Archive for April 2002

Visitor's Center Monday, April 8, 2002 - 5:27 PM [Filed by Herok]

Serafina stopped by the various community forums and let us know that she's working on revamping the Atriarch.com Visitor's Center. Here's what she said: ok, I was working on the Visitor's Center section of atriarch.com today... finally We had an old version we did before and I will be using parts of that. However, I figured since I'm not done with it yet, I should ask everyone what they think a Visitor's Center should include. What are the first things people want to know when they visit a site for the first time? I was thinking about breaking it down into three brief sections: 1. ... completely new to online worlds 2. ... I play online games, but am new to Atriarch 3. ... Atriarch veteran who needs a quick reference What do you think? I would like to hear your opinion. Thanks! Serafina Lead Game Designer World Fusion Comments: Opinions?

Big World fun Saturday, April 6, 2002 - 10:13 AM [Filed by Herok]

Spotted this over at ATVault: Amarus, posted to our developers board with a question about a problem as old as the internet. "I am concerned about the great big LagMonster." Since World fusion is planning on only having one server for the North American continent per 50,000 people that play, he is curious what solution the developers have come up with to combat lag in Atriarch . Jaruh jumped in to provide some technical answers to the question: Actually, I think World Fusion means that they want one world per area depending on publisher desire/decision, but that doesn't mean they couldn't set up colocation server-farms (especially since the beowulf cluster is a server farm unto itself anyway) around the countries (ie. in Canada too!) He then followed up with this: Ahh, yes, the shard-syndrome Quick Answer: Atriarch is built with a Beowulf server cluster and uses UDP to transport packets rather than TCP/IP. UDP is connectionless, the Beowulf servers are on a highspeed extremely low network latency cluster. I'm sure there are even more ways that World Fusion has managed that, but i'm a front-end blackbox type. Thanks Jaruh! Thanks DQ!

Atriarch Pre-Development Release Saturday, April 6, 2002 - 10:00 AM [Filed by Herok]

One of the other things Serafina mentioned in chat was that an online magazine seems to think Atriarch is already on the shelves. Unfortunately its not true, but great to see that everyone is still hopeful! In other news, we'll have it confirmed sometime Tuesday as to whether Atriarch will be at E3 in an official capacity.

Atriarch at E3 2002 Saturday, April 6, 2002 - 1:21 AM [Filed by Herok]

Iroko sent in a few logs from the last couple of days (Thanks!!!). Within in them were some amazing comments from Serafina. Here's just one snippet: Drasius on the Ocean {Serafina} I just saw the first screens on the Eshlar continent. They are beautiful. {Serafina} We had been putting off doing some Eshlar stuff, but we finally bit the bullet and did it. {Serafina} We began working on the city of Drasius in the Gloran Region. {Serafina} Nobody here probably cares, but I thought I would do something unusual for once and start off by actually giving some information about Atriarch ;-) {Serafina} Drasius is along the ocean and has a bay with a huge platform in the middle of it. {Serafina} a mining platform {EolirinXianve} Eshlar woo woo {EolirinXianve} Eshlar r teh r0x {Serafina} lol {Serafina} Well, ok, my work here is done. Want to interact with the makers of the best game not yet on the shelves? Get on the forums or into chat today!

Volcano Engine and the ACE/TAO Thursday, April 4, 2002 - 10:35 PM [Filed by Herok]

Serafina let me know that ARC posted a nice response at flipcode.com to a question about the interaction between World Fusion's Volcano Engine and some third party code. Here's the snippet she provided at Atriarch.com "Communication between clients and servers uses a custom protocol that we created in C++. We have ostensibly named this protocol ROMP: Remote Object Messaging Protocol. The name comes from the fact that the engine software is 100% object-oriented; hence all communications are messages that invoke operations on remote objects." Its great to have some insight into the hidden depths of game development. Thanks for the peek!

Another Petition Thursday, April 4, 2002 - 6:45 PM [Filed by Herok]

Another "make fun free" petitions has hit the community. "With the creation of the computer whole new worlds were available to the general public. It was seen as a device that would be available to all freely, a thing that would make all equal. This was the dream of the world. The dream no longer exists. It seems that along the way this dream became unobtainable. It became exactly as it was, but a dream. Then the internet came into being. Yet another haven for those who want to leave behind differences of the world. Yet the internet too became corrupt. Monthly fees for internet services have put large spaces of nothingness in many peoples' wallets. Almost everything becomes commercialized in modern day. We have all learned that nothing is without a price. Well here is the point that I have led to: Help make Atriarch not another one of those ruined dreams. We know that everyone needs to make money, and if the game is truly as fabulous as everyone says it is, then they deserve extra money. But a pay per month billing eventually takes thousands out of your bank account. IN signing this you are petitioning to have Atriarch use a per-for-software or pay-per-character billing method. Please, sign the petition so that the dream that is Atriarch will become reality. Serafina replied: "uh, just out of curiosity. If it isn't pay-for-play or subscription, then how will we support the game? Also, how will be make back the money we've already spent over the past several years? If you have a plan that would work, I'm all ears." Jaruh replied: "Also, continued subscription fuels budgets for continued content. Single player games release new purchaseable expansion content--often at the same price as the original game. However, I'd love to see some form of 'distributable server' in return for a slight subscription discount...that way the powerusers take on some of the responsibility for their bandwidth hogging. Of course, its not going to happen anytime soon with any massive game" If you're still interested, you can go sign the petition (read either of those threads for the link) since everyone's welcome to the right to express themselves, but I don't know that this issue has a simple solution.

Crafting Tidbit Thursday, April 4, 2002 - 5:43 PM [Filed by Herok]

Serafina stopped by the chatroom to talk with the community. Here is a tidbit. Synthetic materials for craftable items: EolirinXianve : Serafina, please describe the entire crafting system. Serafina : EolirinXianve... there are three stages to the crafting process. EolirinXianve : Elaborate. Serafina : There is the assembly which only requires separate types of pieces to be assembled. Serafina : There is the materials which allows you to make new stuff from materials. Serafina : Then there are the chemicals which allow you to make custom material synthetics which are not found in nature. Serafina : That is all I will say. Serafina : Now stop asking questions. DavidQuick : k EolirinXianve : Never! DavidQuick : oh right... NEVER! Serafina : nooooooo! Webhosting for Factions, post release: TheGoodReverend : serafina- oo, i know, at release, what do you think about World Fusion, or the publisher, or some outsourced company providing webhosting for factions that would be billed to either the leader's game account or the amount being divided up among the members account. it could provide other tools such as page building templates, theme gfx, etc.? Serafina : TheGoodReverend... I think that is a great idea and we have in fact looked into it. Serafina : TheGoodReverend... if you have good ideas about it, then I recommend you post about it. See how everyone else likes the idea. Maybe I can make it a topic of the week. New Unarra design: DavidQuick : So serafina, general time frame, unarra concept art this month or maybe next? Serafina : DavidQuick... actually, I'm trying to put something together with the Unarra with a big news site. Serafina : Something like... the history of female aliens, etc Thanks DQ and Iroko for the log captures! You can find the full log here.

Pathfinding A-okay Wednesday, April 3, 2002 - 4:48 AM [Filed by Herok]

Over in the forums at ATStratics, Darkwolf offered a suggested link to a pathfinding algorithm: Serafina recently said that WorldFusion is having some trouble with pathfinding in the everchanging environnment of atriana. Some guy named tony stentz is working on a pathfinding algorithm based on the A* algorithm that would work in dynamic environments; explanation of the A* algorithm. Serafina answered, Yes, thank you Dark_Wolf. Not only are we familiar with A* but it is what our pathing is based on. Unfortunately, that doesn't solve our problems. A* still doesn't solve the problem of a round world and a game where the terrain and environment is not in a controlled scenario. If we had to do it over again, we would make Atriarch a flat world instead of a true globe. It would make life a billion times easier. Serafina Lead Game Designer World Fusion/Atriarch

Player2Player Interview Tuesday, April 2, 2002 - 2:35 PM [Filed by Herok]

In preparation for an interview with Serafina, Atriarch's lead designer, Player2Player.net is asking for your questions about Atriarch. Here's one that caught my eye: Mahrin Skel (Dave Rickey from DAOC): Yeah, ask her when I'll get my beta account? Seriously, I got to see Atriarch at GDC, and I thought it was really cool. The building-blocks approach to player-created buildings was what really sold me, it's not going to be easy for some people to master, but a lot easier than trying to learn traditional 3D modelling, and almost as flexible. Serafina: MahrinSkel, if you send your publisher our way (or maybe the winning Lottery ticket numbers for next week), then maybe we could put you and everyone else in beta much sooner :) Thanks to Serafina for pointing this out! Comments: Go Ask your Questions!

Informal Poll Tuesday, April 2, 2002 - 2:31 PM [Filed by Herok]

Jaruh stopped by the community forums to ask the community when they want to chat with World Fusion: Serafina asked me to co-ordinate an informal poll in the community. World Fusion would like to schedule hour-long chats with the community on a weekly basis. The goal would be to discuss and/or debate game design in general and with regard to Atriarch. However, to better maximize the opportunity, we'd like to know whether a set weekly or mixed schedule works best, and if a set weekly time, what day/hour works for most people. Thanks in advance for the constructive comments! Jaruh Get in there and let World Fusion know! They want to talk with YOU! Comments: When would you like to chat?

Askew View #50 Tuesday, April 2, 2002 - 2:24 PM [Filed by Herok]

Scrudge returns from working too much to give us a new Askew. We're Back!

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