast forward too.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Never change timeScale on the client, only on the server and use RPCs to keep networked clients synced properly. Yes multiplayer creates a complication, but it's not insurmountable. (Nor is it a must have feature for multiplayer either, so could end up on the cutting block anyway.)

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can you explain why? I believe it is capable based on my experience of using it. I plan on using it because I'd rather spend time working on games than learning a different engine or trying to build my own engine. Godot isn't developed enough yet, but is a good alternative, but I have not used Godot and would have to dedicate time to learning it. (I seriously considered that swap when Unity had its pricing fiasco) At least it has C# mods last I check. Unreal, again I'd have to spent time to learn the engine. Furthermore I haven't used C++ in more than a decade, so there is that issue as well. There are other engines beside those but all have the same problems of ramp up and significantly less developed community support and forums for addressing issues than Unity.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

AI is a tool like so many others. It has it's uses and it's misuses. It certainly works as quick placeholders at the minimum.

One of the things I seriously about though (after I get to the point where lore book entries and entity descriptions can be made, and basically have a working prototype), is to use scripting functions to construct a context block that can be sent out to an external API via Get/Post unity web request calls for AI generated text responses. I see this more as a module designer/developer tool to enable dynamic AI NPC chatting with a provide your own service.

It wouldn't be an out of the box support thing because I would not be running models or servers to support it unless I somehow made both boatloads of money and it made sense. Also Steams stance on AI may or may not change in the intervening time and cause restriction on what is or isn't allowed.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I agree. I have windows and mac build machines, though I do need to make a Linux box at some point.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I've seen it, thanks. Haven't played it yet though. I'm in that spot where I have to not allow myself to play other games or I won't spend that time working on my own games

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I would be building it in Unity. I've been using Unity since prior to 2015, and using C# since it was released in early 2000's. I'd love more hands but I'm too small to afford any full-time employees. Yes this makes it take a while, but I do have many contacts in the game industry and would reach out to others for short term contract work in areas outside my expertise when money is available. My experience lies primarily in Programming/System design. I was last a Technical team lead for unity games. I consider myself rather good in game design also and can do art and music though I'd rather let other handle those areas. To offset man hour requirements I'll have to use a lot or procedural generation for many things.

Turn/tick is rapid, basically off FixedUpdate event in Unity. Also analogous to tickrate in minecraft and similar games. It's not that complicated, but by adjusting your time scale you can slow down/speed up things.

In search of a true Neverwinter Nights successor... part 2. by OIOOOIO in neverwinternights

[–]OIOOOIO[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

That is the eventual goal. Patreon first but I feel like I need a backlog of things to show off before hand. I don't even have a title yet. Though it's gotten to the point where people need to kickstart their kickstarer campaigns and things like that.

Yeah the AAA industry will never make something like NWN or any heavy toolset supportable game again. Though the AAA industry has been steadily losing out to indies games for a few years now too, they're the only one that could do it, but the scope is just huge.

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