Birth of Legends

As can be seen in the screenshot above, there are now swords in-game. I just decided to give all players a sword because it looks cool, and because my theoretical item system doesn't fully work yet. After talking about magic and fireballs I realized that I hadn't made animations for spells, and as you guys want actual characters anyway I decided not to spend more time on that. For the curious few who are wondering I didn't release this yesterday because I wasn't at home pretty much at all yesterday. So now for the update:

-Shiny swords! Everyone can thank videoguy for making them, and they look great. Funny side-effect of swords is that they always have shadows, even though the character's shadows don't seem to work. And a side-effect of the shadows is that they aren't always the same color...

-New blue outfit. At first I was just making it in addition to the yellow outfit but while I've been using it for all the screenshots recently I've found that I for one think it looks better, and I'll leave customization for an actual character.

-New Animations! To go along with the swords I have new animations so that they aren't chopping their heads off (though sometimes they do nick themselves). I was going to add an axe as well, but it was a 2-handed one and these animations don't work for that, and I didn't want to spend more time on that.just yet.

-New start point! Eventually you'll start off where you were last login, but for now why not just end up at the other side of the map? :P

-Bigger penguins! I have nothing else to say about that.

-Solar Flare without a sun! It's kind of an easter egg because it can only be seen from a certain angle which is hard to find. Good luck in finding it!

Wow, that wasn't too bad of a list. So, next tasks: I want to take a look at the login/character selection screen again, I plan to change how the MySQL tables are accessed so that the former idea is possible, I will put in some fire somewhere, I will actually try to make those target things I had talked about (I didn't even try yet), and I will add a points system so that you can have a something to strive for. And that's everything I can think of on the list for the next update. If you have any other ideas feel free to mention them. I'll work on acquiring those character models again too. Oh, and I'll create a highscore table here on the site so everyone can see how many points they have!

-Mark

The way things are going I think I should be able to release targets on wednesday. So far I've updated the server about four times (which I know for a fact that no one experienced), so now collision works better. If you log in now, most of the npcs will be hit if you throw a snowball at them. For example, if you hit anyone near the pingoo village your bound to see them get hit. Unfortunately, for unknown reasons, some of the npcs don't get hit when you throw a snowball at them. The reason this is so important is because it's hard to give points to people who've hit targets when the server doesn't seem to realize that they have.
In other good news, I've figured out a way for the server to save and load npcs, so even after a server reset they'll still be there. So, for those of you who've forgotten, you can create your own npcs in-game using the command /addBot. Correct usage of the command is explained if you type in /help addBot. If you have any other questions feel free to leave a comment. I'll get back to work now. Enjoy the superbowl!

-Mark

So, something that everyone, including myself, often likes to see is stats. Now, as I'm still rearranging the database I can only display a limited amount, but I think you'll like it anyway. To get to the highscore page you have to click on the sneaky link over to the right. Now, as there aren't any targets yet, and therefore no way to gain points in-game there is another benefit of the highscore page, it also tells you who is online, if anyone. Also, as targets don't come out till wednesday, I've decided to have a competition for extra points.
As I'm not perfect in my creation of 3d content there are various holes in the map throughout the game. Such a hole, or crack, can be seen outlined in this screenshot:

Everyone who finds this particular hole will receive 5 points, and 10 points for any other hole. To prove that you've found a hole you can email a screenshot to submit@birthoflegends.com along with the coordinates (which is in the screenshot if you just hit f12). This little competition helps me find places that need fixing, so it's much appreciated when you find these errors for me. So, good luck in your search! Feel free to add new npcs whenever you want.

-Mark

No matter what I do it seems that you guys just don't want to play BOL anymore... which is kind of depressing. No one has logged in for a few weeks, so why do I even bother to update? Well, the thing is, no matter how boring you all are I'm still going to continue in the slight hope that someone will come along who cares. For people who want to know, Mankar (me...) has found two more cracks in the time-space continuum so it is possible to earn up to 35 points at least before (or even after) tomorrow. I'm pretty certain that there are more cracks then that so I still encourage people to go out and find them. About the targets, I'm still figuring out how they should respawn, and I also need to finish up the mysql code, but I still think that I'll be able to release it tomorrow. After targets, and through targets the solidifying of a basic point system, I'll get some actual character models and make the login/character selection screens once and for all. I'd love to hear any other requests, ideas, or wants you might have as I love to get feedback. Have a good day.

-Mark

Finished but not... I finished the target system but I haven't had time today to test it and I don't have time now to upload the patches (sorry but I'm tired and haven't been home all day). I'll get them up tomorrow.

-Mark

Targets are now officially released! You can download the updated client from here or the full thing from here. But, the bad news is that the targets also officially don't work right. Or, they do but the server portion isn't working right. As the collision is mysteriously not working for some of the npcs, it is also not working for most of the targets. So, until then the definite ways to get points is to log in, find wholes or cracks in the earth, and an added challenge which is to find the solar glare. For a few weeks now there has been no sun in the sky, but a small glitch in my programming means that there is still a solar flare in the sky, though it can only be seen from certain places and at a certain angle. For every 5 solar flares that you find (and take a screenshot of) you'll receive 5 points. The rule is that they have to be from different locations. This isn't too hard of a task as I've found about 30 different places where solar flare is present in my travels. So good luck! I'll be working hard until I can figure out what's up with this whole collision thing.

-Mark

I've noticed some server lag today, so it's possible that for short periods you may not be able to connect or may get disconnected. I'll try to work on it. Don't forget to read the update below.

-Mark

I've been very sick and haven't even gone to school the last two days. The title of this post refers to how many hours of sleep I've had the past two days. I may have time to update something later today, but don't count on it as I still feel pretty sick. Thanks to Kotosha, Tzade, Kaminariuchi, and Orion who have been logging in and helping out with BOL in the past five days. Some of the points need to be increased for different people, so sorry for not getting on that yet. The one thing that is always updated on the highscores page right away is whether or not a player is online. Also, if you ever get a connection error when trying to connect to the BOL server you can just check that page to see if the server is working (if it isn't the page will display an error). Hopefully I'll have another big update by the weekend, but no promises right now of what that will include. I'll go work on getting unsick now...

-Mark

I hope everyone has been having a good day today. I for one had a snow day. And in trying to do something productive I rewrote part of the server so that it logs more information about collision. So, by logging in and throwing snowballs at stuff you'll be helping me figure out why the collision works some times and not others. I have nothing else to say, except that I'm feeling a little bit better then I have the past couple of days.

-Mark

I wasn't home much tonight, again, but I did upgrade the server again, and I'm very close to figuring out this whole collision issue. I also discovered a bug that no one else had discovered where some of the player and npc ids overlapped, causing crashes if certain players were to log in (no one did but I tried it out myself). This problem has been officially fixed and no one has to worry about it anymore. Also, for the collision problems, I realized that the server actually wasn't calculating enough of the collisions. Basically the client, leftover from it's standalone offline days, was still trying some of the collisions itself, so the server never knew about some collisions, couldn't alert the client, and the client never responded to them. This is being fixed tomorrow. Also, I have no school this next week so I should have plenty of time to figure everything out, have a good weekend!

-Mark

p.s. If you live somewhere like California or go to private school and therefore don't have vacation, good luck.

Edit: The server is back online. Enjoy!

[old] I'm still looking into the why but it seems that the server is down right now, so if your unable to connect; I'm working on it. Sorry for the inconvenience. [/old]

-Mark

A long long time ago I had talked about what my chaotic computer setup looks like. Well, here it is:
(click the pictures to see a bigger version)

-Mark

Great news today! I finally got visual studio installed on the good computer! That's basically what I've been working on the past like four days. So, now that that is finally setup I can compile new code a lot faster, as well as compile two different things at once (like server on one comp and client on another). So, right now I'm just recompiling all the code, engine, dependencies, and game, to make sure that everything really is set up right and also to get rid of a few errors that might have carried over from the other computer. So, that should take up most of today, and I'm having a Starcraft party tonight with the East coast "staff" of MTTB Games, so that will take up the rest of today. I've figured out some of the collision problem but a few things are still to be worked out. So, sorry for nothing really new but that's all I have for right now. You can still play BOL at any time. Have a good day!

-Mark

Well, I'm very sad to announce that I don't have a new update for today. At the moment priority has been given to finishing the login/character selection screens (I did fix the collision problem just forgot to make an update for it, I'll do that tomorrow). All I can say is that I'm very close. It now compiles properly and even logs in properly except for the minor problem where you don't actually connect because of a certain string not being transfered properly. So, I should be able to finish this up tomorrow, if I have the time. Sorry for the delay.

-Mark

So, I have been spending many hours on this login screen seemingly to no avail. I did get it to work partially, but for one it still looks really bad and secondly it's buggy and doesn't fully work all the time. So, I'm going to keep working at it but no guarantees. But, as this is making me very tired/annoyed, is there anything else someone wants me to work on right now? I know I still need to implement actual physics, real models (which I still don't have), and get the quest system going. Oh, and about those targets that were supposed to be fully functional so long ago, let's just say that they work fine over here now, but that only two people have tried logging in since that time. If they don't work for you please tell me. Ok, I guess that's it really for today, unless I have a big breakthrough soon.

-Mark

So, here I am again not quite an hour later, and I have an update! But, it's not quite a login screen yet. While that part is still buggy I know that it would still be nice to login from inside the game, so now with this update all you have to do is open the game, type "/Login username password", and your in. So, I've tested this only limitedly, but it does seem to work just fine. One thing to remember, if you try to /Login when your already connected you'll actually disconnect yourself. The full download can be downloaded here. Now I'll get to work on gameplay!

-Mark

p.s. If you haven't updated recently then you'll need to download the full thing to get the new content from a few patches ago.