Thread: Designing an MMORPG

  1. #46
    Deprecated Dae's Avatar
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    Good to hear you werent too depressed to quit your engine, Bubba, but its just too bad about losing those GTA saves ... .. So what is the purpose of the 2D editor anyway? with your 3D engine in the works and all I assume its a seperate project.. that is in progress for some reason.

    Thats sweet, X PaYnE X. Of course he's got a lot more training and experience though.

    I'll also need to study DirectX while we make it too. Looks like two of the others that volunteered would need to study some more C++ too. Should be fun though.

    Lets see if gamingdl'er, ElastoManiac, Raigne, myself, and jmd15 can meet in IRC sometime soon. Maybe tomorrow night 7pm PST, or sometime friday to make sure everyones available.

    I also like gamingdl'er's enthusiasm for "small mmorpg" or online, but I don't it would be a good idea to rule out making a single-player game instead. So far I know myself and Raigne would prefer single-player. I don't know if we could port it to be multi-player (we'd have to think ahead on many things), but since we wont be reading a DirectX book on multi-player games, but one on single-player games, it would be a hassle to skip to multi-player. Thats just my opinion, and something we could talk about if we meet on IRC.
    Last edited by Dae; 11-28-2005 at 06:27 PM. Reason: typo
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  2. #47
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    Well, if you can get all of them together and set for a specific time I can be online just about anytime.

  3. #48
    C++ Enthusiast jmd15's Avatar
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    Sounds good, I too can be online at almost anytime except on weekdays before 3:30 PM (Eastern(Michigan) Time). A single-player game to start does sound like a good route. I mean, if we really wanted to(after making the single player game) we could try and port it to online play. I can use Winsock fairly well, so other internet libraries shouldn't be hard to get the hang of. The pressing matter, for me(and it sounds like Dae too), is learning DirectX and getting proficient with it. This does sound like it will be a fun project with all of us working together on it. We should set a time and date to meet on an IRC.
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  4. #49
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    The 2D editor is for a fan game I'm working on at the moment. I came to a dead-end with XSpace because I cannot create 3D models - essentially I suck at building them. So I faced the fact that I'm an engine programmer, not a 3D model maker and was waiting to gather some people to work on it. I could probably code the program again from memory but I really need to invest time in the editor. MFC is a confuzzled mess but it does get the job done and it's far better than pure Win32, although MFC often falls short in the GUI functions that it supports. Frequently I find myself calling the API to do this or that.

    XSpace is not dead per se, but it is for now. I had another game which was an asteroids clone but I was re-writing the sprite code because although ID3DXSprite is a nice interface, it has no support for actually getting to the vertex data of the sprites. So it's hard to build a bounding box for your sprites.

    I'm still hard at work on the editor and I'll let you know when it is ready.

  5. #50
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    While you're around Bubba, any books you'd recommend for DirectX?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dae
    I'm really struggling here Bubba. I've found at least 3 good books, and 3 good tutorials on OpenGL. However, I've only managed to find one book with a good rating/review for DirectX, "Introduction to 3D Game Programming With DirectX 9.0" - which gets a 5 star rating even though its actually about Direct3D. The others are either quick mock ups, have major errors and such, plainly just aren't that good, or are in C# and still not that good. "Advanced 3D Game Programming Using DirectX 9.0" doesn't get a great review, but I could settle and read that one too, or "Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus (2nd Edition)" even though its poorly written and by.. LaMothe. Do you have any recommendations? even if it requires me to settle on one thats okay.
    I can't decide because I'm going to have to pick one of the not-that-great, but one-of-the-best, books eventually, and I'm not sure which.
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  6. #51
    C++ Enthusiast jmd15's Avatar
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    Dae, what compiler do you use? I'm fighting with Dev-C++ to try and make it work with DirectX. I looked at some books on DirectX and a lot of them don't seem too helpful. I might just stick with online tutorials for this one. Found some pretty cool OpenGL books though.
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  7. #52
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    www.gamedev.net

    Look at their books section.

  8. #53
    Deprecated Dae's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jmd15
    Dae, what compiler do you use? I'm fighting with Dev-C++ to try and make it work with DirectX. I looked at some books on DirectX and a lot of them don't seem too helpful. I might just stick with online tutorials for this one. Found some pretty cool OpenGL books though.
    VC++ 6, but I would really hate to use that for this project because 1) we would probably all need to use the same compiler, and VC++ 6 isn't free, and 2) VC++ 6 is crap. It'd be nice if we all had Visual Studio 2005 >.< - but it looks like we're stuck with Dev-Cpp. I haven't gotten to the code in my DirectX book yet, but theres got to be a way to get it to work in Dev-Cpp :-/.

    OpenGL and DirectX are essentially the same, but so far the advantages/disadvantages go as so:

    OpenGL: - ability to be multi-platform, which is a benefit in a serious game, but in ours I doubt we would be porting it to a different platform.
    - some nice open source games, and general code, at nehe.gamedev.net.
    - good documentation and tutorials.
    - slightly easier to learn.
    - a disadvantage would be having to use the GLUT wrapper, imo, because its old and I dont want to learn it.
    - an advantage, and disadvantage, would be learning Qt instead of GLUT, which is a very good wrapper, but harder to learn.

    Direct3D: - included in DirectX and would make the overall game easier to make not having to worry about SDL or wrappers.
    - more books dedicated to game programming.
    - might require a microsoft compiler

    I'm starting to sway in which one I want to learn. Its such a hard choice eh.
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  9. #54
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    Well if everyone else has windows XP (I dont im stuck with ME) then you guys can get Microsofts Visual Studio 2005 Express ( It is free and downloads relativily fast from microsoft. I would just be stuck with dev c++ until I get my new OS (new comp lol). I just wont bealbe to get into help coding any of the OpenGL stuff until after i get my new comp. Hoepfully not to long from now) and as far as Dev C++ goes (I think it supports openGL) not sure tho. Up until my OpenGL quit on me the Dev C++ compiler compiled the example programs and such with no problem.

  10. #55
    C++ Enthusiast jmd15's Avatar
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    I didn't think we we're going to use OpenGL? Dev-C++ does support OpenGL, I have used it before. I have Windows XP and a laptop with 98. For 2D graphics, I don't think OpenGL would be the best choice. If it was 3D graphics I would definitely want to go with OpenGL.
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  11. #56
    Deprecated Dae's Avatar
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    Well I figured if everyone agreed with doing single-player, then going 3D wouldn't be a problem - in fact it would be better.

    We should dicuss all this in IRC though, opengl vs directx, etc. Me and Raigne are in Major_Smalls #tech, and in #C++. Too bad the OP isn't around atm.
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  12. #57
    C++ Enthusiast jmd15's Avatar
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    Could you send me the IRC IP address and port number?
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  13. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bubba
    ...because although ID3DXSprite is a nice interface, it has no support for actually getting to the vertex data of the sprites. So it's hard to build a bounding box for your sprites.
    That's strange, I would have thought that would be basic functionality.

  14. #59
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Well check the docs. I cannot find one interface function that actually lets you access the underlying vertices. So it came down to creating my own set in software and updating them as well. But I thought, if I'm doing that then what advantage is their to using ID3DXSprite? None. So I coded my own version and it actually ran better than the D3DX one.

    The way I alter the bounding boxes after rotating is to rotate the quad and re-create the bounding box from the new vertices. It does not work to just rotate the bounding box because the box might expand or contract based on the object. But if you cannot get to the vertex data then how are you supposed to do this?

    I have no idea. Now you see why I dumped it.

    Nice interface, but not the best.
    Last edited by VirtualAce; 11-29-2005 at 08:44 PM.

  15. #60
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    Quote Originally Posted by ElastoManiac
    I noticed that most FPS players nowdays are playing Tibia.
    Strange... But that won't last for long.
    lol tibia is a cool game if you site down and play it not to fab but
    its a fun pking game lol

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