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Age of settlement

Discussion in 'Works In Progress - Archive' started by virror, Feb 24, 2012.

  1. virror

    virror

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    Hello, i am developing this game with a friend from Germany.
    Age of settlement is a Adventure/RTS sandbox game with influences from games like Stronghold, Minecraft and others.
    Its a first person game were you can adventure with your friends, build your settlement and the castle of your dreams!

    Latest downloads here:
    www.dragoworks.com/AgeOfSettlement/AoS_Win008.rar
    www.dragoworks.com/AgeOfSettlement/AoS_Mac008.rar

    Core features planed:
    • Explore a never ending world generated on the fly as you move
    • Digging
    • Cutting trees
    • Mining
    • Building your castle brick by brick
    • Building buildings
    • Hire workers to help you gather resources, build stuff and dig
    • Craft new weapons, tools and armors
    • Fight monsters
    • Play with your friends through network support
    • Some kind of modding support

    Currently we only have the first three features implemented and basic stone mining, but as soon as they are bug free we will start implementing the other parts as well starting with the building and then the workers. I will try to post about our progress about once a week. You can also follow us on facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dragoworks/386962837984138.

    Images:

    $420578_390770590936696_386962837984138_1629697_1191942256_n.jpg
    Showing some digging

    $Wall.png
    Castle wall concept

    $420578_390770594270029_386962837984138_1629698_524930369_n.jpg
    Some more digging

    $Blocks.png
    Castle blocks concept


    Current roadmap:
    V 0.1.0
    • Functioning Menu
    • Languages Eng/De
    • Procedural created Terrain
    • Procedural placed trees
    • Cutting trees and destroying rocks
    • Inventory
    • Working .ini stuff
    V 0.2.0
    • Network release
    • Single player saving
    • Multiplayer saving
    • Auto patch server
    V 0.3.0
    • Simple castle brick placement
    • Simple building, stockpile
    • More eye-candy, like grass
    V 0.4.0
    • More castle parts
    • Workers
    • Stone quarry
    • House
    V 0.5.0
    • Crafting
    • Random mineral distribution
    • Iron resource
    • Mine and minable tunnels
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2012
  2. Bezduch

    Bezduch

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    So you can modify the terrain in the game ? I really like the idea :).

    Btw, I think elements like that wall/gate should be a single object. Whole castle built from blocks like that whould have way too many polygons.
     
  3. larvantholos

    larvantholos

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    Actually, looking at the blocks as they are laid out, not so many polys :)
     
  4. VinceD413

    VinceD413

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    This game reminds me of the game Wurmonline, Looks very fun!
     
  5. Bezduch

    Bezduch

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    That gate is made of 40 blocks
    each block = 6 sides ( there are two that have more )
    each side = 2 polys

    2*6*40 = ~480 poly
    As a single object, this could have probably less than 100 poly :p
     
  6. virror

    virror

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    VinceD413: Wurm online is a big inspiration for me for this game, i love it : D
    Bezduch: We plan to have both blocks and segments, that way yoo get less polys but still keep the flexibility.

    Edit: Added the missing facebook link at top post.
     
  7. Dragoworks

    Dragoworks

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    Hey Guys,
    Im Frank, and the second developer of the game.

    Actually, there WILL be things like wall segments, buildings etc.
    And even as no Gate is planned yet, it will probably come.. and if its just for the gate to close and open nicely ;)

    Anyways.. think of Minecraft. A gate, walls etc. out of blocks WILL work out..
    Could be a bit tricky regarding the mechanism.. but it can, and will ;)

    Greetings
     
  8. markusb

    markusb

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  9. Dragoworks

    Dragoworks

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    Well its just so we have atleast SOME artwork :p
    We wont use anything from sketchup for ingame..

    for that i have my Maya2012 licence and an artist too :)

    An example of the nice work of our artist would be:



    Which is our Main menu in work ;)

    Greetings
     
  10. ModernCGI

    ModernCGI

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    I have used sketchup for 6+ years and have a pro license if you would like me to model anything for you.
     
  11. Dragoworks

    Dragoworks

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    Well we have no money, so we cant buy anything ;)

    But if you want to model stuff, feel free to do so!

    New trees + animations would be nice..

    Many different rocks of different sizes (so you cant just mine stone from the ground ;) )
    we dont need buildings at the moment, as we have no mechanism for that yet.
    But nice Icons for pickaxe shovel and other tools / weapons are also welcome.

    As well as tools + animation for the screen itself.. as we want some animation for you to know what youre doing.
    It shouldnt use more screenspace then the minecrat animations though :)

    Greetings, and thanks in case you want to model something.
     
  12. virror

    virror

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    As Frank stated, we are only using sketchup for concept work cause its very quick to use.
    Main menu is now all done with all settings and stuff : D
    Maybe we will upload a webplayer demo later when v0.1 is done.

    Edit: Why did no one tell me the image descriptions was wrong : p Fixed now anyways.
     
  13. virror

    virror

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    New screenshot, this time of the main menu. Menu itself is all done with all graphical settings, key bindings and stuff. Background image is still WIP though.

    $MainMenu(WIP).jpg
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2012
  14. jc_lvngstn

    jc_lvngstn

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    I noticed in your first screenshot (shows digging) that the borders between the dirt tile and grass tiles are very well defined. So you are using a custom terrain engine?
     
  15. Dragoworks

    Dragoworks

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    Nope, as much as i know its the old plain standard terrain.

    Just a bit modified by victor.
     
  16. jc_lvngstn

    jc_lvngstn

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    My mistake...the dirt height is actually above the grass around it, not level. I'm seeing the edge of the hill :)
     
  17. Dragoworks

    Dragoworks

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    yes, but you can also have dirt at the same level as grass..

    you just change the texture.. technically that is :)
    this way we will also implement streets, gravel and stuff..
    So if you want to make a nice stone street.. you need stones in the inventory.. or whatever we think of, and just place it down :)

    Maybe you wont have as much posibilities as Minecraft, but you have different ones :)
     
  18. StormGamer

    StormGamer

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    great idea guys, i like your progress also the main menu looks totaly awsome!
     
  19. Dragoworks

    Dragoworks

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    Thanks :)

    Actually, the Terrain is Victors stuff,

    the GUI mine.. (and other things of course too ;))

    For the great Image of the menu, you have to thank Carina, our Artist :)
     
  20. virror

    virror

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    Thank you very much for the great comments : )
    We hope to be done with the bug hunting soon so we can continue to implement some other cool features : D
     
  21. virror

    virror

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    Here is the current roadmap for the game. We decided to do the notwork stuff as early as possible, because it would be a pain to implement that afterwards. Also added this to the top post.

    Edit: Also, follow uss on twitter! @Dragoworks

    Current roadmap:
    V 0.1.0
    • Functioning Menu
    • Languages Eng/De
    • Procedural created Terrain
    • Procedural placed trees
    • Cutting trees and destroying rocks
    • Inventory
    • Working .ini stuff
    V 0.2.0
    • Network release
    • Single player saving
    • Multiplayer saving
    V 0.3.0
    • Build camera
    • Simple castle brick placement
    • Simple building, stockpile
    • More eye-candy, like grass
    V 0.4.0
    • More castle parts
    • Workers
    • Stone quarry
    • House
    • Even more eye-candy
    V 0.5.0
    • Crafting
    • Random mineral distribution
    • Iron mine, iron resource
     
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2012
  22. virror

    virror

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    Drag drop interface added to the inventory : D Not a lot of time to work on this now when im in Japan, but i try to use the time i have left to work on the game. A lot of fixes and small additions have also been made this week. My hope was to get a pre alpha demo out this eekend, but im starting to doubt that will happen. Will probably be pushed to mid next week sometimes.
     
  23. Wolfos

    Wolfos

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    You're using Sketchup D:
    Anyway, this is looking pretty good.
     
  24. virror

    virror

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    As we stated earlier, sketchup is only used to make concept images, Maya is used for modeling.
     
  25. markusb

    markusb

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    You could post a little webplayer :)
     
  26. Dragoworks

    Dragoworks

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    We are at it ;)

    Actually, its already implemented in our crappy Homepage (though not visible ;)),

    but there are some problems.
    The player doesnt know Inis, so it doesnt know any settings and you cant really move.

    But thats easy to fix!

    Once 0.1.0 is finished, we will release a Demo anyways.
     
  27. Alec

    Alec

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    Looks very promising, I can guarantee you that if you make something that's accessibly offline and requires less grinding than Wurm, you will definitely get players.

    This disgruntled Wurm player being one of them. :p
     
  28. virror

    virror

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    Thamk you for the kind words : )
    My thought when figuring out the gameplay was kind of like this:

    What do i like? Answer: Games like minecraft and wurm because of the freedom, adventuring, networking and building
    What do i dont like about them? Answer: The grinding and ability to play offline at your own pace

    Solution: Make my own game inspired by those games, throw in some single player, faster pace, workers that help you grind and lots of building : D

    Hope more ppl will like the concept.
     
  29. jc_lvngstn

    jc_lvngstn

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    I know of a few others who are doing the same thing, it's great! I also played minecraft and wurm, and loved the creativity of them. There were other things I really wished were different, so I decided some time ago to make my own.

    Something I've found so far:
    Wurm has been a big inspiration for my own project. Terraforming, harvesting, etc.
    In doing so, I've found that a lot of my systems definitely build upon the same concepts and implementations that wurm had. What I mean by that is, initially, they are similar to wurm's at a basic level.

    For example: Wurm has a 4 meter x 4 meter tile size. I could choose a smaller size, but that means my terrain has more detail. Big deal, right?
    The problem is, when you terraform or remove trees in the terrains, there is a delay on the player side while this happens. The more detailed the terrain is you are in, the greater the lag. Imagine if every time someone chopped down a tree in your area, you experienced a 1/2 second hitch. That would be horrible, especially when multiple people were chopping trees!
    I didn't -exhaustively- test this, but I decided that the 4mx4m tile size was good enough, and around 1000-2000 trees per terrain section.

    Another example:
    Item Quality, weight, and damage. All stats wurm uses, and I didn't want to just copy/pase wurm's features. I wanted to do my own thing where it made -sense-.
    I initially thought about tossing out item quality...but it's just too good of a thing. If you make a barrel with crappy nails, you get a barrel with less quality. It's just makes sense.
    So then, I thought about tossing out weight. Fine, no biggie. But wait...it's one of the best ways of determining how much you can carry. Or how much ANY container can hold.
    Not to mention...if you make something from a pine log in wurm, like a 5 kg board...it reduces the weight of the log by 5kg. Works great! If you didn't do that, then you would have to make X boards per log, and always produce X amount of boards at a time. It's a solution...but not a good one imo.

    Damage? I need item damage for my project.

    Now...if your project uses less 'realism' in the mechanics, I guess some of those stats could go.

    My point is...a lot of the mechanics in wurm are well thought out and make sense! So, in many cases, I had two choices: Get rid of mechanics that make sense so my project could be "different" and not be called wurm 2.0. Or, keep the mechanics and build on them, improve them if possible. I chose the 2nd route...and have since discovered some very nice ideas that do just that.
    Even the grind makes sense, but some of it is just silly imo. Failing to make kindling? Blah!

    One more example: Rock layer and dirt layer. I initially wanted to not have to worry about having a rock layer. But if you allow tunneling...it's hard NOT to. But that means ...ouch. Now now you basically have to make two terrains, one for the rock layer and one for the dirt layer. I feel that doing this by hand was out of the question, because my terrain is a bit more realistic than wurm and would take a LONG time to do well. So I had to come up with a way to have both be somewhat realistic, but not takes weeks of hand editing the terrain. I developed a formula that could calculate the rock layer, but under certain situations it produced unacceptable results. So I found another solution that works pretty well.

    Anyway...sorry, got a little long winded there. It's a very interesting subject to me :)
    Best of luck on your project!
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2012
  30. virror

    virror

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    Interesting read! You don have any WIP page here on the forums?
    We are using a different approach here, we dont want to be a copy of Wurm, we are trying to create something more uniqe, a nice blend between a wurm style game and a stronghold type of game, kind of a RPG/Adventure/RTS hybrid. Thats why we will tone down some of the "realistic" things to be able to focus on the other aspects of the game. But that does not mean some of them wont be introduced later, just that they are not the main focus right now. We are focusing on the things that wil make our game stand out from the masses first, then we can focus on the other stuff later : )

    Btw, you are going for a MMO or just network play? Will probably test your game as soon as its possible, sound good : D
     
  31. jc_lvngstn

    jc_lvngstn

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    I don't plan on having a WIP page until I actually have at least a test server running, that people can log into, with most of the core systems in place :) My goal is for a MOG...not necessarily massive, but multiplayer :)
     
  32. virror

    virror

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    As long as you have started its WIP : p
    We dont plan on making out game online, more Minecraft multiplayer style with savable games so you can play with friends and come back next day to continue playing.
     
  33. jc_lvngstn

    jc_lvngstn

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    A lot of the systems I have are very similar...at the beginning. But there are some things with crafting, villages, and creatures in the world I plan on greatly expanding on. As dangerous as wurm is...I plan on making my world even more challenging, but I also want to make it more rewarding. I also want to make certain systems in the game more convenient to work with, without taking out the investment players put into them by putting in the time and effort.
     
  34. virror

    virror

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    I hope to have the early pre-alpha out by tomorrow. Not a lot of stuff in game, but the earlier we can get feedback, the less things to tweak and we can move on to the next thing on the list : )

    Terrain is taking a LOT of my time, hard to make terrain that's random, can be saved, that supports workers and stuff moving when player is not there, works good with multiplayer + multiplayer saving and is good for fps : / Biggest problem for me is that instantiating terrain is taking a lot of time, so its gets laggy. I guess i have to move over to some custom terrain solutions soon : /
     
    Last edited: Mar 6, 2012
  35. jc_lvngstn

    jc_lvngstn

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    I'm having to split my world terrain into smaller terrains, so that instantiating and modifying isn't so laggy. But that might not work well for your project, and it definitely adds some complexities. I've thought about a custom terrain solution...but I'm not willing to go that route yet if I don't have to. Yet :\
     
  36. virror

    virror

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    Now sure how to do yet, the Unity terrain do have a load of drawbacks, but making a custom terrain solution takes up a whole lot of time, probably a few weeks if not months : / Just don't know if its worth it. If i do one, i will let you know : p
     
  37. virror

    virror

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    Now the time everyone has been waiting for!
    First Age of Settlement pre-alpha release 0.0.8 ; )

    Not a lot of features, but it will probably give you some feel on how the game will be played. All feedback are welcome so we can improve even further.

    To celebrate this release we will have a super small competition : D
    The one who posts the best screenshot of their creation will win a free copy of the game when released : )

    Downloads can be found here:
    http://www.dragoworks.com/AgeOfSettlement/AoS_Win008.rar
    http://www.dragoworks.com/AgeOfSettlement/AoS_Mac008.rar

    Some known problems:
    Stupid bug with tooltip in inventory, did not have time to fix that today.
    Terrain is not perfect, thinking about redoing that with custom terrain, so wont bother fixing that for now
    Trees dont work as they should because they are temp assets
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2012
  38. jc_lvngstn

    jc_lvngstn

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    I like it. Your UI is very nice. I think this has a lot of promise, keep the updates coming! Also...very good sky effects.
     
  39. virror

    virror

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    Thanx : )
    What do you think of the "feel"? To slow? To fast?
    We are trying to make it a bit more fastplayed than for example wurm and try to get rid of the bars without making it to fast to play, probably still needs some tweaking.

    You know you can build with dirt right?

    Btw, any way of updating the thread name?
     
  40. jc_lvngstn

    jc_lvngstn

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    I found the digging seemed to require a sweet spot to click on. I would click on the lowest point that I was digging, and it wouldn't register. So I had to click nearby.
    Sometimes it appeared that clouds were going through the trees, not sure if they were too high or it was an effect when they were billboarded.

    Movement seemed fine, maybe running was a little fast but that might be intended.
     
  41. virror

    virror

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    Well, digging of course require you to hit the vertex of the terrain, not the triangle, once you learn its very simple to dig.
    About the trees and clouds, thats because trees are billboards and i have no idea how to solve that clouds are rendered on top : p
     
  42. markusb

    markusb

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    sad, I got a 404 :-(
    Tried the win version...
     
  43. virror

    virror

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  44. virror

    virror

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    We have decided the terrain engine in its current state is not good enough, so we will try to see if we can make our own one instead. Will ofcourse take a lot of time but hopefully the result will be worth it.
     
  45. jc_lvngstn

    jc_lvngstn

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    Yes, the terrain engine is limited. Even worse...the documentation is one step above nonexistent. Want to play with heights or other features, maybe adding/removing trees? You have to go scratching through unity answers and the forums. It burns me up just thinking about the time I've wasted, when a little time adding to the documentation would have gone a long way.

    So yeah, I get where you are coming from there.
     
  46. virror

    virror

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    Well,i scraped the thought on making new terrain engine for now, its just to time consuming. Right now I'm working on mining tunnels instead, decent progress so far. Stuck on trying to port my triplanar texturing + bump mapping shader to the crazy shader lab : /
     
  47. RingOfStorms

    RingOfStorms

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    Very well polished game, the graphics and UI seem very nice. I assume you have pro version of unity because you got a loading screen.

    Couple of things i didn't like were, the reach distance for placing the terrain "blocks", you have to look straight down. As well as, I felt very small and to close to the ground, so make the character bigger.

    Seems like a play off minecraft but way more polished ^_^, hope you add some zombies to this.

    Edit: I ended up falling through the world after about 20 seconds of just standing while building up a pile of dirt. Might wanna make sure colliders are well set up so if your on something pointy you wont fall through.
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2012
  48. virror

    virror

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    The placing distance is set close to make it be more "real" but ofcourse there are plenty of tweaking left. The player close to ground thing is fixed already, camera was only set to 1m above ground : p
    Will look into the collider thing.

    Thank you a lot for all feedback : ) Not many have responded with anything.
     
  49. Dragoworks

    Dragoworks

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    Hey Guys,
    first of all, this is no copy of MC with better graphics ;)
    Its kinda sad everyone always thinks a game is a copy of mc, just because it has some things that COULD be the same.. even if we have none right now :p
    not really, that is.

    Its more like inspiration, not a copy with better graphics :)

    also an error from a german player.
    If anyone still has XP installed, could you check if you get the same error?
    I have no chance to install it right now.

    "Switching to resolution 1024x768 failed, trying lower one
    All resolution switches have failed
    Screen: could not switch resolution (1024x768 fs=0 hz=0)"

    His System:
    Windows XP
    Radeon X1950 Pro
    Standard res: 1920x1080
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2012
  50. markusb

    markusb

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    If their game is like minecraft, than minecraft is like popolus...
    From my point of view, age of settlement is relative unique and minecraft is one of the last games I would think of.