SUNDAY, 6 JUNE 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
I have complete updates to the GENESIS Tree Spawn system. After working through a few bugs it is now working brilliantly. Next up I have some changes to make to the felling system but I also have a bunch of models to complete.
I will update soon with more information and perhaps some pictures.
THURSDAY, 27 MAY 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
The new version of the GENESIS system is near the final stage of tweaking. Once the core scripts have been written other work doesn’t need to be done until Alpha testing.
After 3 fresh coding tests I gradually beat down the number of active trees from 33/60 to 20/60 which is pretty much perfect.
I have also made the major changes to the cutting script so the last time the tree was cut is logged in the database. Cut trees do not grow for an hour (real life time). This script needs to be added to the spawn system too so that trees being cut down are not deactivated. A simple change for which a places has been saved since the rewrite began. No more development now until Tuesday. 
TUESDAY, 25 MAY 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
I ran an early test of the GENESIS system now that the rewrite is taking shape. There are a few things to iron out. the game is currently spawning too many choppable trees in one place.
The script isn’t finished yet. But tomorrow night will hopefully be an eventful night for the genesis system.
TUESDAY, 25 MAY 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
Tonight I hope to complete the GENESIS rewrite.
Today I have been thinking about the weapon models as well as the tree models that I am now expecting to have to modify myself. Eventually when more is done I will have to make further alterations to GENESIS to cope with more models. But until then I am targeting Icons and 3D models.
I have a shed load of plant models to make. Snakebane started doing these but vanished after sending me one model. Right now I am looking at making models for common resources and the Icons to go with those resources.
Axes – There will be 3 basic type of axe in the game. The first will be hand axe. The second will be battle axe. The battle axe will be a larger form of the battle axe. Last of all will be the great axe. The great axe will be used for cutting trees down the quickest. Unfortunately creating a great axe will require either luck or thundering on with smaller axes to begin with.
All stone weapons will be fairly basic. Once the players move on to metal the options increase. Handle and head shape become a factor when putting one together. These will also make a difference to the stats of the weapon in the end.
Other changes…
Once GENESIS has been rewritten I will be making changes to the felling scripts once more. Weapon size and weight will impact stat deductions. Damage to the tree will impact experience given and material hardness will impact how quickly the weapon gets blunt.
MONDAY, 24 MAY 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
The rewrite of the GENESIS system is going well when considering the time I have had available over the last few days.
I am about half way there but I don’t know if everything will work as planned. The writing process is literally a case of translating my written theory into code. I don’t know how long it will take because I don’t know how well it will work. It is one of those things which work great on paper but you don’t know how it will react when in game.
The most crucial part of the system is processing the active trees. The other simple features are easy to add on to the old code. I will see where I get to tonight.
FRIDAY, 14 MAY 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
Just a quick update as I don’t think there will be many until next week.
Now and then I have ideas about improving a system that spring into my head. Today I have had an idea about the Genesis system and deciding if trees are chop-able or not. Tonight I will try this system out and see if it works.
Put simply, upon spawning a tree it will count the nearest trees and find out how many are already chop-able. If that number is less than 3 then the new tree will be chop-able. If it is greater, the new tree will be chop-able but the furthest tree will be deactivated (provided its not in the process of being cut down).
Only problem is I need to make it work quickly. I will look at the code tonight and see if I can make it viable. It could solve all of the major problems with the system.
WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
This evening I have redesigned the Genesis engine on paper to solve the bulk of the issues I highlighted earlier. I suspect that the rewrite will take until early next week before it is complete as I am away most evenings until Sunday.
The new version will do the following:-
Larger trees will also be worked in to this system at a later stage once some of the 3D models have been sorted out.
We also have a Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Annor-Online/126061690738247
WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
Last night I finished the tree felling system. That system is going to stay in a development freeze until Genesis Part A is rewritten (I will go into that in a moment).
Last night I added decrements on the characters fatigue, hunger and thirst levels when chopping trees. The amount decremented is fixed, but the higher your felling skill level, the less hits you need to cut a tree down. Your first tree will likely take much longer than the second.
I expect the overall reactions to the cutting system to go along the lines of: “It takes way too long” or “my axe keeps getting blunted”.
The most unrealistic thing in Annor will be the tree growth rate. Trees don’t pop up every couple of days. But in MMO’s, full trees respawn in the same place. They don’t spread, and they can’t be permanently wiped out. After the tree growth rate, realism kicks in. Players will have to get used to that. You can’t realistically go chopping every tree down in the forest. And while you may be thinking “but its fun”, think again.
It won’t be any fun when there are no trees left. So powergamers who think they can become the ultimate lumberjack in 4 hours will find their fame short lived when they have wasted their skill levels on training a now redundant skill. Trees don’t come back after a server reset!
The Genesis system has been working great for now but during testing of he felling script I came across several issues. The system won’t need a total rewrite (I hope) and most of it will be re-useable. The system will still work fine for plants. I will go into full technical details later when I have a plan but I will first not the issues here:-
Landscape
Although there are alot of trees in our forest, it still doesn’t look like a forest. There are a few possible solutions to this problem. The idea of a rewrite will be to increase the performance of the scripts. I am also thinking of adding much larger trees into the game, trees that take up alot of space. They will be limited to the forest areas. Trees will take a very long time to get to that size.
I need to organise some of the foliage. Trees are only a 2/5 of the objects in the forest so it currently looks worse than it will be.
Growth Rate
With the completion of the felling script, it has become more obvious that I need to adjust the growth rate of trees. The seeding system needs a complete revision because it currently directly related to Felling:-
Felling Locations
The forest is a large area and it started out with 14 seed trees. But even with that it was difficult to find a certain type of tree that could be cut down. There were also problems with passing the active tree along after spawning new trees. This would only be an issue with multiple trees going down in one area. The pass-on script itself works great. But trees need to stay choppable after seeding new trees and this is where largest amount of change will be.
Growth Locations
At one stage trees spread beyond the walkable map area and began to spawn under hills etc. I may need to work my spawning boundries system into the game. Second of all is the problem where trees grow too close to another tree, sometimes in almost the same location. The growth script will be altered to ensure a set gap between trees, sometime making several attempts at finding a viable seeding location.
THURSDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2009 BY EARL (SIGNET)
Well I have repaired the forest area after the tag issue. The coast area can wait since it is unlikely I will be working on coast related things for quite some time. The forest area is currently set to grow upto 100 trees and 100 plants. There are 14 seeder trees in the area at the moment so expansion is pretty rapid. Plants grow more in closer groups to the trees to there will be more seeds.
Anyhow, here, have a bunch of screenshots. They start off showing things at the growing stages and work their way up until they are fully grown. However please note that I messed up once again. This time by forgetting to delete the seeder trees after the first run (when the database had only 28 trees). This means that the growth limit was reached in half the time and that the trees didn’t spread out as much as they would normally do. Future screenshots will demonstrate that (have since sorted this problem).
THURSDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2009 BY EARL (SIGNET)
On Tuesday I received the Forest and camp site maps from Relentless. I didn’t get a chance to look at them until last night but I can say from a terrain point of view they look good. The problem is they are empty and contain no plants, rocks, trees or animals.
I did a few tests and seeded them for a run on GENESIS. Unfortunately due to an area tag issue there were problems when re-loading the game. Both the beach and the forest were sharing tree data. I have sorted out the problem and informed Relentless but I need to re-seed both areas and let them grow from scratch.
I did manage to grab two screenshots. So here they are:-
