11/08/99 - Latest News
MEO Hiring a New Staff?
Berendir @ 6:44 pm EST
Heres a short write up on the restaffing of Middle Earth Online. This information comes from UltimateGames.
Keeping with the scheme of Online Multiplayer RPGs - Sierra, and the lovely Genevieve Ostergard confirmed to Ultimate Games that although the team behind Middle Earth Online has been reassembled and the overall design of the game has headed back to the drawing board the game is still going ahead. As a result, and also because we just LURVE those MMOGs - we'll be doing a feature over the next week or two on what we hope MEO will bring to online only RPGs - so check back soon.
Character Persistance in Middle Earth
Berendir @ 2:24 pm EST
This isn't news, however it is something I thought to be very interesting that I read off of the message boards at the Middle Earth Vault.
The following was written by Mark Wells, and has some follow ups to it, arguing why its a bad idea, and then some ideas alterning it to make it a better idea, so if you find this interesting, go to the Middle Earth Development board to check it out.
here's how the great and glorious principle of CHARACTER PERSISTENCE, the crowning achievement of my career on this board, was supposed to work.
Every character and every object remains in the game world all the time from when it's created to when it's destroyed.
There are NO game rules (other than those governing AI control) that distinguish between active and inactive player characters.
There are NO game rules (other than those governing AI control) that distinguish between player characters and NPCs.
Inactive player characters act like NPCs. They're controlled by the same type of AI mechanism that controls the NPCs.
Players have an interface through which they can tune their characters to behave in certain ways, including basic behavior, interaction with other characters, and scheduling of actions.
Ideally, this is developed into a full-scale scripting language (something resembling Perl, I'd hope) with which players can program their characters.
Now, why do this?
Basically, because it resolves a whole bunch of known and unknown headaches with the rules. Examples:
We don't have to worry about what to do if someone "commits a crime and then logs off". If you commit a crime, you'll want to stay logged on, so that you can more effectively run from the law.
Some 14-year-old luser who has no discernable life whatsoever and therefore can spend eight hours a day in the game building up skills won't advance in skill that much faster than someone who plays for two hours a week and programs his character to build up skills the rest of the time.
It becomes feasible to run a shop or some other kind of business, because your character can sit there behind the counter most of the time and sell stuff to anyone who comes in. That means that you can compete with the NPCs who will be doing those things before the economy establishes itself. Thus we can eventually replace most if not all NPCs. I'll explain the procedure for this in an upcoming post.
Macroing, obviously, becomes rather pointless.
It's possible to require characters to pay their living expenses: food, shelter, clothing, protection, etc. After all, they need these things whether they're active or not, and they can earn the money to pay for them whether they're active or not.
Some events, such as the destruction of an entire town, have more realistic consequences.
It's possible to get into a 'service business': messenger service, guard duty, delivery, etc. If you sign up for a four-hour watch, you don't have to log on and sit there at your post for four hours every night.
And so on.
Just a reminder that this was in now way an official part of Middle Earth Online, just a unique idea from a fan that followed it for a long time.
Monster Looting in NWN
Berendir @ 2:19 pm EST
A bit of Info from the Neverwinter Vault.
Monsters can pick up items and will pick up weapons. The default AI scripting will not include looting as the monsters would be spending way too much time doing AI commands when they are off screen. It also raises the possiblity of a cleaned out dungeon and a slow moving hobgoblin.
11/06/99 - Latest News
New Info at NWN
Berendir @ 5:29 pm EST
Heres some more news from the Neverwinter Nights Vault.
Heres some information on Strength and size of characters:
Well, we have four body sizes for every armor type within very armor class. They range from huge to skinny. We expect that people who want to appear strong as an ox, will pick the right body type.
The character generator will give you a default body type based on your strength. So if you roll 18/00 you are *offered* the muscle man body.
Now, you don't *have* to take that body, you can choose to be lighter in build, and describe yourself as 'wiry' (Bruce Lee, Sherlock Holmes).
I dont think we have to FORCE strong people to play large bodies, there are many role playing reasons for huge strength in small frames (a curse, genetics, martial skill, whatever.
11/05/99 - Latest News
NWN Update
Berendir @ 11:14 pm EST
There was a news update at the Neverwinter Nights Vault.
Heres some of the new news:
PROGRAMMING:
On the programming front, progress has been fast and furious, with a ton of programming design and implementation happening in the past little while. We have built the basic AI system structure and have implemented the pathfinding engine. The graphics engine reworking is well underway and we are re-engineering some of the art tools for the engine. The game GUI systems are progressing at lightning speed, and we're currently getting our GUI primitives to work seamlessly across all platforms. The Mac and Linux versions are almost up to date and looking good.
Theres alot more news there to check out, so visit the NWvault to find out more of what happend last month.
11/04/99 - Latest News
Interview With Worldforge!
Berendir @ 7:00 pm EST
I've spoken with someone at the game, Worldforge and they have agreed to do a interview with us at theonering.net.
Any questions you have on the game Worldforge please send them to me at Berendir@theonering.net
Any questions on what kind of structures and aspects of Middle Earth will be able to be created are great. As well as questions on anything about the game that might interest you, especially aspects connecting it to Middle Earth.
The Result of the Last Poll
Berendir @ 5:07 pm EST
About 460 people voted on the last poll, asking what type of character you would rather roll play in a Middle Earth world.
Thrity five percent of the people agreed that an Elven Archer would be best, while I was happy to see that the dishonorable easterling came in last, with only 2.5 percent of the votes.
However my personal favorite, a famous Dwarven Blacksmith from the Iron Hills, got about 13 percent of the votes, non too shabby.
11/03/99 - Latest News
Female Characters in NWN
Berendir @ 4:34 pm EST
Some news on Female Characters from the Neverwinter Nights Vault.
A question was asked concerning how Female characters would be portrayed, and heres what was to be said:
I agree that female characters should not be forced to to fit a sterotypeed 'sexy girl' image.
Role playing is all about designing your own character, and we want to give the players as much choice as possible. I have been designing a wide variety of clothing and armor styles for both sexes. You will certainly have the choice to play a scantily clothed maiden if you wish, (may of our players do), but you may also choose to play a heavily armored female in a very practical set of full plate.
(The same goes for the males in fact. We have some cute little vest and tights combos for the guys who want a more festive look).
We plan to make five 'styles' for each armor class, and 10 for clothing, for each sex. In addition we are aiming for 200 character protraits to choose from, as well as the ability to load your own portrait art. You also have a text description to further personalize your character. So there will be a lot of options for role play.
11/02/99 - Latest News
More News on Neverwinter Nights
Berendir @ 6:34 pm EST
A few more news bits from the Neverwinter Nights Vault.
The first bit of News deals with cheating in the game, and more details on how they will deal with it:
The whole idea of the Vault isn't to stop cheating outright. The system is designed to minimize the advantages gained by cheating instead. The system will work on a real 24 hour clock. If you go super hardcore, we will show a warning when you have passed your daily maximum xp total. If you really wanted to, you could then log off, or you could continue to enjoy the adventure. The vault is not the ultimate solution to cheating, The ultimate solution is an active DM, just as Pen and Paper D&D.
Next is a little bit of info explaining the control the DM has:
A DM will be able to do pretty much anything to a character they wish. DMs will be able to manipulate player inventories, adjust levels, adjust stats, etc.. Any modifications not allowed on vault characters will not happen.
The last bit of news for right now comes from Rob Bartel, and he talks about tiles in the game:
we're planning for a maximum area size of 1024 tiles (32x32). Each tile is 10 meters square. Remember, you can have mutliple areas within a single module but, to date, we don't have any real numbers on how many. The programmers have assured me that it will be plenty, if that's any consolation. If I remember correctly, the limiting factor on this will generally be the raw power of the server - the more CPU cycles you have to burn, the more game objects (tiles, creatures, items, etc) can be tracked. Don't quote me on that, though, as I'm not up-to-date on the matter.
11/01/99 - Latest News
Sierra needs a Software Engineer
Berendir @ 7:23 pm EST
At GameJobs There is a notice that Sierra has a job opening.
Description: We are seeking an experienced engineer to drive the development effort on one of Sierra's hot new multiplayer role playing products.
Requirements: Individual must have 3+ years industry experience. The ideal candidate will have strong knowledge of C/C++, Win32 programming, and object oriented design. Experience with graphics programming, network programming, AI, and writing code from scratch is a plus. BA/BS in Computer Science or Computer Engineering (or equivalent).
This could be for any game that they are hiring for, however they might be looking for people to create the new Middle Earth Online Dev team now.
Neverwinter Nights for Mac's?
Berendir @ 4:32 pm EST
More news from the Neverwinter Nights Vault.
If your curious as to if you'll be able to play NWN on a Mac, heres your answer:
Programming the Mac version will not require a great amount of effort on our part. Our initial design for the game systems focused on the idea of porting the game to various platforms. Due to our early design work, the various OS versions should take very little effort once we have the basic low level support for each OS. On the topic of performance, I will not say anything until I see our game side by side on all the platforms, then I'll make a comment.
Also, heres some information on the collecting of experience in NWN:
The [Character] Vault will allow only limited xp / real world day. Think of the system as an automated bank teller, you can only take out $200 a day. When midnight hits, it is a new day. The plan is to limit cheat characters advancement so it cannot surpass fairly played advancement. We haven't set any numbers yet, but it should take at least 6 months of playing many hours a day to make 20th level.
Well by the sound of that it shoudln't be too easy to become a super power in this game too quickly.
A Few Words From Steven
Berendir @ 2:30 pm EST
Leya from the Middle Earth Dev Boards sent an email to Steve Nicholas, the former head of the Dev team for MEO, and received a response. The email was an angry one suggesting that he may of gotten fired for doing bad work on the realm, or for lack of being professional. Leya posted Steve's response on the Dev Board today. Heres what Steve had to say:
I always enjoy a refreshing perspective from someone such as yourself. All too often people like to give me kind words of support instead of attacks. I'm glad that you found me so memorable as to send me private e-mail specifying your displeasure. It makes me happy to hear from someone who has remembered me for so long now.
Now, as for the reason behind why I was "fired" from Sierra. It has nothing to do with my exceptional handling of The Realm. Neither does it have anything to do with any outbursts I had when handling the PR side of Realm maintenance. Actually, if Sierra ever properly supported The Realm, I would not have been the main customer contact for so long. Indeed, it has everything to do with the gross incompetence at Sierra. Sierra fired 107 employees to tighten it's belt. As a company, it has been doing very poorly as of late and Havas is finally whipping it into shape. Middle-earth was included in that cut because it was too expensive by managements measure, the employees were bitter and Sierra has a proven track record of destroying most any product that is not a direct copy of another product.
Anyway, thanks for writing... even though it was an angry letter. At least I made enough of an impression to be contacted in such a manner.