Messages

106

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: October 14, 2011, 07:47:07 PM »

That's going to be the focus of v5 if I remember correctly. But yeah there are all kinds of plans to deal with different colorsets/add-ons/bricks used within saves.

Glad to hear it. Permanence and exposure can greatly increase the value of a work.

107

Modification Help / Re: RTB Development

« on: October 14, 2011, 04:10:49 AM »

Are there any plans for an online-save-repository? If so, might I suggest some way of "bundling" saves with the colorset and brick packs they use?

108

Modification Help / Re: Lord Tony made a new map.

« on: October 05, 2011, 12:48:36 AM »

Do you have an example?

I don't really know how to script but if you ever load up GSF nightmare when you go into the closet you die by a trigger event. If someone can figure that out for me I'll be set.

Behind the mountain is a seaside cliff, you just can't see it because of the picture.

Um I thought sand close to water is coarse and sand away from the water is fine?

I don't have an example on hand, but I'm sure you can picture a fairly homogeneous texture. Basically a single color with noise applied to it. No big splotches of color.

I used kill triggers in the original Planets map; they were a pain to setup. A far more flexible, fool-proof method would be a script as described before. It also means you need not kill players outside of a mini-game. It should be fairly trivial to make, I'm sure a distance finding function already exists in the engine.

In my experience the finest sand is closest to the water. YMMV.

109

Modification Help / Re: Lord Tony made a new map.

« on: October 04, 2011, 03:25:28 AM »

You may be able to reduce the obviousness of the texture stretching by using a texture with less contrast in it.

For your invisible wall issue, could you create a script that kills/harms players that stray too far from origin of the map if they are in a mini-game?

Also, the beach doesn't have to extend all the way around the island. It could be more interesting to have a few seaside cliffs.

On the subject of beaches, I think you may have your textures reversed. Typically the sand closest to the water will be the finest and the coarsest will be set back from the beach.

110

Off Topic / Re: Edgeless Computer Monitors?

« on: September 27, 2011, 04:33:18 AM »

I've used my own "Eyefinity" setup to game across 3 monitors and in the end it wasn't worth the investment. You need a large desk and ideally a triple-monitor stand too. A decent graphics card is a must. I ended up spending over $1000 altogether on mine and that doesn't include the cost of my computer. It doesn't make the games any more fun.

My advice? Get a single, nice monitor. You can avoid all the hassles, costs, and limitations of a triple-monitor-gaming setup.

111

General Discussion / Re: Broken lighting in Blockland?

« on: September 24, 2011, 01:10:52 AM »

OpenGL is an API that takes instructions from a program and turns it into a format that your display can understand: there is no bound on the number of lights it can support. It's an industry standard. As an example, Pixar used OpenGL to render their movies and I'm sure we can agree that they used more than 8 lights in their scenes. I mean, there's a lot of complaints about opengl in this thread but what would you prefer? Direct3D? Is it really any better? Do you know anything about D3D or OpenGL because I don't, and I'd appreciate if you would share.

The lights behave the way they do because it's the way Badspot decided they should work for now. It's definitely not optimal or particularly pretty but that's just how it works. I think it's a totally valid complaint, but broken isn't really an accurate description. Unfortunately I doubt it's as simple as buying the torque lighting kit (is it even available anymore?) and throwing it in the game.

I think things like lighting, shadows, and effects like motion blur, sharpening, bloom, film grain, colorization, night vision, etc, are things that could have a great effect on the game even if they were only marginally improved. If nothing else, opening up screen effects to modders could lead to a lot of really cool mods.

It seems reasonable to me that lights don't have a hard limit at the API level and perhaps even at the engine level.

I do like the suggestion you make in the last paragraph of your post but it goes back to old problem of trusting the users; If you give them too much control over the visual quality of the game are they going to complain about poor performance? Judging by Badspot's decision to limit the view-distance, I assume he feels the benefits of more control for the end user isn't worth the support headaches it raises.

Also worth considering: how long would it take to add those features to the game? Time is money when you're running a business and setting aside hundreds of hours to work on updating visuals may not be cost effective.

112

Off Topic / Re: Show us your "Base of Operations"

« on: September 22, 2011, 03:36:52 AM »

Attached are pictures of my "base of operations".

113

General Discussion / Re: How hard is it to make round tree bricks?

« on: September 15, 2011, 04:04:44 AM »

I'm somewhat surprised we haven't seen a decent plugin made to convert 3D models into .blb files. Would be of great use to the community and would be far more impressive than any of the weapons, vehicles, maps, game-modes, and blogs that have been created thus far.

114

Mapping Help / Re: Emitters don't save into my map.

« on: September 10, 2011, 12:34:15 AM »

A fish emitter?

115

General Discussion / Re: Putting Blockland on Steam

« on: July 28, 2011, 01:22:27 AM »

Why is Blockland not on Steam? Probably a cost/benefit brown townysis by either Valve or by Badspot determined it wouldn't be worth it.

Positives:

• Exposure to an enormous audience, perhaps resulting in thousands of new sales
• No direct cost per download or update as Steam's servers would take the load
• Free Steam-hosted forums (if he wanted to ditch these)

Negatives:

• Valve gets a cut of the profits
• Investment of time integrating Steamworks
• Massive increase in support burden due to a varied, global audience
• Would probably have to give up current authentication system
• No turning back. He wouldn't be able to revoke keys, ignore customers, or just leave the game to work on something else
• Would it affect modding?

Keep in mind that even hit indie titles like Minecraft aren't for sale on Steam. It isn't always the best option for a company. By "running your own ship" you can control your sales, releases, and support all from one location rather than trying to sail two smaller ships (two distribution systems) at once.

116

Suggestions & Requests / Re: Build & Battle Gamemode

« on: July 28, 2011, 12:51:57 AM »

A simpler game-mode would be more appealing to new players.

Brick limits keep server/client loads down thus opening the game up to more players and prolongs the action.

Killing for bricks provides a reason for fighting beyond racking up some arbitrary points.

I'm not sure what "freekilling" is or what you mean by "stable system".

117

Suggestions & Requests / Re: Build & Battle Gamemode

« on: July 25, 2011, 12:48:41 AM »

I wouldn't make the gamemode that complicated and it would be best if the client didn't need to install/download any add_ons.

Why not just have it be free-for-all? Then you don't need all of the team-building complications.

Keep it simple; players shouldn't need a GUI or tutorial on how to play. During the build session players are given a set # of bricks to use. They can earn additional bricks for killing opponents.

118

Suggestions & Requests / Build & Battle Gamemode

« on: July 21, 2011, 07:36:05 PM »

Originally I had plans to make it a fort wars type of game with alternating building and combat rounds

Source

Apparently Blockland could have turned out quite differently if the free-build mechanic hadn't worked so well. The original idea sounds like fun though; anyone up for making a new gamemode?

119

Off Topic / Re: BugWorld - One of Badspot's Creations

« on: July 21, 2011, 07:30:59 PM »

Originally I had plans to make it a fort wars type of game with alternating building and combat rounds

That sounds like a pretty good idea for a game-mode.

120

Off Topic / Re: New Being Disrespectful to the Old

« on: June 27, 2011, 02:01:28 AM »

I don't suffer from a persecution complex so this seems to be a non-issue to me. What kind of respect are you hoping to receive?