[WIP] Darkenlight

[stealman]

Hello,

 

I would like to introduce you my tilebased MMORPG project called Darkenlight.

 

This game is still in development, already hosted and playable but I will not open it until all features from my alpha-version checklist is done but I would like to have some ideas and oppinions from all of you as It is my first HTML5 game project. So lets start ..

 

First of all - something about me (you can skip this section I am ok with it)

 

I am 30 yrs old Java webdeveloper and I was raised on Dungeon&Dragons, Warhammer (tabletop game with miniatures), Ultima Online and all of these cool things.

As time progressed I was becoming more and more disappointed with all these new WoW clones with endless grinding and continually progressing characters without any sort of adrenaline, fear of losing something and focus on mass battles where numbers > skills. I have found myself bored and unable to find any MMO that will bring as much fun as Ultima Online did in past years.

 

Thats why I have decided to make some MMO by myself utilizing all these year of PC and pen&paper RPG experiences.

 

 

History - what did I do by now

 

I have started with Darkenlight almost 6 years ago - In first incarnation I have used just HTML+AJAX with auto-refreshing. It was ugly, slow and absolutely non-scalable. About two years later I have tried to do Applet client which was much better in terms of responsiveness and user experience but it was so time-consuming and trend was pointing towards mobile devices which doesnt support Applets so I have started all oover again - after 3 years of appleting.

 

Finally in november 2014 (one year ago) I have started HTML5 project with Tomcat Server (I had some graphics and server code from former iterations) and finally I have technology stack I am satisfied with.

 

Game - what it is supposed to be at the end

 

Darkenlight will be classic tilebased MMO - in Ultima Online style with more user-friendly UI offcourse.

I focus heavily on complex combat mechanics that rewards positioning, timing and good gear selection over simple Number1 > Number2 = WIN as many of modern games are doing. It will be described better on game website I am currently working on.

 

Game is supposed to be played in smaller parties as it used to be earlier like party of 5 people runing dungeon for several hours just to die near the end or find valuable treasure if nothing goes wrong. I am not friend of all that raid parties of 100 people steamrolling everything pushing F1 and F2 untill everything is over.

 

If you die in Darkenlight, you will drop your gear .. on the other hand, obtaining some basic gear to be usefull character dont take weeks of endless grinding here. Just as it was in older MMOs .. easy come - easy go.

 

As sandbox-like game, there is probably not going to be strict story line and quests (who still enjoy quests like kill X of Y mobs and come back then ?) There will be some "class specific quests" to obtain masteries or some special items.

 

I have much more ideas but who cares now .. lets see what I already have done

 

Game - what is done already

 

Character

  - Classes (warrior, ranger, priest, firemage)

  - Experience / Leveling

  - Skills (skills are trained by using them and they are limited by your class / level - for example as lvl 10 warrior you can have Macefighting at 20.0 max.)

  - Weapons (swords, maces, polearms, axes, bows, spears) - 250 weapons currently

  - Armors (leather, chainmail, ringmail, banded, plate, fullplate, shields) - 315 armors currently

  - Spells (firemage and priest spells)

  - Affects (spell effects, slow, poison, potion effects ..

 

Crafting

  - We have 5 gathering skills - Mining, Lumberjacking, Herbalism, Fishing, Hunting

  - We can craft weapons, armor, bows and cooking food

  - Enchanting and potion making is coming soon (this week maybe)

 

NPC

  - We have blacksmith, craftsman, healer (healer provide ressurection, bandages and potions) and banker

  - Guards are already here to protect players against wandering monsters of evil (red) PK players

 

Gameplay

  - Party system (sharing experience and gold from loot)

  - Healing with bandages, potions or spells (priest)

  - PVP is already possible with criminal (aggressor) and PK flagging

 

UI

 - I have two versions of UI - one optimized for play on PC (keyboard + mouse) and one for touchscreen devices (touch device UI is displayed on last screenshot)

 - Tested on PC, Samsung Galaxy S3 (chrome browser), IPAD (Safari browser)

 - PIXI library is used to utilize hardware acceleration

 - Particle effects for elemental attacks, spells, campfires ..

 

World

 - World consists now of one village location with NPCs and guards, one goblin fort, one mid-sized dungeon, several smaller caves and plenty of outdoor locations

 - Until game opening I am going to have locations to play until level 20 (character´s max level is 50)

 

 

Game - How does it all look like

  Are you tired of all that reading ? I know it is boring, my english could be better and at the end of the day .. who cares about words.

  I have uploaded some screenshot below and I made one short video of actual gameplay and you are welcome to visit it on link below. Sorry for bad quality, I am not good at this, youtube reduced quality so badly.

 

 Note: In latest versions, characters turn left/right and behind (it is to be seen on last two screenshots) and they are moving smoothly now (not tile-by-tile like in video).

 

 

 

  This video is several months old but it didnt change much until now.

 

Why do I post here all of this ?

  As I am close to finish everything I want to open the game to wider audience of non-developer people, I am curious what will other developers think about such project.

  I will be thankful for all suggestions of improvements and such.

 

  Actually as I am solo developer, my main problem is graphics as I struggle so much to draw something. I will be more than happy if I will be able to find someone who would like to participate on Darkenlight and could help me with artwork.

 I will need better looking worldmap and lot of objects to place into my world (you know, all that trees, stones, pillars, bonepiles ...)

 

What will be in future ?

  Who knows .. it will depend on reactions of players when game will be opened. If I will find enough of interested players I would build remaining parts of the world and coding features that are not yet implemented while game will be runing.

 

  In further future I would like to have native clients to support animations and better graphics (but it is too far from now)

[WombatTurkey]

Looks awesome, now give us a demo to play the damn thing .

[stealman]

Looks awesome, now give us a demo to play the damn thing .

 

I am going to do that when I will have website, forum and few more features done (enchanting, potion making and several more locations) and this forum will be the first place I will publish it. It will be by the end of this year for sure.

[stealman]

Hello .. If anyone might me interested, I have done some more features from my checklist

 

- Some sounds added using HOWLER.JS (problem is that after several minutes it just stop working without any report in console)

 

- Item Enchanting (with powerscrolls dropped from bosses)

 

- Item Augmentation (24 different special abilities for weapons and armor) - that was pretty big deal (see on screenshot)

 

- Meditation (to quicker replenish mana)

 

- Alignment system (good, criminal, evil)

 

- Potion crafting

 

- Balancing of all crafting requirements for hundreds of weapons, armors, potions and foods

 

- Character is walking smoothly now (not tile-pause-tile-pause .. like it was before)

 

 

Also lot of testing and performance optimization is done from both bandwidth and FPS perspective. Now I am able to have 50+ FPS on my Samsung Galaxy S3 even when attacked by 15+ mobs simultaneously.

 

Now I have last 3 steps before I am gonna open it for all

 

1. Special mana consuming abilities for Warrior and Archer (toggleable to make their gameplay more interactive)

 

2. Add several more locations to play until level cca 20 - 25

    Add one location with NPCs but without guards granting evil characters access to basic services (banking, crafting, ressurection ..)

 

3. Run some simple project web and forum

 

4. Whatever I find important during implementations of first three items

[stealman]

Hello, I have done most of remaining steps before open beta phase.

 

1. I have webpage runing already (but not yet complete all sections)

 

2. I have forum prepared for anyone who could be interested in further discussion

 

3. Special mana consuming abilities for Warrior and Archer are done already

 

4. Some new locations were created (Kobold Stronghold and Harpy Peninsula) see screenshots

 

5. Gateways / Portals added to game as well as other minor features

 

So what more is here to be done ?

 

- One more 20+ lvl location

- NPC camp without guardians (for evil players to have access to basic services)

 

Now you can look on some more screenshots from new locations