Im making a kinda of Minecraft Clone, The concept is to be above and beyond minecraft (not everybody will agree but we were too annoyed with the direction minecraft was going and couldnt take it anylonger so we making this in the direction we want) we are going to add loads of game modes such as CTF, FortWars (similar to worms), DOOM style FPS, Deathmatch FPS.

At the moment my game is purely Creative similar to minecraft classic but much better (Only 1 game mode is done so far... The deathmatch Arena).

Heres a very brief description of the game and its functions:

• Around 3,000 blocks to place ranging from almost anything even to letter blocks number blocks smiley faces.

• A colour picker to place any of 32 million possible colours to create photo realistic picture art.

• Multiplayer that can handle around 100+ players(per server) (we havent tested much)

• Built in Fly/Noclip modes

• Very smooth FPS

• Supports any map size (but we like to say 512 512 512 is biggest for now since thats the max we are willing wait for a map to load it can take a minute ;p)

• The server supports INFINITE maps you can simply create new maps and people can go to them by typing /goto mapname

• There are over 100 commands available (and ranks to choose who is allowed to use them... such as guest, member, operator, admin etc) commands include Cuboid to create blocks super fast (similar to stack but much better), spheroid to create spheres, copy/paste to copy whole sections of map or just buildings from 1 place to another (even saves/loads copy snipits).

• Dynamic flowing water, lava that kills people

• Sponges to soak up water/lava if your base gets flooded

• Maps are saved regularly and uses a incremental backup system

• Hardcore anti-griefing fucntions which can undo all grief damage in 1 second and jail+ban+kick the griefer

• Friendly community of course =)

• Secure login system to servers using encrypted protocols and no password ever being sent to peoples servers (only auth with main server similar to minecraft)

• Full day/night cycle sky with realistic look stars etc

• Also mushrooms, plants, flowers for people to place.

• Selection box to show which block your selected to build on

• Radar to find players on map anywhere

• UberBlox is also with XNA (You have to admit its a very fun game development kit)

• It will be FREE! (although we have a very small team and any donates would be greatly appreciated!)

The list goes on and on your better off seeing some of my uTube videos.

My utube is:
http://www.youtube.com/user/uberblox

Go see game =)

The game isnt publically released yet but people can beta test just let me know if you want to.

We are looking for people to assist development (Mainly sound/graphics people) however an extra coder would be decent too.

Let me know my msn is:
uberfox@hotmail.com

DOWNLOAD LINKS:
http://rapidshare.com/files/427430119/UberBloxRelease3.zip
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6QPCEPSE

Of visit the HOME PAGE
http://uberfox.no-ip.org/home

It looks like quite a lot of effort. I am not quite sure about your definition of better.

Is it compatible with MonoXNA? (ie. Can I play it on my linux laptop?) Do the servers at least run on linux?

Also how do you define a friendly community, you haven't posted a website, and irc channel, or anything that suggests a community?

But yes you have definitely taken it in a different direction, its not a fantasy setting anymore, its just a throw in of every and any feature you can think of.

Will the game be externally scripted? Or any change to behavior requires the binary to be recompiled?

It looks like quite a lot of effort. I am not quite sure about your definition of better.
// Better = better functions, gameplay, gamemodes

Is it compatible with MonoXNA? (ie. Can I play it on my linux laptop?) Do the servers at least run on linux?
// Never tried but it works on WINE

Also how do you define a friendly community, you haven't posted a website, and irc channel, or anything that suggests a community?
// Well even i talk to people and help them cant say same for Notch who is extremely hands-off....

But yes you have definitely taken it in a different direction, its not a fantasy setting anymore, its just a throw in of every and any feature you can think of.
// Quantity is a quality in itself =)

Will the game be externally scripted? Or any change to behavior requires the binary to be recompiled?
// Yea it will have full moddability u will be able to create ur own game modes and script anything even block movements in game

Often a very bad one however.

By the way, this forum does have a quote feature. Please us it, as it makes posts far more readable.

I would if i could find the quote function

There is quote button under your post?

Try <quote>TEXT HERE</quote> Or you know, see the "Formatting Help" button.

That would most likely be closer to the definition of more, not better.

The client runs under WINE? or the server does?

Also how do you define a friendly community, you haven't posted a website, and irc channel, or anything that suggests a community?

You talking to people, is not the same as an active community. You talked to us, and we have not been terrible receptive.

Actually from a software engineering point of view, quantity leads to code bloat, which reduces maintainability, which in turn reduces the quality of code.

What scripting language are you using? Have you rolled your own? or are you using any in particular?

In a way it reminds me a lot of Sauerbraten.
So as way of suggestions, phrased as questions.

Will the FPS have deformable landscapes? Because If i fire a rocket launcher and miss, I want to leave a nice crater and have them fall into a lava pit. The blocks could even grow back over time.

Will the in built CTF have more than 4 teams? (I loved the 4 team maps in Team Fortress Classic)

Will there be a 'dungeon' mode? So that people can create a defined world with certain monsters in certain places. So an adventure style game can be made, see the next suggestion/question.

Will you be able to code a NPC type character that can be inserted into the world independent of the game mod? So that you can create a welcome NPC guy that you can talk to.

Will the game server have some sort of external interface, to allow programs or web servers to access it? So that it can be managed from a different machine.

A native linux based server would be really useful. So that they can be ran on the same boxes as other game servers.

Will the server/game be able to update a database? (flat file or better yet an external SQL based database.) Having a script that produces a forum signature, that says how long you have logged on a server, blocks built. This may allow communities to grow up around servers.

Will the game support proper physics? In minecraft I have always wanted to get a box of golf balls and poor them down a hill. While I am throwing out random ideas, I want a modeled slinky that I can send stepping down a hill.

While I am shooting at blocky shaped people, will I be able to blow limbs off? Or better yet, can I yank someones arm off, and beat them to death with the wet end?

Will there be proper fire effects? So that the guy falls into lava, and runs around setting trees and other people on fire, would be awesome for griefing. Also flamethrowers?

Steam clouds when water and lava are in contact?

I am sure I can think of more random things.

Edit:
A side on 2d view type modification!!!!

Portals so that you can see through a doorway into other maps on the same server? That way I can shoot a rocket through and frag people on a creative server.

A texture that can be updated on the fly, projected movie onto a wall, output of an irc server.

We shall see

Both

In game...

If poorly coded

Probably Perl for scripting

Yes it will .. There is already TNT that blows holes in ground and can be used for blast mining

No it will have GUILD VS GUILD.... 1v1 2v2 4v4 etc etc

Yes total moddability is a key aspect of the game creating your own world then playing it will be part of the FPS/RPG mode styles (As well as the official server maps)

Yes you will be able to create your own NPC sprite insert it and give it dialogue
For RPG mode you will also be able to add in quest information and rewards etc

You can use teamviewer on server to do that

Its made with Microsoft XNA so im not sure about linux portability but i know it works with WINE

Yes it can do that however its a bad idea for it to be global and effect all servers with such stats since people can cheat then...

That kind of physic is possible but for the moment its just flowing water/lava and sponges that clean it up

It dosent use blocky people we decided to use Sprites instead so people can create any sprite they want... You can walk around as Zelda, Pikachu or anything you want!

You get burned up if u go in lava... Althouhg making u into a torch is possible yea

Thats easy to do

You should really look into Mono. WINE is atrocious, especially for running .NET apps.

I don't know about XNA, but I do know that Mono is now claiming full support for just about everything up to and including .NET 4.0/C# 4.0. Only a handful of things (that you probably aren't using anyway), like WPF and WCF, are missing.

It sounds like an ambitious and potentially impressive piece of software, but I don't think it would be my style of game. It sounds a bit too free-form for my tastes. Not enough structure; no coherent style or theme.

You didnt read the game Modes it will have...

Only free design mode is like that.......

I did read the game modes. Its a fairly long list of quite varied game modes, and there's a wide range of different team sizes and player numbers, a huge selection of maps, lots of variety in the type of things the map might have, and so on.

From my point of view, the problem is that with each of these options (mode, map, players) you have effectively split the player-base. There will be players who only like CTF and players who only like deathmatch. There will be players who like to play with heaps of people at once and players who want small groups. There will be players who want to play on their own home-made maps and player who only want to play on a defacto-standard map. The player base isn't likely to be large in the first place, and with all of these splits you'll basically be left with no-one playing... People will have to compromise on their choices just to get a game, and even if you do get a game you'll likely be faced with a noisy mish-mash of different looking player avatars; and whatever mode you happen to end up playing is likely to be only very roughly balanced and polished because different game styles have different, and sometimes conflicting, needs.

Maybe I'm not saying this the right way. I don't mean to imply that no one will play your game. I'm just trying to articulate why I get the feeling that the game lacks focus, or structure, or coherence. Maybe the game will turn out to be extremely popular and well balanced and good in every way... but from what I've heard here, I just don't expect it will be the kind of game I would like.

Actually there will be servers dedicated to each game mode that will be full of people who love said game mode.

Hey, good luck!

So what does this mean? That all updates made to the map are logged what it used to be so a command can roll it back (in case someone used blocks to draw dicks all over your pictures for example?)?

How much disk space would be used for a 512x512x512 map with lots of stuff all around the edges and in the middle too (so that there isn't so much free space that it just compresses away if zip or RLE or something)?

By my calculations, if each block took 4 bytes

and if the map is a filled 3d array of elements, and it was 512x512x512 then that is 512megabytes raw file!

I guess logging changes would only be a fraction of that usually though.

This is part of the anti-grief I suppose, right?

Can the clients cache a version-tagged copy of the map, and when they connect to the server the server sends them the incremental updates from their last copy to a "major" version and then the binary diff from that major version to the current major version, and then incremental updates from that to the true current version?

It just sounds easy to implement to me, I suppose the other way is bi-torrent-esque hierarchical hash updates, because of the interactive nature it could start out low resolution and go as fine-tuned as makes sense once the changed parts are narrowed down.

I say it like that because maybe calculating the binary diffs is a time-consuming process (bsdiff is a tool that can do it and its code is simple for C, don't know about C# but it could be run in BG I guess), so if it is slow then it would only make sense to do it say hourly and compress those into daily, and anyone more than a few days out of sync can just download the whole thing!

How do you do it now?

What happens if the map is changed since they started the download? Does it finish the download and then say "stuff you already downloaded has since changed" and download those super blocks again the new versions?

It logs all changes from all players can undo anything any time (even weeks after event took places) it can also undo past xx seconds all way to past years since server started if u wanted

512 512 512 is 3.0 MB file no matter what is on the map (it compresses everything)

each block is 2 bytes

no thats automatic backup so you dont lose ur map and so u can do timelapse later

In theory it could but its rather pointless since it would still need to check every byte against cient map so it might as well just send new map

It just sends the whole map in chunks

Any changes will already be on map when it finishes loading

I see so the map files are still small, well that's good then, you don't need to worry about such complicated things then.

Just out of curiosity, does the map have to include block textures, or does the game have standard textures for the blocks?

Then the images on the maps are made of solid-colored blocks, so blocks can have 16bit solid color or a texture?

How does this work?

QUOTE "I see so the map files are still small, well that's good then, you don't need to worry about such complicated things then."
Yup

QUOTE "Just out of curiosity, does the map have to include block textures, or does the game have standard textures for the blocks?"
The save contains block IDs... etc
1
1
1
2
3
5
7
8
1
1
2
6
7

QUOTE "Then the images on the maps are made of solid-colored blocks, so blocks can have 16bit solid color or a texture?"
If you see the first video it has photorealistic pictures using full 32-bit spectrum... One video "colour picker" shows you the games PICKER... its a full 32 bit spectrum colour picker that can do any r g b you want.

QUOTE "each block is 2 bytes"
Each block is USHORT... this is 2 bytes long
The game can have a maximum of 65,535 unique BLOCK types... NOTE all COLOURS (all 32 million) are just 1 block type!

Karadoc click here to see how COLOURs are selected
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZUJU-THISM

I see, so you have 2^16 different block IDs, and each ID can either be a texture or a full 32bit color (so it's like index color only 16bit not 8bit).

That is something that I thought of but didn't mention. I'm surprised to see that it is true.

Just a note, if every block ID possible is used, ie:

1
1
2
65300
12354
12341
61234
54123
3453
4
5
64346

etc
and if almost each one is for an R G B 32bit color value, then the palette will only take up 256kb of RAM.

The map file doesnt store textures it stores BLOCK ID...

lets say the Block is Brick... it will store it as its ID lets say brick is ID 3

The file will contain the "3" only nothing else.

If the block is a colour it will store it with a speical ID... example say colour blocks are ID 10

10,255,255,255 (it will store it like that saying block type and the special r g b)

What you seem to be saying is that each block on the map is represented by a block id number. The id number is a 16 bit number. Every possible texture that a block can have is associated with one of these numbers; for example, a picture of mario might be number 5513, and a picture of a dog might be number 4111. There is a special id number which represent a coloured block, for example, it might be number 0. The coloured block can by any of 32 million possible colours (a 24 bit colour value) – all of the possible colours are represented by the same block id.

All of that sounds fine, but I guess the point of my earlier question is that the 24 bit colour value for each of these coloured blocks has to be stored somewhere, and therefore coloured blocks must take more than 2 bytes. And even if the id number itself was used to identify the colour, 2 bytes is less than 24 bits, so you wouldn't get the full range of colours.

It's no big deal though. All it means is that these special coloured blocks take more space to store.

Yeah I made a mistake in my last post, but I see what you are saying now.

Here is what I thought you were saying:

Every block has a 16bit ID.

Then there is a palette or lookup table of IDs.

But instead, when the game is loading the map file, it says "if the BLOCK ID is for grass or brick then make a grass or brick block, otherwise if its a special code, take some more numbers for Red Green and Blue and then color it like that".

I think that the map file might be much bigger if someone got really carried away with that, but it also allows full true color images so it'd look better and has no dithering.

Hey here's another question, with a big 512x512x512 map with lots of stuff in it, how much RAM does the program use when you are playing on it (like in task manager or something).

If you want to test game let me know... I can send u download linky

What version of .net would I need? I only got 2.5 and I'd have to update mublinder to get a newer one I think...

It needs 2.0 (u should be ok)

m c // check ur PM

Hey cool game, I tried it just quickly. One thing that I noticed is that it didn't free it's memory when the server crashed but that could just be that the garbage collector didn't kick in right away.

It didnt crash (not that i remember) although it just gets updated a lot (which causes an instant shutdown and reopen)

It frees memory whenever game is joined or left (although if u was forced out instantly it may not free the map until you join server again so it can create a new one)

Wait, so a new member creates a thread about an awesome game that is already pre-beta? I don't understand...

I dub thee a Wednesday thread!

Have you guys discussed the licensing model? Will the source code be released with an open source license? I don't really like to run binaries from the Internet unless they're from a trusted source (no offense^[1] ), but I would like to try this game out.

It looks like you guys have done a lot of work. I'm thoroughly impressed. Just a piece of advice: Allegro.cc will destroy your motivation to develop games. The last game completed by anybody here was in 1852.

Well you can test if you want.

All we wanted was either script support or source to minecraft so we could extent it a bit and make nice great mods for community but that will never happen.

It will never be moddable.

So we decided to make our own game to get what we wanted and its working out quite well we have now got everything + a lot more from our old MC server +its functions.

Now that we have that we are adding all functions we dreamed notch would one day add but never did...

Is it a MC Clone? sure
What is its purpose? to finally be able to mod and create all new stuff that was impossible before
Why is it free and not commercial? Its purely for fun people can say all kinda of clone crap (and considering its only a month old it should look quite clonish) but once its finished it will have stuff that people only ever dreamed of with minecraft.

Since that was the original idea... If you cant mod any parts in your pc what do you? You get a pc where you CAN mod parts in it... Concept applies

Sorry dude, I totally beat you to it.

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That doesnt look like a beat in any way.

Ever heard of humour?

That's definitely impressive. I think you should really focus on the CTF, deathmatch etc. aspects of the game. Simplified in-game logic control (logic gate blocks or maybe even really simple if, then, else blocks) would probably add a lot to maps.

When did notch say minecraft will never be moddable? afaik he's very open to modding minecraft, and he listens a lot to the community.

Notch idea of modding is changing texture palette he allows for NO true modding of the client... No adding new functions to client, NO adding new monsters to client, NO adding new concepts and new game modes.........

Hes strongly protective of letting anybody near his code he wont even release code to classic which he said he will scrap later once alpha takes off fully.

Quote "That's definitely impressive. I think you should really focus on the CTF, deathmatch etc. aspects of the game. Simplified in-game logic control (logic gate blocks or maybe even really simple if, then, else blocks) would probably add a lot to maps"

This is planned yea we already have full animation of pictures and construction animation many more scriptable stuff will be added.

Are you sure you're the author? I'd expect that someone who could code that sort of project would be able to quote correctly (especially since you already have once in this thread).

He has also talked about letting people mod the servers using lua, and also by creating jar files that replaces methods in the server. This will allow people to add more game types to the game. I cannot remember any tweet or blogpost about modding the client, except for the textures, but I have also not seen a tweet or blog post about NOT letting people mod the client. Where does he clearly say that he don't want to add client mods? And all the source will be released in the future. His page says so.

Minecraft server is a VERY simple thing.. Its easy to write your own from scratch........

The issue is the client and notch aint letting you mod the client code....

His page says sources will be released when game is dead and nobody is buying it and its finished.

That is true. But you haven't seen the newest version!!!

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It's got amazing per-pixel cloud simulation! It actually takes hours for my tools to render the clouds properly into 3-D bitmaps and then compress them using my proprietary compression format. I spent the last two weeks on the rendering pipeline though and it runs at a blazing 60 fps on my GeForce 2!

You sound bitter. In actuality, once the game is finished it will be extensively mod-able. Currently what you see is
.

A public alpha. Which is hardly something to make judgements on as an end product. If you were to logically analyse it, then you should probably take a look at the amount of software development progress he has had in the last year (and the financial and popular success of the past 6 months.)

As for your game, I do hope it works out well for you!

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I think the work UberFoX has done is impressive; at least from what I see in that YouTube video. I like it, and congratulate you on your progress so far. You should probably put together a simple website where people can learn about your project and download it.

The source code to Minecraft is freely available.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

Chris Katko: That image doesn't look very realistic to me, unless you'll stipulate you can build a brick house in low earth orbit.

Well considering the physics in my game are perfect on an atomic scale as long as we stay within the realm of Newtonian validity (velocities far less than 3 x 10^8 m/s), my game proves that you can! It's simply amazing!

Who would have thought that wood was impermeable enough to stop air molecules from leaking into space!

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Day 11 of my house boat's voyage into deep space.

MineCraft isn't modable? I swear I've seen a Portal mod for it where you can teleport between blue and orange blocks you make with a gun ....

Portal mod is a very common server function of custom servers such as McZall which i already stated making server mods is easy =).

As for source code is free with java decompiler that is incorrect notch wont be stupid enough to not bother protecting his code even if its just obfuscated to extreme.

You seem to take personally the fact that Notch hasn't made his game exactly as you want it. It's his game, he can make it however he likes. Lighten up, dude, and be happy with the awesome work you've done. Frankly, I'm impressed by your video, it's certainly more than I've ever done!

How silly can you be.

You acting like people shouldn't do something if it was already done by somebody else!

So what if i make a game for fun and learning and to make it what i want to play this type of game? Why is it such a big deal for you that you have to mock it so much since it just happens to be similar to something else?

You act like we should just accept the SINGLE version of a game in existence and DON'T ALLOW anything else!

Imagine if the ONLY fps in the whole world was the Quake series and thats it nothing else end of story. And anybody making an FPS would get mocked and insulted since OMG it copies Quake

Then imagine that for ALL game genres.

We're not complaining about your project. We're complaining about your complaining against Notch. Can't you just make your own game without ranting about his?

On the topic of games that are only one series, I would love to see a clone of Heroes of Might and Magic 3 open source and Linux friendly. Mostly because the original keeps crashing in wine and even though I've read claims there's a Linux version of it I just can't find the damn thing.

^this^

I'm not complaining about your game at all, UberFoX. In fact, I think it's a pretty good accomplishment. I just don't like the interspersing of hate towards another developer who I'm also impressed with.

I dont hate notch, i hate the people who claim hes god etc and spam utube, e-mail, website

However i do agree Notch is not doing what he could be doing... Maybe he will get his act together soon enough and actually do what hes capable of doing.

I personally hope the client+server gets an SDK where can create full total conversions/mods whateva.

At the moment thats not possible and thats one reason im making my own game.

Which MC server are you using to develop your code?

No one here said that. If they did, I'd be refuting them.

He's already made over 3 million dollars, came to the USA and talked with Bungie and Valve and hired employees. This is with less than one year of full-time work. I've been in college for 6 years and I'll be lucky to make $60,000 a year. What's a man got to do to meet your level of satisfaction?

As we all continue to say, however, we do hope your project succeeds!

Yes, looks promising, so keep going.

I think it's quite often like this, someone is not satisfied with how a game is working, or the game not being moddable, or thinks that the game doesn't unlock the complete potential of the underlying game idea. So they get going and make their own version of the game (idea), which is all a very good thing!

These guys all have a love affair with "Notch" for some reason, so I wouldn't take them too seriously.

UberBlox has no code from any Minecraft server (The games are not compatible with each other at all)

Quote "I think it's quite often like this, someone is not satisfied with how a game is working, or the game not being moddable, or thinks that the game doesn't unlock the complete potential of the underlying game idea. So they get going and make their own version of the game (idea), which is all a very good thing!"

Pretty much there is also people who paid for the other game and see free ones appearing and feel like they just got raped and have to lash out as hard as they can to try defend their choice when there is no need to at all.

For the love of crap, spend your energy working on your own game instead of whining that we don't share your opinion. It's like I'm talking to Linus Torvalds.

Matthew: I want to have Notchbabies. Little cube notchlets running around my house.

It is a little harsh describing someone who spent €9.95 on a alpha game, and wish they had not, as "raped", if they were unsure about the purchase they could have waited to beta and paid the €19.95 price. I have got more play out of the game than ones that I have spent €50 on. Raped has many meanings, none of them good, and trivialises peoples real suffering. (It took me a while for me to learn not to use the word, as a female friend was offended by its use.)

I really hope your game goes well, I have already given you a list of things I would like to see.

I am slightly concerned that you are going to use sprites instead of 3d models, unless you are going to use the doom/duke3d style sprite, with 8 directions, and you show the appropriate one for the angle. If you go for the doom style one, what is going to stop a user from creating a single frame sprite that doesn't rotate or turn or animate. I really do think 3d models (even if less simple than the minecraft blocky ones,) are the way to go.

A blog would be really good to see also, so I can put it in my daily blog list to keep track of where you are going. If you take it in the right direction I am interested, but you will need to do it justice, not turn it into a lame copy, and take the potential of the original in a different direction.

If i showed u some of the comments/emails i got you wouldnt be saying its harsh u would be left speechless ^^

Quote "For the love of crap, spend your energy working on your own game instead of whining that we don't share your opinion. It's like I'm talking to Linus Torvalds."

Whining? I couldnt give a damn i said my oppinion end of story if people keep asking questions about it they will get an answer. if you dont want me to answer then stop posting... How stupid is it to post for an answer get one then say omg stop whining

Just because that answer constitutes whining to you doesnt make it any less an answer than what your asking for!

As for spend energy working i am doing... I check here every whenever often and post a reply if somebody said something.

This threads feels like a politician running for office. Too much bashing of the other guy and his thing. You want a better reception then act like a professional, stop mentioning Notch or MineCraft and focus on your own game, starting now. It's not like every time someone here makes a platformer they talk about how Mario sucks or Shigeru Miyamoto won't release his source code. Just my advice.

FTFY.

UberFoX, ignore non-constructive criticism and good luck with your game.

Quoted For Truth.

I normally like to keep my signature rather spartan, but your quote was too awesome. In other words, sigged.

It sounds like they needed an extra dose of painkillers at the birth. Those corners sound nasty.

I've been avoiding the urge to troll in this thread, but I can't help myself anymore.

Minecraft was successful because of the ridiculous amount of hype generated by elaborate applications of its simply game mechanics. I would have hoped that programmers would be immune to this veneer but this forum alone has shown fanboys in abundance.

Your "enhancements" detract from the essence of the game: a map editor. Make it into any more of an game and the illusion that something special is happening soon disappears altogether.

Notch has given people a completely naked whore, and some people, due to her total nakedness and slightly retarded nature, have fooled themselves into thinking that they're not bedding a prostitute. You've decided to slap on some cheap lipstick and garish earrings, and you now expect us to find her any more attractive? I think not.

Don't waste your time cloning this pile of shite. Make something new.

UberFoX: I don't think anyone has said they dislike your game. Some of us just dislike the way you bash another developer.

I dislike his incosistant inability to use the quote feature and the Shift key.

[quote]Some of us just dislike the way you bash another developer.[/quote]
This.

Your clone of minecraft has a lot of potential. But stop whining about notch or minecraft. Like a lot of other people have already said.

M-M-M-Monday thread!

Sorry, but it seems like noone pointed out the day this thread was created! Regardless of how much motivation you have and progress done, you've just fallen under the ancient allegro.cc curse...

3 minutes into Tuesday for me

I complete games all the time. I just lower my definition of "complete" every time I fail to meet it.

How low is your definition now?

This thread became pointless, please STOP posting!
Thread closed.

Isn't discussion for the sake of entertainment, worthy discussion?

(Now it's a philosophical one.)

If I chop the bottom block of a tree out in Minecraft and it just hangs in the air with no one else around, does it make a sound?

It makes the sound of one hand clapping.

Another Minecraft clone is around. Though it's just like creative for the moment.
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Looks pretty. And that's about it I guess.

It's pretty neat to see so many clones. It'll be interesting to see if any of them actually become fun.

UberBlox could really use a Web site though. Even just a boring, plain text one, so there's some kind of home base for users searching the Web.

I was trying to figure out what to do with my game and I think I figured it out!

Houseboats... In... Space! space... space...

Low Earth orbit spaceships you build and fly around and fight each other. You have minecraft-esk guys that run around either manning guns or repairing equipment and hull damage.

It's like Stratosphere but in low Earth orbit and 3-D cube-based ships.

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I think I'll call it L.E.O. (Low Earth Orbit).

Ever since I was a kid I've wanted to make a game like that, where you can build your own custom ship and fly it around and shoot other ships where the damage is exact (instead of just some changing 3-D model).

Thanks for the inspiration!

So, it's kinda like Trailer Park Wars, but in space!?

Chris Katko just reminded me of my first-person astronaut simulation game that I thought of in college for a game design competition. It was (and is) well over my head, but the idea still seems fun to me. One of the main problems for the concept (and for the judges) was the control scheme. How do you control yourself floating around inside a space shuttle in low gravity? Motion controllers, such as Move, or Kinect, might just offer the solution.

Or the WiiMote!

Hahah! Good one.

UberBlox has been released both Client and Server download links are :
http://www.filedropper.com/uberbloxrelease1
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S93SG28V

If you need help let me know...

This is only a very early beta release.

Crashes upon startup.

Make sure you installed the XNA (from support folder)

The readme does explain microsoft XNA is required

And this is why you need a website!

Website is posted in read me

Anyone who bothered to download from the god awful download site, care to post the link here?

I can't. Megaupload says that "Ce fichier n'est présentement pas disponible." which BTW means that the file isn't reachable anymore.

Well I guess those sorts of things are expected, when you get exactly what you pay for.

Guess I just need to wait for UberFoX to turn back up.

Alternative link

http://uberfox.no-ip.org/UberBloxRelease1.zip

If your having problems elsewhere

Hey, I had to install the XNA redist framework in the /support folder. It works fine.

It's pretty impressive. I was getting a good 60 FPS (give or take, I didn't have a FPS meter) and we've got a 512x512x512 map. If you notice even the small single blocks are being drawn in the far distance. They couldn't be bigger than a couple pixels.

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All of those and I'm still getting high FPS. I am impressed.

I just wish I could figure out how to get my game to be that fast. I've got two viewports and a 100 x 20 x 100 map starts chugging if I don't start taking stuff away.

Katko it sounds like your doing something seriously wrong like drawing single triangles at a time.

You need to collect everything of the same texture and morph it into single vertexes and draw the whole lot in 1 go (provided its visible on screen).

BTW another mirror!
http://rapidshare.com/files/427076927/UberBloxRelease1.zip

Gah. Just put it on dropbox or something

Unfortunately, at the moment, yes. I draw every cube (by calling a display list) in the map individually. I didn't realize vertex arrays can be modified, so I'm going to look into them. I imagine caching the arrays can't possibly be worse than drawing them as discrete blocks every frame. I'm still doing 7000-14000 display list calls every frame in two player.

I did optimize one part by approximating the 3-D cube map with larger cubes to take up the space. 2x2 and 4x4 cut the drawing calls in half (that was with a very close drawing distance, however).

Well nevermind....

Anyway NEW !

Homepage for UberBloX
http://d2realm.no-ip.org/home/

NEW version
http://rapidshare.com/files/427430119/UberBloxRelease3.zip
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6QPCEPSE