daMoose_Neo

Allright, all I should have to do to make sure my character warps to a certain map on death is set each map in the "Dungeon" to use the coordnates correct? Well, thats simply not happening, my class is overriding the warp information so I end up at the "Beginning" of the game. To get this to work right, I'm left with an idea to set the BootMap once I warp into a region. Other than that, how do I get the programmed BootMap to work?

This is a security related question: What measures are possible to hide an IP or make a direct connection via something else more difficult for hackers or malcious software? My partner and I are concerned about launching a server, only to have it exploited and zombified. We can isolate the box from our personal network, but theres still a significant chance someone could send something through the open port.

Okay, first, I suppose some qualifying statements are in order for why you all should take this seriously, esp. given my newer member status: I've worked on Graal servers years ago, running and maintaing a small personal unit, written my own MMO software years ago, and now design, write, publish, and promote fantasy trading card games and role playing games. I do game design, and not too badly either (see the signiture). What I've got here, and what I'll add to as I write small mini-rants-turned-tutorials, is some advice for designers who want a successful title. For the most part they'll be smallish, and as concise as I can be. A Brief Game Design 101 - Or why "ub3r 1337 g@^^3z 5uck" 1) Why we play Fundamental question of game design is this: why do people play? Play play because, for lack of an easier way to understand it, we're stubborn. People log hundreds of hours on games because they challenge them, make them think, make them train themselves a certain way to overcome an obsticle. It often takes some people several tries to make it through an area in one piece, or survive a boss battle, or hours to solve an ingame puzzle. And because they can't quite make it over that hurdle, they come back for yet another attempt. Why not? It doesn't cost them anything to try again, its a fun way to pass time, and, just maybe, they learn something about it. 2) What this means for "1337 g@^^3z" Often times, gamers are actually the worst game designers, at least right out of the gate, and heres why: most gamers lack the maturity to understand the challenge represented by the game. Given the power to design a game, a world, and its laws, the player will often opt to bestow ungodly power on all players in the game. I use the term "1337 g@^^3z" here because all too often internet newbies latch onto "leet speak" (1337 being leet). And starting games, like starting internet chatters and users, often assume too much power and superiority without undestanding underlying principals. A) Godly power, believe it or not, sucks in a game. Why play when you kill everything in one hit? Theres no resistance, theres no sense of satisfaction, theres no challenge to keep players coming back to enjoy the world you've crafted. Reduce the power levels and let players take it nice and slow through your world if you want them to appreciate the work you put into it. B) Quality, not quantity. New gamers often think that huge numbers are 1337, and so want the biggest numbers possible without crashing systems, and even then I'm not sure thats enough for some of them. It doesn't matter how many experiance points or levels you have under you, it matters how hard you had to work to get them, and how hard everyone else had to work to get them as well. Take Dungeons & Dragons for example. The game, by itself, only allows for players to up to level 20\. Without supplemental material for "Gods", through level 25, thats the cap. Yet, a D&D player is incredibly satisfied with their level 20 character, just as much as a console gamer is with their level 100 characters in Final Fantasy, if not more so considering the hours the player had to log to achieve that. So, the moral of this point is that if you make it a real challenge to achieve the next level, capping out at 20, or 50, is no shame, as each game commands its own respect. And, having low experiance point scores matters not if you had to fight tooth and nail to get what you do have. If you want something to be important, it means just as much to make it scarce as it does to drown your players in it. C) Originality- the biggest trump card. Everyone has their own dream game regarding their favorite anime, TV show, fantasy novel, etc. You have a small problem there: Everyone has their own dream game regarding their favorite anime, TV show, fantasy novel, etc. Yes, I just repeated myself. With all fans of a given title having their own dream game, yours will A) get lost in the crowd of such titles and B) be ridiculed by some portion of the title's fanbase because you didn't meet their own expectations, which is their own ideal game. Considering the vast amout of fanfiction out there is only so loosly based on a title as to lay claim to the title in name alone, its so much easier to recraft the portions of the story that are from the property and publish your concept as 100% original, with inspiration from your dream title. That way, everyone can evaluate your work for what it is instead of what it is not. On top of that, a good premise could pique the interest of people who aren't fans of the original property, and those players would have been lost had you persued the original property. D) Resonable pacing - All too often, new designers dump a LOT of information on their players, be it from the backstory, the game, or even just options available. If we take a look at professionally designed consoles, a trend emerges: you start out slow, small, and reletively weak with few options. As you master an option, another couple options presents themselves. Having mastered the first options, these ones come easier, and so the cycle goes. Believe it or not, you're learning as you play! Pacing is a key ingrediant for making a good title that sticks with people: you want to provide just enough options so the players aren't helpless, and you want to provide for them at a pace that they aren't overwhelmed by sheer amount of information or bored stiff waiting for something new. This can also help extend the overall length of the game, as this will allow you, the designer, to focus on this pacing and give players the space they need to master their options or absorb the story. 3) So why do ub3r 1337 g@^^3z 5uck? For the most part because they fail to heed any or all of the above. Granted, you can ignore one of the tips and be reletively okay, but if you want a solid title you'll want to work on all of the above. Giving players ultimate power removes any challenge and any need to return for that. If they're just being thrown a lot of something, players lose a sense of accomplishment or worth as opposed to if they had to work for their earnings. And, when everyone and their brother has a server dedicated to the latest and greatest anime, combined with any of these others, your title is quite forgetable. And, without a reason to come back, either because of the huge learning curve or because of a lack of anything new since God knows when, its downright boring. So, if you want a good game, pay attention to all of the above. Put some effort into your work, and make your players put a little effort into playing- everyone will have a bigger, and better, sense of accomplishment.

Kind of like a joystick really. The ability for a player to map their own controls to fit their own needs. This would aliviate a lot of complaints about complicated controls and allow people to map how they're comfortable. Myself, I like the arrow key movement, but my partner is an MMO addict and prefers the typical WASD movement and controls. I've coded similar things in VB before, so its not so bad, a quick routine to check an INI file is similar to your current arrangement, and include the options for all of the basic controls: Movement (Right, Left, Up, Down) HotScripts Spell Casting Enter Chat Pickup Item/Check Sign/NPC Attack

This one may come off a bit assish, which isn't the intent, but I would dearly love some real documentation for this program. The "Guides" included with the program are just about worthless except maybe to give me a list of the commands for the scripting language, and I'm left wandering the forums for hours trying to find the solution to issues that should be automaticly included with an ingame/program FAQ or documentation normally included with such software. Don't get me wrong, this program is freaking awesome, but that awesomeness quotent is dropped by the pain in the backside of having to dig for answers. Part of that may be solved by my partner and I. We're working on our own server, obviously, but we're making notes on all the things we're doing, and in particular the things that should be obviously placed. IE - Currency Item needs to be Item #1 for the shop system to work (Why not just write a currency system?) - that should be right in the guides and sadly wasn't. I don't even know where it is on the forums, I just know this by chance. - Port Forwarding: When forwarding a port, if you are on the same network as the host PC you cannot connect using the external IP, you have to use the internal or local IP. Admidst others. Documentation = awesome, and would probably reduce the number of n00b-ish style questions.

My wish: remotely calling for scripting reloads, so those of us with dedicated PCs can access the program's admin functions.

Working on launching a new game, have a dedicated server PC set up for it. Now then, as I'm working on it from my own PC, I can't find a way to affect some changes locally through the normal admin interface- the options, such as for reloading the scripts, are on the server program, on the unmanned server PC. Is there some kind of remote access for reloading scripts or managing the server, or is that something that will need to be a feature request?