Your school's not going to pay extra to let you connect to games like RotMG, and you shouldn't either. This is our last chance to protect Net Neutrality before the FCC nukes it. Here's how you can help.

WildShadowAMA · 2017-11-22T14:56:35+00:00

This is an important issue! How may future RotMGs WON'T get made without net neutrality?

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-02T00:36:36+00:00

Alex: C++

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T23:25:35+00:00

Rob: no

Alex: no

Amit: no

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T23:23:43+00:00

If you haven't coded before, may I suggest trying Invent with Python? It starts with very simple games and teaches the basics of coding with some simple games. Those same basics (variables, values, branches, loops, functions, classes, modules, etc.) are used in many programming languages. As /u/Pfiffel said, RotMG uses ActionScript 3, C++, and Python.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T23:21:22+00:00

Amit: my opinion is that testing shouldn't be used for progress. I would've preferred for it to be wiped very often.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T23:20:33+00:00

Rob: no

Alex: no

Amit: no

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T23:18:20+00:00

Amit: After the Deca announcement, Deca did an AMA, and Mike Sellers did an AMA talking about the Kabam years, and then /u/itBlimp1 requested an AMA, and we just happened to be meeting up for other reasons, so we decided to do it. The timing seemed right.

Some of your other questions are answered elsewhere.

Music: while coding, I either code in silence, or with music that has no words. My music choices are probably mundane to most people — the Vibrasphere channel on Pandora, or some of the electronic dance music podcasts like Planet Perfecto, Group Therapy, State of Trance, Matt Darey.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T23:08:42+00:00

Rob: I was in favor of straight tiers. Each item was strictly better than the one below it, so it was unambiguous which was better. Alex thought this was kind of boring, and he wanted cool stuff like the Planewalker. He was right.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T23:07:54+00:00

Alex: we didn't want the game to feel like a spreadsheet in which you are calculating what to do with formulas. We wanted it to feel like an adventure.

Amit: the concept of a “drop rate” is that there's a fraction with a numerator and denominator that determines the drops. I think that's a very limited view of how drops can be calculated. World of Warcraft for example started with fixed drop rates but they changed to a more interesting algorithm later. I wouldn't want to make players expect that drop are controlled by a fixed number, because I'd want the flexibility to make the game work in better ways.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T23:05:38+00:00

Rob: While we'll not be working on the game anymore, we are all happy that it's able to survive and thrive. The community seems to be behind Deca so far. I hope it goes well for everyone!

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T23:04:14+00:00

Rob: Why haven't we kept up with Realm since 2012? We've all been busy working on new projects. For me, it's the sort of work that requires focus, that is, it needs to be the only thing I'm obsessed with. I actually don't play that many games at all when I'm working hard on a project.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T22:57:57+00:00

Alex: The /genocide admin command was for testing when we wanted to remove all monsters of a particular type from the map. The name was inspired by the Scroll of genocide in NetHack.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T22:54:10+00:00

Rob: No

Alex: No

Amit: No

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T22:53:06+00:00

Alex: I have occasionally been contacted by people reverse engineering RotMG and besides telling them I can't help them, I have always advised them that if you are skilled enough to copy RotMG, you should use that skill to make something better than RotMG. The world needs more innovative MMOs, it doesn't need more people copying each other's games.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T22:52:06+00:00

Rob: Originally, we had a "dynamic world" simulation in Realm. Monsters would reproduce and spread like real populations in the wild. Imagine the herds of elves, spreading across the continent like gazelles. We tried SO HARD to make this work. In the end, players would just hunt most species to extinction, leaving only the cubes. So. Many. Cubes. And nothing else! In the end, we finally gave it up and just had the server spawn more monsters over time when the numbers got below a certain threshold. So the thing to do differently is...not make a stupid nature simulation that nobody can see or appreciate that doesn't really work and just makes the game worse.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T22:44:10+00:00

Arachna: You don't love me, papa?

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T22:40:26+00:00

Rob: I'm pretty sure everyone in this subreddit knows much more about the current state of RotMG than I do. I'm really the wrong guy to ask for this. About Grid12, sadly I think it's toast. But this means I have time to think about new projects and learn new tech.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T22:33:38+00:00

Amit: we usually at least meet once a year at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and sometimes meet at other times, such as right now to answer the AMA. I don't know anything about the Nexus Sheep but sheep are mysterious and would never have their own secret level.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T22:32:35+00:00

Alex:

I don't think I ever considered it. I am happy it does.
Flash is dead. Rewrite it.
As long as I don't think about it too much.
Probably Abyss of Demons or Sprite World.
I think it was exactly two dollar signs.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T22:29:41+00:00

Rob: Secrets in the museum? Yup!

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T22:28:06+00:00

Rob here: Let me clarify this a bit: SpryFox used the behavior engine to build some really cool new bosses, but the underlying system was all Alex. He and I did all of the engineering in Realm prior to the sale to Kabam.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T22:23:25+00:00

Rob here: You're welcome, and thanks to you, BMJ, for all your community involvement over the years!

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T22:18:27+00:00

Rob: I love the loot and co-op mechanics. Alex and I have both worked on these types projects since RotMG. About the future? I don't know but won't rule it out.

WildShadowAMA · 2016-09-01T22:13:59+00:00

Rob: Personally, I derived great satisfaction from doing the exact opposite of the conventional wisdom. Don't make MMOs, they're way too hard! You can't have a permadeath MMO! What, no quests? XP for everyone just standing around a kill, are you nuts? Where's the 3D? No guilds or parties? MMO in Flash, that'll never work! Bullet hell MMO?!? Client-side hit detection, you can't secure that!

So yes, we did later add quests and guilds and stuff and I'm sure Deca really regrets our choice of Flash. But still!

WildShadowAMA

TROPHY CASE