[WIP] Deadfrost Online

[Colonello]

Just spent the past hour stitching together these images. This is the first town in the game, I recently re-modeled it to make it look better! :)

[Colonello]

Hello everyone, sorry about the lack of updates. I have been extremely busy in real life and haven't had much time to work on the game until now. Rather than try to explain why we'll get right in to the update!

**The "Royal City" Update**

First off, the Royal City is being redesigned. It is now nearly double the size it was previously and looks 10x better than before.

**Training centers/Tutorial**
The Royal is **most likely** the place where all players will first spawn. There will be a quick ten minute tutorial explaining a bit of the games lore and how to play it. If further help is needed in a specific subject training centers will be located on the south side of the side. Shops will also be available there for items that are meant from training levels 1 to 40 in each skill.

**Quests**
The city will hopefully contain around 10 to 15 quests at the beginning. Later this will be expanded upon. Currently I am unable to start on the production of creating quests though. The quest system we have currently is way too simple to create anything past a simple "kill ten cows and give me their hides" type quest.

**Shops**
Most shops will be based around the training centers that are available in the city.

**Player Interaction**
I imagine the town's center will probably become some kind of hub for trading. It is nearby where all new players will spawn and can easily be accessed. At first the game will not include any form of auction house and the only way to get items will be by earning them yourself or by trading other players for them.

**Evolution**
Now you may notice the city has one main cobblestone road and various other dirt roads. Why would a city this big look like this? This is somewhat to do with the lore because Deadfrost Online takes place in the time period roughly 10-15 years after the ending of the war that created Deadfrost zones. A city this new and this large needs time to re-build. The city will "evolve" with the players. As the game grows older and gets bigger the dirt roads will be replaced with cobblestone, houses will look nicer, more citizens and quests will arrive, etc.

**Completion**
Exterior Map - 50-75% complete
Quests - 0%
Interior Maps - 25%

**Surrounding Areas**
To the right of the royal city will be the game's largest harbor. This will allow you to travel to a few of the game's islands. If or when sailing can be introduced as a skill in the game this is where you will learn how to sail.

**Images**
The Town Square

Some of the various training areas and shops

[Cheech]

Your maps are awfully unnatural; too square-ish and symmetrical.

[Colonello]

@'Cheech':

> Your maps are awfully unnatural; too square-ish and symmetrical.

Thanks for the feedback. I do agree with you, it is something I need to work on. In the outdoor maps it's a lot less symmetrical but could use improvement. :)

[Cheech]

Actually, I think it's worse in your outdoor maps; indoor maps are already unnatural by simply being indoors.

[Colonello]

Do you know of any games or maps that I should look off of as a reference for how to improve my mapping style? I'd like to do anything I can to make them look better.

[Cheech]

I've comprised a list of maps that I feel should be inspiring towards making yours better: http://www.freemmorpgmaker.com/thread-85605.html

[Colonello]

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of updates these past few months. Anyway the game is back on track now and I'm hoping to have some form of a playable alpha in the somewhat near future.

After coming back from this break I realized the Royal City looked way too plain and cookie cutter. The entire city was symmetrical and nothing was unique or stood out. In this update I hope to change this. I am still looking in to ways in to getting the world to look less flat. A shadow system is a little difficult but I imagine I can figure something out. Anyway here are all the pictures! It may not look like much but I spent quite a while remodeling almost the entire city.

>! 
>! 
>! 
>! 

In other news I am having all the maps converted to be about 50x50 size. I made all the maps 100x100 not realizing how terribly this would be for performance and it wouldn't work well for people with slow internet. This makes the maps look a little weird but I am also looking in to making all the maps seamless. This basically means when you cross over to a new map you wont even notice except for the name change.

[sherwin]

Making a Seamless Map System is quite a pain
I asked Genusis to help me do the rendering part since i don't really understand how to render it at that time, but now i think i understand it a little bit

I'll say what Genusis told me to do when loading maps
when you are going to make a seamless map system, do not reload all surrounding maps every time you switch map, you'll just have to move them so they don't need to be reload from the cache file or the server
load only the new maps like
if you are moving upward, load only the top left, top, top right maps.. and just move the rest

good luck on your game~

[Colonello]

@'sherwin':

> Making a Seamless Map System is quite a pain
> I asked Genusis to help me do the rendering part since i don't really understand how to render it at that time, but now i think i understand it a little bit
>
> I'll say what Genusis told me to do when loading maps
> when you are going to make a seamless map system, do not reload all surrounding maps every time you switch map, you'll just have to move them so they don't need to be reload from the cache file or the server
> load only the new maps like
> if you are moving upward, load only the top left, top, top right maps.. and just move the rest
>
> good luck on your game~

Thank you! Anyway I'm very new to VB6 at the moment so I doubt I'll be able to accomplish something that complicated. I may have to pay somebody to do it but I imagine it'd be pretty expensive.

[Growlith1223]

Messaged you on skype

[Colonello]

Hi everyone, I really put in a lot of work in this week hoping to get as much as possible done. Chances are there probably won't be an update next week seeing as how finals are approaching very quickly. Anyway, let's get right in to it! This update contains pretty much all map/world content.

**The Forests**
Currently the forests don't serve much of a purpose besides being pretty scenery to look at. Anyway later the forests will contain things such as quests and monsters to grind on before heading in to a Deadfrost zone. Quite a few of them will also have resources to obtain and various small villages. For most of alpha these small villages will be abandoned but based on community ideas and feedback they will be transformed in to lively mini towns full of short things to do!

**The Battle Ampitheatre**
This location is an excellent place to meet up players who wish to fight in a safe environment. You can choose between friendly or betting battles. In a friendly battle no items are lost when you die, only your pride. In a betting battle any gold you bet before the battle will be given to whoever wins!

**Oceranaer**
This is a town that is completely on the ocean. Currently it's main purpose it find low to mid level fishing spots as well as being a cool area to socialize and relax with other players. This later will also be further expanded to be up to twice it's size based on community feedback.

**Deadfrost Entrances**
The last picture displays an entrance to the first Deadfrost zone. This one is a little more chaotic than most will be but it clearly marks the entrance. The main way to know, no matter where you are, is the dead, snow covered trees as well as a small layer of snow.

Pictures!

>! 
>! 
>! 
>! 

[Sekiguchi Okitsugu]

nice, very good job. but you improve the water tile, it looks a bit weird.

Seki:3

[sherwin]

On all the tiles, I like the waterfall most

[Mohenjo Daro]

I think the wood tiles for the dock could have ends so it doesn't look like one huge board lol, but the maps look neat, should be fun to see what you add next

Lol, just notices the fishermen are holding swords XD I'm guessing it's a placeholder, but still really funny

[Colonello]

@'Sekiguchi:

> nice, very good job. but you improve the water tile, it looks a bit weird.
>
> Seki:3

Thanks! I agree and I may have to find or make a different one, although it looks a lot better in-game when it's animated.

@'sherwin':

> On all the tiles, I like the waterfall most

Thank you!

@'Mohenjo:

> I think the wood tiles for the dock could have ends so it doesn't look like one huge board lol, but the maps look neat, should be fun to see what you add next
>
> Lol, just notices the fishermen are holding swords XD I'm guessing it's a placeholder, but still really funny

Yeah that's definitely something I'll have to fix, it does look a little odd. Also yeah the fishermen sprites are just temporary haha.