I'm seriously considering making a spiritual successor.

[Skillasaur]

Don't talk to me about Romanticisms. I just did an entire degree which seemed to revolve around them x.x

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

Don't talk to me about Romanticisms. I just did an entire degree which seemed to revolve around them x.x

Sounds fun, except for the whole "forced to learn something that should normally be fun and expressive, but instead getting graded on your creative freedom (hence lack there of)"

 

[Red Cell]

Wow did I miss a lot.

To Orochi, it takes a real man to realize and admit his own mistakes, so thank you for that. Also, thank you for at least trying. Coming from a similar experience where leadership is dropped in your lap you're not prepared for, it's a difficult and time consuming endeavour, so I feel you.

To Xeropace and Skillasaur, thank you for taking the time out to, once again, at least try to progress this great game. I'm not really tech savvy, but if you need any help with anything, I'll do my best to help make it happen.

 

[Skillasaur]

At the moment this is pretty much all Xeropace. I don't know coding or modelling to the extent necessary to be useful so I'm just doing the same as people here - providing advice or ideas when I can.

 

[Xeropace]

You should learn to model... And animate... And texture (Everyone should !)

 

[Regorty]

You should learn to model... And animate... And texture (Everyone should !)

I already got enough work to do with mapping and now textures, if I were to try to model and animate I'd never get anything done.

 

[ceriux]

i do all that xD i wont lie it does mess with my progress i guess...

 

[Xeropace]

Well I'm still working on it, albeit slowly. Been messing around with rigging and animating, and various small scripts.

Currently you can still register, login, create a character, join a server, to where you can then run around with other players. You can jump, enter/exit combat mode and attack (when in combat mode). Currently you can only punch as there are no weapons. Attacking technically does nothing other than play an animation.

This is recorded from a players POV, looking at another player:



(Ignore the pixelated shadows, it's just a test light at the moment, graphics aren't that important right now)

I don't have a player model yet so I'm currently using a default unity one called RobotKyle. The animations are 'Humanoid' animations though, so they can be retargetted to other models. I need to add in a rudimentary combat system next (ray casting when attacking), a basic 'enemy' (red cube anyone?) and it would be nice to get some first person animations done (seeing just your hands)

 

[Red Cell]

HOLY SHIIIIIIIIITTTTTT you've already done all of that???!!!!

 

[zeus9860]

That actually looks funny. Hehe, nice!

 

[Xeropace]

HOLY SHIIIIIIIIITTTTTT you've already done all of that???!!!!

I've not done that much to be honest. It's mainly been research into how to do stuff in Unity. Using placeholder models and animations speeds up the prototyping process but obviously will require an art pass later down the line.

Since I recorded that gif, I've fixed it so names always look flat towards the camera (it was rotating with the player previously), this is just for testing purposes as I doubt I'll want floating names in the game (it'd get a bit cluttered). Also, the names are now your character's name instead of database IDs I was using for testing

That actually looks funny. Hehe, nice!

I'm using Half-Life/Source as inspiration, so the whole bendy spine and rotating on the spot comes from that Whilst it's not 100% 'realistic' I think it bridges the gap between gameplay and imagination fine.

 

[Red Cell]

I gotta say, it's great to see you've already made progress! You're doing a great job!

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

I gotta say, it's great to see you've already made progress! You're doing a great job!

Literally more progress than MS:S ever saw since its conception. I think it's amazing to see a game be created from bare bones... Keep at it man!

(Also happy birthday redcell!)

 

[Xeropace]

You can now punch red cubes with angry faces to kill them (and the server... For some reason a mob dying crashes the server Apparently it's a bug in the networking asset I'm using, a patch was released yesterday that solves the issue). Not sure what I need to do next now... Maybe first person models/animations, maybe a basic chat system (mainly so "Player connected/disconnected" messages can be shown), or even starting to work on getting things like exp from killing things

Players currently have no concept of health either as the mobs have no AI and just sit there and let you punch them.

 

[Xeropace]

Punching things no longer crashes the server.

Also, I added a really basic chat system:
http://gfycat.com/DentalVastAcornbarnacle

 

[Red Cell]

That looks great! I'm glad you got the punching down, I can't wait to punch some red cubes.

 

[Regorty]

That looks great! I'm glad you got the punching down, I can't wait to punch some red cubes.

I wanna help punch red cubes too!

 

[Xeropace]

I want to get some first person animations done next so the player can actually see what they're doing. Then maybe some particles for hitting walls/monsters for some feedback on your attacks.

After that, I could technically release a playable build. There'd be no progression and you'd be fenced in a tiny plain map, where you punch infinitely re-spawning red cubes.

The main concern I have with a public build is that you would need to register/sign up with youremail(so you can get access to your characters). I'm unsure of how many people would actually want to do that at this stage. I can gaurantee you it's all secure, passwords encrypted, etc. Thinking about it, I technically could make a bunch of 'dummy' accounts that don't require a real email address.

 

[Red Cell]

That would be awesome to release a playable build, no matter how simple it is. It'll only build more hype with future releases. It's pretty awesome what you are doing and I think I can speak for a majority of the community when I say thanks for putting in the time to make this!

I wouldn't be concerned with using my e-mail address. However, would my log-in carry over with future updates?

 

[Xeropace]

However, would my log-in carry over with future updates?

At the moment I can't make any guarantees it will but at the same time, I don't see why it wouldn't. Your log-in should always be available but things like Characters may get wiped/deleted as I haven't finalised how I'm going to handle things like that. Plus the first idea of things like exp and stats won't be final for a long time. So growth will be massively accelerated to begin with, to speed up testing.

The master accounts should be safe though, it's just an ID, Email Address, password salt and hashed password in the database. Very generic Log in stuff (e.g. I could easily use the same log-in data to let you login to a MasterSword website, like forums as well as the game - but there's no plan for things like that).

 

[Stoned]

Xeropace please do not lose your focus on this project! You are doing all of us a favor that have absolutely no obligation to do or even finish. Is there anything that we can do to make this worth your while? Perhaps charitable donations? On a side note, if this does get finish, will MSC (perhaps it will be rechristened something new in the future) be sold as a retail game instead a free one?

 

[Red Cell]

Seriously, we really, really, REALLY appreciate what you are doing. We are all rooting for you and I know it's gonna be a long road till a stable release, but damn, just the thought of it gets me excited!

Thanks a ton Xero.

 

[Skillasaur]

With regard to releasing as a commercial game you'd have to get someone legal involved as being inspired by a Half-Life Mod, MS:U would likely owe some Intellectual Property rights to Valve and MS team. You'd need to work out how different MS:U would have to be to get around that (as I imagine even finding the original MS team would be hard at this point.)

 

[Thothie]

Again, there's no legal issues, given the time span, and lack of any effort to create and maintain a copyright on the Mastersword end. There might be some moral ones, but that'd be it. I mean... If you made a "Lanethan" epic scale movie that brought in better than a million dollars, then you *might* be subject to a civil suit, and sadly, Dan would probably still lose (and probably not have the cash to out lawyer you, and battle you beyond small claims anyways - not that you wouldn't settle out of pity.)

However, the days of the pay2play MPRPG's are rapidly coming to an end. If you wanted to make money on it, I'd stick with a free to play model, and sell hats, or some such. Preferably decorative stuff that doesn't really affect game play, just shows your support and l337ness, if you wanna avoid the pay2win model. It's the modern, kinder gentler, progressive sliding fee business model.

Not that there's any point in discussing that at this particular juncture. Just sayin... Ain't no thing.

 

[Xeropace]

I can't accept any money right now, I've barely put any work in and at this stage can't promise anything, so I'd feel pretty crappy. I spend a few hours of my free time every couple of days to work on it, but I enjoy the process. I like to code, I like to learn.

As for plans to monetise, that's so far off that I haven't given it any seriously thought. It opens up a whole other array of problems and areas that I have no experience in. I did think about cosmetics, boosters etc but I'm not a huge fan of that model. I'd be more comfortable with a fixed price purchase but that would require a lot of content before it could release, as I'm not a huge fan of all this early access stuff, plus I think people are starting to get weary due to people failing to deliver.