Development Update #008 news - The Ancients

Greetings one and all to Development Update #008! As opposed to sporadic and/or spontaneous updates, I plan now instead to do weekly or biweekly updates, on the monday. Thursday also if progress permits.

Since Monday, I've had constant work - up at 5am, back at 5-8pm (It depends on where I am in the country!). As a result, I have regrettably accomplished no development this week! In fact, I expect to be working much of next week too - we have a big job coming up, heh.

Nethertheless, I can at least fill you in on the Project Earth Insider and Q&A!

Also, this has basically been sitting in my Firefox Tabs for over a week, waiting to be placed into an appropriate news piece. Heck, I doubt appropriate is going to come up - so here you go!

I present to thee, a clip from Life of Brian!

There are three main feedbacks for the player's progress. Statistics, Skills and Abilities.

Statistics
Statistics are your main, core abilities. They give you an idea of what a character is focussed on in his life, and they affect much of what you can and will do.

Physique: Increases the player's Health.
Endurance: Increases the player's Stamina.

Strength increases the amount of damage a player can physically deal out with a strike.
Dexterity increases the player's capability to dodge attacks and his ability to aim shots.
Intelligence increases the player's skill gain rate. The higher your intelligence, the less you will have to practice a skill, because it will increase faster.
Personality increases how quickly people are enchanted by the player in conversations, events, leaderships and how likely people are to believe what the player says - truthful or otherwise!

Skills
Skills are things that the player can do, practice and upgrade through common usage. Every time you use a skill, you become more experienced in it.
Examples of skills are, but not limited to, Fishing, Mining, Cooking, Weaponsmithing, Lockpicking, Carpentry, Trading, Swordsmanship and Archery.

Abilities
Abilities are things that a player can unlock for their character through things they have done, seen or otherwise experienced or gained.
Some abilities are "Active" and some are "Passive". Active abilities must be activated to be used, whilst others are in constant effect.
For example, if a player is taught how to Dodge by a trainer, the player gains a bonus to his capability to dodge attacks. Another example is if a player often goes to an arena of sorts and watches professional combatants - he may, or may not, learn a thing or two on how to fight more effectively.

Next Week: Experiences

Thehermit says: Just a few questions....
1- will this be free or will it have a price
2- if it isn't free then how much will it cost
3- estimated how long until the game will be out, done, finished etc.
4- is this going to be open world or linear.
5- What language is this written in

Azkanan says:
1 - This will depend on the following it generates. If I can get a decent playerbase, I intend to make the game free. If not, I'd have to charge the few people for it, one way or another. ... However, at the rate of interest the game is gaining already, 70+ players when I've only plastered a few images up, it should be quite fine. So, tell your gamer friends about Project Earth, and it basically becomes free, aha.

2 - Definetly won't be game-store-shelf-price, up at £40+. I'm thinking more along the lines of £5-£15. That is, again, if there's only a few people. If I can't garner the support I aim to do so, the game is failing. As a last resort, asking those remaining to pay is the only option.
If all goes well and I can release the game for free, hooray! There will be a free download available, as well as an optional purchasable boxed version that will be sent to your very doorstep!
I also intend to write a Game Guide in the future.

3 - That's a very difficult question. I intend to consider the game "Ready to play" once Italy and the basic features are done and playable. I'll be allowing people to play, however, rather early on in development, as I continue to build the world. I expect Italy to be done within the year, and within Six Months if I can push my time management.

4 - I intend to have the world Open. If you want to go from Rome to Antium, you can follow the road. If you fancy taking a detour, hop off to the left or right and take a fanciful walk in the wilderness - be wary of wild animals, bandits and tall tales, however! The game world itself will be split into smaller areas. These areas will be as large as possible before lag is experienced, which i'm sad to say isn't anything impressive due to engine limitations.
However, the good news is, that area transitions are relatively quick, if not instantaneous.

5 - I'm afraid it'll be in English, for I am not well-versed in any other languages. I will attempt to support a wider range of languages as time goes on, one way or another, however.

(It turned out, under further clarification, that he meant the program language - not the game language!)

Ah. Well, I wanted it in C++, but the engine itself is in VB6. My programmer says she is capable of doing the features in VB6, just as well as C++, so.