Bootcamp demo and maybe Viking demo

[dreamlarp]

Quote Originally Posted by cookimage View Post

we will be posting a link to the bootcamp demo where you can login and test it soon. We are wondering if there would be some developers that would want to take it on as a community project to make it a playable game as in health pack, combat and so forth. We would be willing to work with and help get it p and running as a community project. Post your feelings here.

 

I would be willing to help with this as well as a demo for the viking demo. I think both should be done to show both fantasy and modern/scifi games. We have some time before the release and I know many of you as developers. With the combined talent of this community we could make them both.

 

Please post here your thoughts and talents.

 

I am a game designer/writer who has published one book and I am working on the second. I am also the project manager for my team. If there is anyone who would like to do this post here and I will put together the tools we need to get a team working on these.

[3DOmelette]

I want to participate in project,

I am game designer enthusiast, my strong is graphical designer and would like to offer my skill for GUI

 

also knowledge of C# scripting if need.

 

I will be happy to participate in community project.

 

have question:

when is the project launch?

what tool are we getting to start project?

 

 

 

much thanks

[dreamlarp]

Great. its the bootcamp demo so the models and most of the coding is there. We still could use a coder but you will be a huge help. Its going to be a free demo but we still want it to look great.

[ChiaPet]

I'd like to assist as well. My only concern is how quickly the authoritative server functionality will be implemented, especially with respect to terrain and collisions. I feel like this is something that should be ironed out before the community invests in a group project.

[dreamlarp]

Sweet glad your into this chiapet. Lets hear from the guys on this and we can organize. I am good at setting up our tools and laying out the game play once we know what we have to work with.

[3DOmelette]

dreamlarp:

great,

when we begin?

 

 

 

Chiapet:

engine is not ready for demo?

[ChiaPet]

Yeah, sorry I've been a bit MIA. Day job and all has been a bit hairy as of late.

 

I'm not exactly sure where I would best serve. I'm not a great coder, but I think I am decent at higher-level aspects of planning and understanding programs. I'm also not a published writer, but I do edit and proofread documents as part of my job.

 

@3DOmelette: The engine right now does not enforce a centralized, authoritative server for terrain management and collision detection. From what I understand, each client currently dictates those aspects for the player character under that client's control. The devs have said implementing the authoritative server functionality is of high priority, as it should. Any engine without these features would be very easy to hack/cheat.

[dreamlarp]

We need to hear from the guys on how it all works.

[3DOmelette]

ah, ok,

 

well as long client holds physics for terrain and collisions the demo can be started since is just a demo for show the engine for advertise.

so i think we good to start on the demo as soon devs authorize?

[3DOmelette]

dreamlarp:

 

devs ask you to start the recruit here or you just went ahead and started thread?

 

i hope we just not speculating about project only without devs consent.

[ChiaPet]

I'm going to withhold my final bid to participate until after we get an update from the NeoJac team on timing. True, this is just a demo, so not all features need to be in place, but to me, there are a lot of unknowns with respect to feasibility and performance of the engine without authoritative server functionality in place.

 

I'm guessing the recent push with the voxel terrain and building features have been to draw more interest to the Neo's Land game and more Kickstarter support, and I totally appreciate that strategic move. I just want to make sure that as a potential developer using this engine, my expectations are met.

 

@3DOmelette: No one asked dreamlarp to start this thread, but the devs did post in their Unity thread that they are interested in a community project using the engine.

[dreamlarp]

Read the OP here and they posted to see if we would like to do this. I started the thread to get it rolling. With the kickstarter they have been working quite a bit I would think on the game website and on the housing system I see by the new video. I will contact them though to get it all planned out.

[3DOmelette]

ohh, ok,

 

well i see cookimage is online on unity forum and here, and he has not reply for the community project, so i guess this is not really something that he may carry on or maybe later , since he may busy with kickstarter.

[neojac]

Hi all sorry for the late response, been crazy busy. Most of the stuff you are asking I cant answer as I don't do the coding, Sooms who does the coding has been off for a few days as he is a bit sick. as soon as he is back he would be the best one to answer your questions. We will most likely start the community project in the next 4 weeks as we start the role out of the Atavism Engine. I will be adding a chat system into this website similar as the one we now have on the Neo's land website so its much easier to chat directly with each other.

[sooms]

Hi all.

 

These questions are tough to answer at the moment, there are a few factors at play. I can first say that there is no server side collision system started yet so if that is one of the requirements then you will be waiting a while.

 

In terms of the alpha of the server itself, that comes down to a) how long my illness hangs around and how my time is split between working on the neo's land game, as most of the development for that is not the same as the engine work at this stage (it's been more client side and UI development).

 

Due to the kickstarter all of my development time has been put onto neo's land lately so there has been no server progress, but we will be re-planning from here how the time split goes.

[ChiaPet]

Thank you, sooms, for the information. Sorry to hear you have been ill this last little while.

 

I have to admit, I'm rather disappointed to find out that the Atavism server has not come farther along at this point.

 

As the server is still in a very early state and lacking fundamental authoritative features at this time, I am afraid I am going to refrain from participating in a community project until server development has progressed. I have some serious concerns that the features that have been promised both for this engine and the Neo's Land game itself will not be feasible with an authoritative server.

 

The voxel terrain alone seems to pose some serious technical and performance implications in an authoritative server, massively multiplayer setting. I don't know whether you can truly, definitively claim that such a feature, as awesome as it sounds, will work in the final engine and game if you do not have server side terrain management and collision detection yet. The performance load on the server to manage and communicate the state of all of those voxels could really bog the system down.

 

If your demo videos are basically client-side renderings only, then you've essentially just been showing a single-player game this entire time. The bootcamp demo video is the only video I see that has any multiplayer aspect, and even then, without server-side collision, it's really just a peer-to-peer networking situation--not a true MMO engine.

 

I would highly recommend shifting focus back to the server to ensure you can really meet the commitments you've made to your growing community. You will need a robust, authoritative server for Neo's Land anyway, or else your game will be far too open to player cheating and hacks for you to be successful. It's better to establish that foundation now, rather than showing shells of these features that are just client-side concepts.

 

Once the Atavism server engine is farther along, I will reconsider backing its development, both financially and via participating in a community effort. Until then, I will likely just be watching these forums and the Unity threads to see how things progress.

[3DOmelette]

server side collision is very hard for non unity server, only way for 100% authoritative is unity server with uLink network plugin for mmo.

 

like sooms say, you will be waiting for a while because is very hard to do for non unity server.

photon and smartfox plugins not have server side collision and will never have because is very hard to do unless you add a third party physics engine.

 

 

 

is so hard that will be faster to switch to ulink network and start from beguining with neoland than creating server side collision with atavism server.

 

 

i dont need server side collision, my game is just for fun to learn unity more, but if you are for commercial, then atavism is not for you yet.

 

 

 

i do agree that atavism people wasted too much time creating housing and voxel land in the kisckstarter, maybe why no success in goal. they never move on from housing only. atavism people need to listen to public and no themselves or vanity features, they need to focus on main fundamental core features.

 

 

voxel is very performance heavy, even for small singleplayer scenes, so very worse for open world land, voxel no good for mmo.

 

 

 

i still want to help for community project, collision or no server side collision, it do not matter for demo project.

[neojac]

Our focus has been on the Kickstarter , but now that its finished everything will be back on the engine. I haven't gone over the new schedule with Sooms yet as he has been sick and we have just finished the Kickstarter so everything is changing. Within the next two weeks we will have server side collusion on the engine as that is the most important thing to have for any MMO. The server will also be the first thing to be released so its the most important thing now.

 

As for the voxel building system, what you are seeing at the moment is not just a single player system but you are login into the engine to play so even though you are not in game with others in your area you are still on the MMO world. Only thing we still have to work out is the unloading of the chunk and then it will be exactly the same in performance as you get with a normal terrain.

[ChiaPet]

Glad to hear that engine development is going to resume. I'd like to suggest some ways to help keep us all in the loop on how that development is progressing. I've posted my thoughts in this thread: link.

[neojac]

Yes posted there, roadmap is coming very soon. I think we will also add in the free viking demo as a test area with the bootcamp as its easy to add in RPG systems into that one

[ChiaPet]

Thanks for posting. Yes, I totally agree that the Viking demo will be easier to use for RPG systems, and I would definitely prefer if using that demo/assets was an option.

[dreamlarp]

Yes add both as the thread subject said. But please first get that road map posted.

[neojac]

For those who haven't seen yet, the roadmap has been posted in the announcements thread, also we have just released a video in the announcements section showing the first draft of our terrain paging system. Currently it allows you infinite terrain so the world can be enormous, next we will be adding settings for developers to change and set the size of world they want.

[Swampdog]

For those who haven't seen yet, the roadmap has been posted in the announcements thread, also we have just released a video in the announcements section showing the first draft of our terrain paging system. Currently it allows you infinite terrain so the world can be enormous, next we will be adding settings for developers to change and set the size of world they want.

 

I just watched the bootcamp and infinite terrain videos.. I love the concept of infinite terrain (no zoning).. My concern is how it will effect in game lag. Is Atavism using some sort of grid system with the infinite terrain so the player's connection only loads say nine grids (current grid player is in along with the eight surrounding grids directly connected to the current grid? If so, how large are the grids.

 

Also I had watched a video on creating infinite terrain prior to finding Atavism. I skipped over it because it was just duplicating a flat landscape. How did you get all the hills and such in your landscape? Was this done with the Terrain Composer you mentioned? Is Unity Pro required to develop this type of world? Can that entire terrain then pulled into AFG to populate with vegetation and art assets or is it split and then imported?

 

Definitely looks AWESOME!

[neojac]

Cant say much at the moment on this subject as we are working on a terrain system which will answer all the questions. What I can say is that it will be infinite and a very good system !