c0ke

Err, I don't know if anyone cares about this thread anymore or anything but DataInputStream and DataOutputStream handle primitives really nicely so just feed them into bufffered input / output streams on TCP sockets and you are done. Then all you need to do is be careful what you send things as, you might be working with ints for example but if it's never going to be over 127 then write / read it as a byte etc. Read the source code for those streams and you will see they convert the primitives to bytes for you, there is no need to "optimise" or manually complicate things beyond that point. The next level of efficiency you would want to look into is batching packets together wherever possible so you are only flushing a minimum number of times, this is because if you are using the datastreams correctly you will be sending a lot of small packets that are individually under the minimum TCP packet size so the majority of stuff you send (this dude stepped left, this dude hit that dude, etc…) will actually be padded anyway! I'm not going to comment on "make everything public" gate, smh. Liam

In the real world being a developer is as much about being a professional speed learner (Docs, google, past stuff you have coded) as it is about putting code to disc. You cannot keep the contents of every method in every piece of API from every library in the world in your head at once, so why bother trying. Core API and design patterns are what you need to retain, the rest is easily copied / speed re-learned from either your own previous code or (you guessed it) the internet. When you are using 500 different 3rd party libraries and the software you are writing is extremely complex, trying to retain all of it is an exercise in futility anyway. What matters is your ability to get the information you need and use it effectively to solve the problem, nobody gives a shit that the fix came from stack overflow or was copy and pasted from some other part of the system :) Today you are a master of the Java.IO package, tomorrow you might need to be a master of the org.hibernate package where the File API is going to do you no good whatsoever. You know you have a nice bit of code to handle that particular case, so forget about it and move on to the next thing - next time you have to write files to the system, guess the first place you are going to go and look ;) The longer you work and the more problems you solve the more of that core API sticks in your head and it becomes less of a problem. Can you remember the specific annotation configuration for one way many-to-one entity relationships in hibernate? Me either, and I was only working with them yesterday! But every time I need to do something like that I just go back to my old code and relearn it in about 5 minutes. Your old code is your friend. Google is your friend. As a developer you are a problem solver, not a superhero. If the effective way to solve your problem is to google it, why the hell wouldn't you :) Full disclosure: I've been working as a Java Developer for the last 8 and a half years, so I'd say my perspective is accurate. Hope that helps, Liam

It's shared but its scaled differently and certain screens are laid out differently depending on if they are the PC or Android client.

Hey everyone, So the game now pretty much always has 100 - 200 players online at all times… its gotten a bit out of hand ^^. I'm just stopping by to let everyone know the PC client released today so you can now play cross platform with players on their phones which is pretty cool.  I think I'm the first person to have done this but who knows these days. Anyway, if any of you are interested in the project you can check it out at [www.miragerealms.com](www.miragerealms.com). I hope this community is still alive, it's nice that there's still a Mirage offshoot clinging on. Liam

If you are talking about Mirage Realms it has (is) been (being) built from scratch so you can't sorry >.<

Just a bump, there have been a lot of updates since this was posted so if anyone had a go and thought they'd come check it out a bit later, now would be a good time :)  We have a solid 10 - 60 players online at all times and the community is growing. I am continuing to add new functionality and features every week so come have a go and tell me what you think. Cheers, Liam

Well… shit. I had no idea! It looks like LibGDX has announced they are going to be providing a different solution going forwards so I guess I'll have to investigate that instead! Hopefully it is nicely settled by the time I look to port the game over... With regards to the back button and such, thanks for raising it. I'm well aware of that particular annoyance and will be addressing it soon, there's a tonne of issues with different keyboards as well that is preventing users from chatting. It's early days yet so, lots to add :)

Absolutely. The game will stay android only through the alpha (next few months) then during the beta phase once the engine has stabalised I'll be porting to IOS via robovm. The game also runs natively on pc though I'm hesitant to release the pc client yet as java is so easy to reverse engineer.

Hello everyone! I really hope you don't mind me making a fresh topic, if a mod could perhaps delete the other one if I'm breaking a rule here that would be awesomecakes. So, yesterday I released Mirage Realms on the google play store for Android devices in open alpha. It's largely an engine test at this stage but there's enough content and stuff to do to keep you entertained for about an hour or so, I'd really appreciate it if any of you guys have an Android device if you would take a look for me when you are on the toilet or waiting at the bus stop or what have you :) You can find it at the play store here: [Mirage Realms (google play store)](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.foxcake.mirage.android) I'm totally open to any and all feedback I can get my hands on, and am actively working on this every day. I quit my day job a few months ago to go full time on this for a while so progress has sped up by a significant orderof magnitude! To give a sort of overview of what exactly the game is and what's changed since my last post, I'm going to copy my [websites](http://www.miragerealms.com) latest news post below: **Overview of major changes**  _The user interface has been totally redesigned!_ Well, to tell you the truth, so much has been added since my last news post it's a bit of a fools errand at this stage going over it all. Looking at when I last posted, I'll try and scan over some of the larger things that have changed: * There are now 3 classes, Knight, Mage and Ranger - each use a different weapon and skill * Items are now a thing, items can be stackable * Full loot and inventory system. Monsters drop loot bags that can be opened and taken. Kill monsters, loot stuffs. * Client look and feel redesign to be much friendlier and brighter on mobile devices * Capacity / weight system, Items have a weight and you gain 10 capacity per level * Auto attacks are now tied to weapons, equip a bow to shoot arrows, equip a staff to throw fireballs, etc * Full equipment system, items can modify all player stats when worn * Rewrite of skill system and all combat equations, different stats apply to different types of damage output / defence * The equipment screen now actively compares items from the inventory with the equipped item, displaying the differences * Chat messages now appear over peoples heads * Character creation and selection screens have been redesigned * Vocations now have colours, and their primary damage type is associated with that colour. Cyan for knight, Orange for mage, Pink for ranger * Online list added, chat system revamped * A **lot** of server side improvements, fixes, logging, optimisations, yada yada boring :) * Significantly increased world size, addition of a full set of items for you to loot and equip * You can now destroy Items you no longer want There are all sorts of other bits and bobs that have changed but thats the gist of it. It's weird bullet pointing stuff like this, some of those bullet points took me two weeks to implement, doesn't seem all that impressive in a list. Anyhow, screenshot time. **Inventory** So first things first then, the inventory is here! Rather than restricting players to an arbitrary number of items they can pick up I decided to go with a capacity system. This means each Item has a weight assigned to it, and players have a set capacity they can carry. This capacity increases by 10 every level you gain, so the higher level you are the more stuff you can carry. Simples! Selecting an item displays it's stats and gives you contextual options, at the moment you can only destroy Items but trading and such will come soon.  _Look at my cap, nearly full :O_ **Loot** What use is an inventory with no Items? When a Monster is killed it now rolls for everyone that hit it, and everyone gets their own individual experience and loot bags. You can only see your loot bags so there's no contention there. When you press a loot bag it will present you with the above screen and you can select what you would like to pick up. This screen tells you your current cap usage and adjusts to show you what effect picking up the selected items will have on your inventory!  _Sweet, got a new armour piece - thanks mr Troll_ **Equipment** Which brings us neatly to the equipment screen. Once you've looted stuff, you may find yourself wanting to wear it. The equipment screen presents you with your worn items in the section on the left, here you can select a slot to view the stats of what is currently equipped and also any Items from your inventory that you can replace it with. Selecting an Item in the inventory section will show you a comparison tooltip at the bottom showing you the effect equipping it will have on your stats, as well as any contextual actions. Equip is the only contextual action here at this stage so it's nice and simple.  _My precious_ **Communication** The chat screen has also seen some upgrades, it now provides you with a list of everyone online. This list is sorted alphabetically and peoples names are coloured according to their class so you can tell at a glance who is a Mage and what have you. When you say something, if anyone is stood around you they will see your message appear above your characters head for 5 seconds so you can get peoples attention in the game world if you want to talk to them!  _Me attempting to communicate with one of our very first players ^^_ **Stats** Finally the stats screen has seen a bunch of work. The stats are now coloured according to the class they are primarily intended for, and behind the scenes over on the server side a lot of work has gone into the equations that decide how these stats rise and what affect they have on your damage and such.  _World first level 7 muahaha… is that like less than 1% from magic 15?_ **Look and feel** All of the game screens have had a revamp in an effort to make everything less… gloomy and bland. The character creation process being the first experience people have with the game, I felt it was important it didn't get left too far behind while so much was being added to the engine. It's still super basic, but its looking much nicer than it was in my last news post. In addition, there's now a "remember me" option when you login so you don't even have to see the login screen anymore if you don't want too, the game will take you straight through to character selection.  _Looking good :D_ **So…** That's it for now. The game will be receiving weekly updates deployed to the app store, currently the main focus is on features and engine changes rather than making a big push for content and maps, though I'll try and add some new items, monsters and areas to test play around with each week so continuous testers don't get too bored. Coming next is food and hunger so you can regenerate health and Mana, after that… well, you'll find out when the update hits next friday :) I really hope to see you online and please take the time to let me know what you like / hate about the game so far in the forums, it's super helpful. See you in game!

@'SolidLink': > Mirage Realms and Untitled engine > > Untitled Engine has those features and more > Not sure about Mirage realms > > but none of them came out Just a shout out, Mirage Realms actually went open alpha on the play store yesterday :D

Hello Eclipse, I've posted about this over a year ago when I was starting to put some time into this project and now I've actually quit my job to go full time on it things are progressing much faster. I'd like to raise some awareness where possible, and figured this might be a cool place to do it. My old post contained a lot of outdated screenshots and information and is on page 9 billion by now so I hope the admins don't mind me creating a fresh one. Allow me to apologise in advance for the dodgey in-game text scaling on all of the android screenshots, these were taken on my phone and the aliasing is for it's DPI, on the phone it looks sharp but when screenshotted and blown up to our monitors it looks really crap ¯\_(?)_/¯ **What is Mirage Realms?**  Simply put, it's a 2D ORPG in the spirit of games such as Tibia and to a lesser extent World of Warcraft, but done in an extremely _retro_ way targeting primarily the mobile phone market (Android initially), but also running with a client natively on PC (windows, OSX, and linux are supported). If you are familiar with Tibia, we have taken their style of auto-combat but are throwing in spells and ability rotations similar to world of warcraft. Dungeons are instanced and procedurally generated from 'jigsaw' pieces of maps. **What does it look like?** Well, the client UI is tailored to the platform so you will get a different experience on the PC to your mobile phone, but at present the mobile client looks like this:  As you can see despite having worked my ass off on this since forever, there's still a long way to go and the UI still looks very placeholder. I've put in a load of cool stuff lately so players can customise what they look like with different hairstyles, helmets, stuff to wear on their back and such when they create their characters. Looks super basic but it's there. When you hit enemies they bleed, different types of enemies have different types of blood. Dead enemies have bodies, and if they drop loot you see a little bag indicating there are some goodies for you. Distance auto-attacks fire things across the screen, here you can see an arrow at the end of it's flight hitting that troll. There are blood 'splash' animations for successful hits, as well as animations indicating the type of attack that occurred, i.e. sword attacks show slash animations on the target, claw attacks show claw scratches etc~  Once you are in-game the benefits of this become immediately apparent, everyone likes looking different afterall.  Different vocations get different boosts to their stamina (health) and spirit (mana) each time they level, but other skills such as your attack power, defense, or magic ability level up the more you do them. This means if you want to get good at hitting things in the face with a sword, you are going to have to go and hit things in the face with a sword.   Leveling up your various skills results in classic 'rising over the head' notification so everyone can see how awesome you are (or how much you suck I guess). I'm currently working on implementing the basic inventory, no point having loot if people can't pick the sodding stuff up is there.  And of course, I've been writing dev tools to make implementing content viable as I move forwards.  Now, I realise I have just bombarded you with screenshots and not written any long paragraphs about lore and all that jazz, we have a lot of story and progression stuff written down but I find that stuff isn't actually any fun to read about unless you are invested in the world it takes place in - as there is currently no game for you to play to get interested about the lore, I feel banging on about it is a pointless endeavor when all you really want to see is what the game looks and feels like.  I apologise for the crazy scaling of the images, everything on the android client looks nice on the DPI of my phone but when screenshotted and dragged over to the PC all the little tiny aliasing artifacts become glaringly obvious. There of course is a PC client, if you are wondering what the scaling on that looks like, see the above screenshot. Making the window larger just shows more of the game world rather than stretching everything like on mobiles. You'll notice the text also looks great on it's native DPI. If any of this looks interesting at all you can read all about it over at [**www.miragerealms.com**](http://www.miragerealms.com), if you'd like to help or have any suggestions / questions I'm happy to talk openly about the project. I'm currently living on savings and will be trying to push the game to release by the end of the year. There's a lot to do but I don't think it's an impossible task. Cheers everyone, Liam

DSI XL, r4 sdhc cartridge and a 64gb micro sd card 0=)

Hmm there's a lot of unused space on the right at the bottom due to the small width of the chat widget, this seems wasteful. As for that sync button, that needs to go, what a horrible fix :P

Heh

Great for dependency management and build automation, not so great if you are just trying to get the IDE set up :P