Development Update #012: Milestone! news - The Ancients

Hello to You! And welcome to Development Update #012!

Yesterday (Saturday) I was able to do most of the work on the Atrium Vestae, north-facing view, in the Forum Romanum. I was going to finish it today, but I had a matter pop up that took up most of today (Sunday), so if I'm off work tomorrow, I should be able to finish it then!
Now, for those of you who have been following for a while now, you should know the significance of the completion of the Atrium Vestae... Yes! It's the last building to be drawn, before I move onto the finishing touches of the road and such in the area.

However, I do need to go over a couple of buildings and redraw them, which is a bummer and should take a few more days to complete. But! The day of completion of the Forum Romanum is upon us, and it is this that has taken me so long so far!

Who would of thought this would of taken so long? I don't think I'll be doing *that* again. Tiles all the way, man!

Well, once the Atrium Vestae is completed, I will remake the Aedes Castoris and detail (if not remake also) Aedes Saturni. Once these are done, I will be able to move onto the flooring of the area. That is to say, drawing the roads and plazas that make up the big white space in the image above, for people to walk on! After that... I will transfer the whole image into the game world and take a wander around, fix up overlaps, bad tiles, misalignment and so forth.

So... The big question is; what then? Well, a couple of months ago, I said I'd be opening the server for a few days for people to wander around, talk to me/each other and check out the Forum Romanum and get a feel for the game.
This I shall still hold to. I also said at one point that I'd like to keep the server open continuously from that point on, and let people play as I continue to construct the world around them. However, this will not be possible. My laptop overheats running normally as it is, I have to have my household fan on full blast to keep it from popping itself and switching off! Ergo, I won't be able to do said previous plan till I buy a decent desktop PC, or even a specialised server piece of equipment.

As for what happens, development-wise, after the Forum? You'll have to find out!

Yes! I recently bought a book from Amazon called "Roman Cookery". It was a small chance of being what I needed, but in fact, surpassed my expectations! Now, why did I buy this? Well, in Project Earth the player will be able to "craft" his own food. That is to say, people can buy, gather and grow the required foodstuffs and make a food according to a recipe!
For example; Fried Pasta. According to Roman Cookery (written by Mark Grant, by the way), 120g Wholemeal Flour, 100ml water and Olive Oil are required to make this. It then goes on into several paragraphs on how to make the Fried Pasta, from which I can get an idea as to how it looks and what tools are required for making the recipe. The book is divided into four sections, for the recipes; Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner At The Bar and Dinner At The Dining Room.
So, even from this, I can tell what foods can be bought at a restaurant! Pretty awesome, eh?

Now, as for the Forum Game part of this dual-piece subheader, I am going to run a little experiment... so to speak. I am going to attempt to run it through the Features section of Project Earth's ModDB area, so that it's easily organized, updated, posted in and archived.
The forum game will be based around an individual of the Project Earth Community's choosing. It will begin with character creation, then according to the decisions in the character creation, you will find yourself in a related world of possibilities. I will post with it some ideas on what is possible, what is recommended and future goals you could work towards.
Players will post as comments on the feature as to what they think the character should do. The feature, when posted/updated, will show the character's skills, abilities, needs, memories, equipment and so forth as well as the turn events - segregated and shown as clearly as possible to avoid a wall of text!
The forum game will reflect and test systems according to Project Earth as an RPG. So, if anything, it's a little piece of Project Earth, brought to you early! I will begin working on this as soon as I've finished this news piece. If all goes well, and it is given the nod by the ModDB team... game on!

My apologies for not writing in what This week's feature will be, last week - my bad!
Currently, this system is quite alike to Sims 3, in essence.

=Hunger=
A player should become hungry, if he does not eat. When a player eats, his need for food will reduce. A nice meal may leave him in a happy mood, whilst a cheap or lame meal may leave him in an unhappy mood.
A player may fall unconcious from starvation, or otherwise suffer horrendous penalties all-around, till he eats once more.
When a player eats, his bladder need will fill a little.

=Thirst=
Thirst is very much alike to hunger, in that it is required to keep maintained to be able, otherwise he may suffer penalties.
When a player drinks certain drinks, or eats certain foods that are liquid-rich, his need for thirst will reduce, whilst his bladder need will fill a little.
Also, when a player drinks, his Stamina will refill a little.

=Stamina=
The player can refill Stamina through a number of ways.
Sleeping for a few hours (Logging off in a bed) will easily restore the character's exhaustion. Sitting down and resting will relieve them somewhat and drinking booze will stagnate Exhaustion temporarily (before the come-down, an instant/fast drain). Drinking water/liquid-rich foods will probably be the most popular way of keeping Stamina maintained, seeing as it costs little and allows the player to play longer, basically.
When the player's stamina hits 0, he will fall unconcious/sleep on the ground and log the player out soon after, if he is not revived within a time limit.
If the situation in-game is dire, a quick five-minute break will give the player sufficient time to guzzle down something nearby. However, in all-round fairness, it's your own fault for not bringing enough water!!
If there is not water nearby, the player can turn to desperation and dig up roots from the ground to eat, which will releive his stamina (and thirst) - but will deteriate hygiene and cause sufferings to player's mood and statistics, temporarily.

=Hygiene=
With Hygiene in the game, players will flock to public baths and water sources to bathe, opening opportunities to socialise with new people. Good Hygiene will cause a moodlet of cleansliness, whilst Bad Hygiene will cause a moodlet of dirtiness. Socialising should be made more difficult, during bad hygiene too. Vice versa for good hygiene.

=Bladder=
Yes, I want to put this in.
Simply digging a hole on the roadside and banging one off will suffice, but it gives the players a source of free fertilizer and one of the main required components for leathermaking (Wiki it. I didn't believe it at first, either).
If a player does not clean himself, one way or another, post- excretion, his Hygiene will suffer.

=Socialise=
Can you imagine life without other people? Eventually, you'd become pretty nuts.
This is more of a fun thing for players. Performing a ten-second catch up conversation with the shopkeeper before the player leaves should fix them up pretty easily, however, it gives an interesting situation for nutjobs living in the middle of the Alps. Severe loneliness should allow the player to talk to himself, his god or a craftable object (Or even, a rock). It also gives a new reason to gain a travelling companion, a pet, and to talk with friends, family and NPCs.

=Mood=
The Mood of a player will deteriate over time, however there are plenty of ways to recover it. From brushing your teeth, talking with a friend, eating out, keeping clean, keeping liquidated, and many other little perks of life that put a smile on your face.
The player's mood need is very important to the character's lifestyle. If the mood falls very low, he will become depressed. This will have dire affects on his performance all around; from socialising to crafting. A totally depressed character will not want to talk to people, and in some cases, eat or drink (much!).
However, keeping a character happy will have a total opposite to his performance. If you are a hyperactive happy little fellow, people will flock to talk to you, you will be banging out a production line of quality goods, and probably many other things in Project Earth!

=Temperature=
This isn't exactly a need, but it does require attention throughout the game.
Whilst with the previous needs you basically need to keep it as high as you like, temperature needs to be balanced out. If a character becomes too cold or too hot, his mood will suffer. Whilst most Mood Effects take hits at a player's mood, overly low or high temperatures will be a constant drain, instead.
If a character sits by a fire, he will gain a positive effect to temperature, sitting butt-naked in the snow with a grin on your face will, suprisingly, not.
Temperature effects will stack. So if you are wearing thick, fur clothing, this will warm you up. Sitting next to a blazing fire in said attire will double-warm you up. If you've just spent ten minutes running around in the middle of the Saharan Desert, in said attire then sat down next to a blazing fire - and heck, let's set our hands on fire for affect - you will be far too hot.
Likewise, if you're wearing sandals in Siberia, you're going to be very, very cold.
So from this, you won't see somebody running around in a Toga and sandals from Rome, in Northern Scandinavia, and likewise, heavy, thick fur armour in Egypt, which is quite immersive, in my opinion.

Next Week: Mood Effects

doom3607 Apr 20 2011, 3:16am says:
Not meaning to sound whiny or anything, but any guesses on how long until you're ready to let us walk around your nice Forum Romanum? Also, whenever that happens, I shall manage to murder someone in the game. It doesn't matter if you haven't even inputted weapons yet, I shall find a way. :D

Azkanan Apr 21 2011, 10:22pm replied:
Heh, I wish I knew. Hopefully soon, is my best way of putting it. Just making the Forum isn't the only factor any more, I also need to know when I'd have a couple of days off work to be around for the hosting of the event.

I'll definetly let you know, when I know!

In fact, no promises but, who knows? I might keep the server up, and have it as Alpha playing from there-on. That is, keep the game up and let players come in and wander about as I build on it.

Oh, and, one more thing.

Where do I get my inspiration from, to keep me going through the development of this game? Suikoden II.
Whenever I begin to feel like giving up, I wander around Ryube Village, the Mercenary Camp and so forth - even just for five minutes - and the atmosphere gives me that little boost to make my own little piece of heaven, on the internet, for myself and others to retreat to.