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Who Needs Direction?
OnlineCop
Member #7,919
October 2006
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I've got family arrangements around 5:30pm (Mountain Time) tomorrow, which will probably last a few hours. So I should be available before then, or in the later evening. If most of us are night owls and have more time later, that would be good for me.

In fact, if all of you want to just join the chatroom and lurk while you wait for others, you can check in on occasion and see if any of us are talking.

900th post. This rocks (the length of the thread, not "kewl! im 1337!!!111oneoneone"). Yea, definitely with the momentum.

Also, if there are some of "the Monday project" group that still can't get it to compile, we should get those worked out as well.

alethiophile
Member #9,349
December 2007
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Re: compiling it

On Linux, it doesn't take anything too special; I couldn't for a while because my libstdc++ was all screwy. A working install of gcc/g++ and A5 should work. On Windows, I don't know.

EDIT:
I just re-read the game specification on Mark Oates' web site, and we don't seem to be being that true to it. It specified wasd to move and mouse to aim/fire; is that still the plan?

--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
C++: An octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.
I am the Lightning-Struck Penguin of Doom.

23yrold3yrold
Member #1,134
March 2001
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That should be the plan.

Bumping this so people can come up with some evening to meet. I advise you to get your questions/requests ready ahead of time, too, and maybe post them here ahead of time too so I can answer it best. :) My evenings remain wide open.

--
Software Development == Church Development
Step 1. Build it.
Step 2. Pray.

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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As I suggested in IRC, it would probably be best if we all post our free hours in UTC so it's more easy to see overlap.

Monday - Friday: 23:00 - 04:00 UTC.
Saturday - Sunday: 18:00 - 07:00 UTC.

(These are typical and subject to change... :P)

alethiophile
Member #9,349
December 2007
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Until next Monday, plus weekends (and excluding today): 18:00-06:00
Monday and after (weekdays): 01:00-06:00

--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
C++: An octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.
I am the Lightning-Struck Penguin of Doom.

relpatseht
Member #5,034
September 2004
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Not tomorrow, until the fifth. After then, I don't know yet.

OnlineCop
Member #7,919
October 2006
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I'm heading to school today and will be there till late this afternoon or evening, though I don't really have many plans after then. My school starts again next Wednesday, so I'll have to do it before then (around the 6th or 7th).

Most evenings, I plan to join through mibbit into the #monday-allegro channel and just leave myself logged in (though when I'm AFK, I'll try to change my nick so others can tell).

I sometimes get booted if I'm inactive (or if my internet connection goes down) for long.

Request: Does anyone have a bot that can be placed in the room and log all of the conversations? Then, latecomers and people like me who get booted off can still see everything they missed (like calling a "bot: showlog" or something to have the bot PM us with the full conversation recorded up to that point)? Does a bot like this exist? If so, does anyone here HAVE a bot like that? I'd really be interested (plus, it can be used later to fill in the wiki even more with what was discussed).

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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I'm sort of new to IRC, but I think in some circles logging the conversations is considered unethical or something. I think a volunteer that documented the conversation as we go would be better (albeit, a log would help him do that after the fact). :-/ I'm not really very good at that sort of thing though.

???

alethiophile
Member #9,349
December 2007
avatar

The way that the #corewars channel on irc.koth.org does it is that all logs are written to files available on the web. That's easier than PMing. I'm going to look at that; it seems a good idea.

--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
C++: An octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.
I am the Lightning-Struck Penguin of Doom.

OnlineCop
Member #7,919
October 2006
avatar

If you can find anything that we can use there on freenode, even if it's an after-the-fact log that we find at some web address, it would be great.

FYI: On Monday, about 3-4 of us met and discussed what we could. Most of what I remember was trying to figure out how to handle movement, that we [still] need to implement the mouse "attack" feature, and that the HUD needs to be able to show us a few things: player health (most votes were for a graphical bar over a "33/40 HP" or "72% health" text output), weapon info like its icon (so we know what's equipped) and the weapon's stats (like remaining ammo or charge). Most votes were for a graphical representation (or text/graphical mix):
Ammo: ||||||||---or Remaining charge: |||||--------

Some things I feel we need to discuss:

  • More HUD (though not a high priority)

  • AI interactions (conversations?)

  • Storyline (the website is good, but we need more detail)

I'll post more topics as I think of them (and as I have time). Some may be really quick "Let's not discuss this right now" back-burner kinds of things, others may be more pressing (like "Who wants to draw up a bunch of maps").

alethiophile
Member #9,349
December 2007
avatar

What I'm envisioning as far as IRC logs is a web page like this, whereby the logs are available immediately and written to files based on the date UTC.

EDIT:
I'm thinking Supybot, which has no real Web page but seems good and is written in Python. Whenever I run it, it gives me an error call tree rooted at 'TypeError: object.__init__() takes no parameters'. Has anyone seen that before? Can anyone help?

--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
C++: An octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.
I am the Lightning-Struck Penguin of Doom.

OnlineCop
Member #7,919
October 2006
avatar

I think we should have a HUD. We can have it either tied to the Game to ensure that it gets drawn very last (over the top of everything else already rendered to the off-screen buffer), or tied to the Player, since it technically is only associated with the current Player, and can be called within the Player's own Render() function.

We will need to know the Player's HP. Will HP be part of the Entity class ("triggers" are Entities, too, remember... this won't give side-effects will it?) or individual Player/Enemy/NPC classes?

Or should there be a separate "Killable" kind of class that Player/Enemy (possibly NPC, but not necessarily) derive from?

Does the HUD show the enemies' HP (either as a number or a "health bar") over their heads in the HUD, or somewhere else?

alethiophile
Member #9,349
December 2007
avatar

Perhaps make a CombatEntity class that extends Entity, that deals with HP and weapons.

--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
C++: An octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.
I am the Lightning-Struck Penguin of Doom.

OnlineCop
Member #7,919
October 2006
avatar

What should CombatEntity handle?

  • HP (hit points)

  • MHP (max hit points)

  • AP (attack power)

  • DP (defence power)

  • ...

Should it also contain all the functions needed for battle engagements, like CombatEntity1 attacking CombatEntity2, using healing items, etc.?

Don Freeman
Member #5,110
October 2004
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I would think that the CombatEntity would have variables needed for combat, but the functionality should be outside of that object. Maybe have a separate object such as CombatEncounter, or just utility functions that scripts can use to have scripted combat. Just sending some thoughts though...::)

--
"Everyone tells me I should forget about you, you don’t deserve me. They’re right, you don’t deserve me, but I deserve you."
"It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don’t say it."

23yrold3yrold
Member #1,134
March 2001
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Not much need for attack and defense power. This game doesn't have fluctuating armor. All we should really need is how much damage each weapon does as a static number, and health. Nothing fancy. And the guns use energy, not ammunition.

The HUD will be very minimal. Basically a health meter, and two meters for whatever two pieces of equipment are currently bound to the mouse keys (jet pack fuel, charge on gun, etc). Maybe a few icons for the three dungeon keys to light up as you collect them. What else is really necessary? Not "would be nice". Actually worth our time?

--
Software Development == Church Development
Step 1. Build it.
Step 2. Pray.

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
avatar

Quote:

Actually worth our time?

Not if we want to get it working any time soon. Besides, stuff can always be redone later.

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

OnlineCop
Member #7,919
October 2006
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23yrold3yrold said:

What else is really necessary? Not "would be nice". Actually worth our time?

I agree. I don't want to add things that are "yea, we might get around to that." I want to get the bare minimum done so we can move onto more things.

That's actually why I'm asking :) I don't want to make it all oh-so-expandable. Just enough to get by.

Okay, for the HUD:

  • 1 meter for player's health

  • 2 meters for remaining equipment energy

  • 3 dungeon key icon slots

  • http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/597423

For the weapons:

  • All weapons will have a charge (instead of ammo)

  • Weapons have a fixed damage amount (or range, like between 50..60?)

Will weapons be able to hit the entity that deploys them? Like, if the player is shooting a horde of monsters around him, can he accidentally shoot himself if he's not careful, or can he just start mad-clicking anywhere and know that he's not going to be hit by his own stuff?

23yrold3yrold
Member #1,134
March 2001
avatar

The key icons are a bit big; they aren't vital information. They can be fairly small. And I'd prefer all three bars be upper left, or the health bar be at least transparent. The gameplay has more in common with a shooter than anything; would you like a big health bar there while playing Ikaruga or R-Type or something? :)

The player can't accidentally shoot himself with his own weapons. We'll probably have an enemy type that explodes and can damage him if he kills it too close. But no, no direct damage from friendly fire.

--
Software Development == Church Development
Step 1. Build it.
Step 2. Pray.

OnlineCop
Member #7,919
October 2006
avatar

This was a 30-second slapped-together mockup. What do you have in mind? I have NO artistic abilities, so I just threw together something that had all the components you were talking about just as long as I had the key components and features to start programming in. Making it look good is some else's job. :)

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
avatar

Worry about the pretty stuff later - just build a quick class that will display a percentage bar at a certain position with fixed width and height. After that then you can play around with the position and how shiny it is. Once the bar is done, build the HUD from it and some text labels, along with a couple icons for the keys.

Don Freeman
Member #5,110
October 2004
avatar

What about leveling up and experience? Can the player gain levels or is his powers constant throughout the game? If so, I like how Dungeon Seige (and others?) do it. They have say, three areas of experience (melee,ranged,and magic). The various areas go up depending on what the character does. The more melee attacks you do, the better your character gets in that area. A think that is a lot better than the old D&D style.::) Again...just my 2¢ 8-)

Edit:
The status bars are really simple. Just uses simple math:

(CurrentValue / MaxValue) * LengthOfBar

--
"Everyone tells me I should forget about you, you don’t deserve me. They’re right, you don’t deserve me, but I deserve you."
"It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don’t say it."

OnlineCop
Member #7,919
October 2006
avatar

Don Freeman: Does that mean that, instead of the character leveling up, their skills with those particular weapons have experience tied to them and level up/down depending on their use?

The status bars are easy to calculate. I just haven't figured out how to make them into objects and add to the HUD.

23yrold3yrold
Member #1,134
March 2001
avatar

This game isn't long enough for leveling up of that nature. The only leveling comes from the acquisition of better weapons.

--
Software Development == Church Development
Step 1. Build it.
Step 2. Pray.

alethiophile
Member #9,349
December 2007
avatar

Since the game does include weapons, we should probably just make a Weapon class and have CombatEntity contain one. It should work well enough to have the NPCs use weapons, even if they don't actually switch.

--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
C++: An octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.
I am the Lightning-Struck Penguin of Doom.



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