Multiplayer First Person Role Playing/Crafting Project

Hello everyone. I thought I'd start a thread to show my progress through the different stages through my first big project. What you will see right now is far from being a complete product, instead they are my stepping stones through the entire project.

Two of my main hobbies which I started several years ago was digital art and everything computer related. Scripting, Hardware, Repairs... etc... I love it, it's a great way to express unique ideas and concepts that no other way is capable of. But obviously my biggest hobby is being a gamer. If I'm not working my day job then I'm usually gaming. I've played nearly every MMO on the market since 2004. Some not as memorable as others but every single title I've played has always had a unique aspect about it that would draw me in. Some being story driven, player verses player driven, player verses environment, crafting based, exploration and many, many more focal points. I finally decided to take things into my own hands, after years of listening to players, after years of having my own opinions, I'm taking all them and considering each aspect to incorporate into my project.

Now that that's out of the way it's on to the game itself.

The Basics

At it's core, the game is a first person RPG driven by story, lore and dynamic events to keep the story flowing and the player interested. I have several peers that are creative writers and we are all working in collaboration to make a world that someone can dive into for weeks at a time and become lost in. I myself have noticed that no matter what the game mechanics are, it's nearly impossible for me to truly fall in love with a game without an in depth world for me to play in.

Combat

Growing up as a child and into my teenage years I was in love with tabletop RPGs. Dungeons and Dragons, Patherfinder and Rifts to name a few of the most mentionable. What lacks in a lot of todays game is depth in the combat systems. Some may have a basic damage modifier and a hit/miss percentage, sadly a lot don't even have a system that in depth.

The concept for the combat of the project is to incorporate a classic tabletop RPG feel to it. I want stats to be meaningful, I want the player to want to remember his exact character and equipment stats, as well as their effectiveness. So many times I've been playing a game and completely forget about what my character's core play style represents because of such a basic system. I'm incorporating a D20 system for every statistic and ability in the game to be able to represent that classic feel.

For those who are unfamiliar with D20, here is a brief article.

"To resolve an action in the d20 System, a player rolls a 20-sided die and adds modifiers based on the natural aptitude of the character (defined by six abilities: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma) and how skilled the character is in various fields (such as in combat), as well as other, situational modifiers.[3] If the result is greater than or equal to a target number (called a Difficulty Class or DC) then the action succeeds. This is called the Core Mechanic. This system is consistently used for all action resolution in the d20 System: in prior games in the D&D family, the rules for different actions, such as the first-edition hit tables or the second-edition AD&D "THAC0" and saving throw mechanics, varied considerably in which dice were used and even whether high numbers or low numbers were preferable"

Crafting

One of the main aspects of the project is to incorporate an in depth crafting system. Not only am I interested in an in depth equipment crafting system, but I'm also looking forward to have 100% modular and customizable structures, props, crafting tools, and utilities that the player can populate the game with in specified zones.

Multiplayer

What a lot of games go wrong on is the multiplayer aspect. Nearly 100 percent of the time there isn't a multiplayer option. You are either isolated by yourself or always forced to adventure with others. I want to take that away and allow the player to have the option. The most basic idea to do this is do have up to 16x per multiplayer session. Allowing public access to your world or having the option to invite friends over. Or possibly a mixture of both if you are up to it. The way I wanted to do this was to store the player's world via cloud server and link it to their game account. This way they have the option of being public or a private world.

As you can see this is an indescribably huge undertaking for an individual that works full time to take on. But I have always believed in myself and whenever I put my mind to an idea that I want, I always finish it. If anyone took the time to read all of that then they are probably thinking "Another full with the next "biggest" thing". I'm not trying to claim the next biggest game on the market. This project is simply a game for gamers, made by gamers. My end goal is to have a finished product that I can look at and know I was part of it. And maybe in the end a few people will get their hands on it and have some enjoyment.

I will continue to keep the thread updated with screenshots of the project in progress. I will also be creating a YouTube channel to upload videos of some of the aspects that a screenshot can't describe well enough.

With this first post I will attach a few pictures of the world in progress so everyone can get a general idea of the graphical appeal of it. But as of right now, that's all that it is.

If anyone is interested in helping with the creation, submitting ideas or opinions on the project please feel free to leave a post, message me or email me at dylantannergillespie@gmail.com

 

Some new pictures. Just trying out various different effects with specular and normal maps.

 

Finished tweaking the textures of the ground and trees for now. The billboard grass textures is just a simple hand painted texture I threw together at work to use until something better comes along.

 

Did you create those mountains with just Unity's terrain system? They look pretty good.

 

I used a licensed version of World Machine to create the entire map then I exported it to unity. The texture I use for them is a tiled stone texture I made myself then I scale it up to give the nice view from the distance. They also have normal mapping on them as well.

 

Just a quick update, created a forest area and the arm/hand model in progress

 

Looking great so far man. The fingertips on this hand model look a bit too pointy though, I feel like I'd be able to stab someone with them xD

 

That was just the sculpt for the model. When sculpting features have to be over done so they show well on the low poly model. Here's is the arm finished, still a bit pointy but a bit better.

 

Video Update! Got around to making an idle animation and head bobbing effects. I've been having an issue with trees and grass clipping into the terrain, you can see it happen at 00:20 with the trees. If anyone knows what this issue could be I'd greatly appreciate it. The video is mostly just showing off the animation, head bobbing, shaders/shadows and environments.

Link to the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_B6qwJatxw

 

Gameplay looks really good so far, the tree clipping bug is pretty noticeable, im no expert but maybe because if the trees are pre-fabs which were placed over the ground the engine might be confused on which wall to texture first. Try lifting the trees slightly over the ground to see what happens, if the problem still persists.....sheez good luck xD. Great work so far......the only thing i hate is the fog over the distance.......if the player is able to see as far into the distance as possible it will look much more realistic than a background covered by a Hazy cloud of fog. Maybe you could use the fog by adjusting the skybox and making the fog appear on a rainy day or something like that . Anyway great work so far man, the game looks well optimized as well, can u please tell us some details of your rig and the average fps your getting?

 

I'm running it on an AMD 8350 8 core and the R270 2gb DDR5 with 2gb of ram. The reason for the fog is because the entire map is around 200 square kilometers... My buddy and I are currently working on a system to place the map on a grid and only load assents within the grid the player(s) are on and around them. With the fog I was getting average of 150 fps. The issues with the trees is extremely irritating. They are assets created with the built in tree Creator but its also giving me this issue with grass as well.

 

Another update. New day/night cycle, weather effects and new foliage. The nigh cycle in the video is extremely dark, I'm doing this on purpose because I want to create a survival/horror environment once night falls. I'll be adding a few variants of some torches, hand lanterns and other objects to create local light for a nice ambient feel. Here is the link to the video-

 

Another video update. I've been working on an Orc Fortress inspired by Tolkien architecture.