High perf gameplay server backend for an MMO. Could handle very large large numbers of fighters in the same battle (let alone server)
The last 2 were team efforts, but for a shipping product, we shouldve pushed back and moved to more features rather than robustness and scaling
Robust backend server system. Could handle arbitrary services going down without players noticing. Hitting capacity wouldnt J curve (exponential failure/death spiral), but would just get linearly worse
{cont}
Lets see:
Built a general (greedy) Job system for NPC behaviour for 1 project. It gave designers arbitrary control over how to control NPCs. Simplest would be just assigning a job to an NPC. But, they could also pick any idle NPC, pick from a group, etc
They used it less than I wouldve liked {cont}
Server upkeep scales with number of players
A single 4 core server would be able to handle around 200 concurrent players. We used to use *10 to go from CC to paying count
2k active players is a solid set of folks
And all at ~$20 month
Aside: Im sort of suprised there no BS bridge between them
I had a full M server (for just myself), but I let the domain go. Lots of fun though, it it was definitely gamedev heavy
The leg up they got in the US is astounding
"Its called 'Paying your dues' and everyone goes through it"
Like the classic, "Hard work pays off", its not true(neither is)
Didnt believe them back in 1995 & still dont
The revolt will not be televised <!-- but instead will be a series of HTTP1.0 sites based on <frame> -->
I do that for gamedev programming; & have for decades
But somehow havent been able to translate that into beginning GD work
Its weird
UTF128? It even supports extrasolar languages and French
;)
No worries. Just really liked the puntentials
If this doesnt heavily use AABB trees there is no god
The AI system worked by firing off Jobs which would rate all the NPCs, and choose the one with the highest rating
Forex, If you hit an NPC, they got JobYellAtStranger (filtering for 1 NPC)
Designers could place scripted jobs that slotted in to the whole system. Patrol for example
Darn!
That video doesnt have my Stranger's Wrath friendly fire in it
Here!
The video is from the first town. If you do it in the later towns they use the rifles in the houses and starting shooting at you
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jce_...
I use it to get help over weird hangups I have, fill in some annoying stuff (not boilerplate; if that exists, it means the design isnt right)
Havent tried it with much CR stuff yet though
Yeaaah
All this stuff is effectively bespoke still, so theres still tons of stuff that different devs choose to make or not make
One big difference is that theres more companies, and less engine devs
This means more folks sticking with what UE comes with by default
2/2
was Strategic Conquest/Empire, Ultima III, Pirates! that really got me into gamedev. Later Dune II was a big influence too
I cant quite figure out how to {chew} GD like I can with programming, but Ill get there
So, I became a programmer, but I (still) really want to do game design
I always end up making progress on systems, which is annoying
Even on a new project, Im drifting over to more programming than GD since I have a GD partner on it
One of these days; one of these days
Life story done, it {cont}
How much they respect the devs is generally inversely proportional to how large the dev team is
Least, thats been my experience. Im sure there are outliers, crappy indies and wonderful AAAA
Generally true for publishing houses too
Lots of neat themes here to play with (not necessarily in the same game)
x) Realizing the situation you know has enough for you that you dont have to leave
x) Youll end up back there anyway, so making it work is better
x) For every survivor theres many folks that didnt survive unscathed
Not the same genre but SinsOfASolar was amazing for going from {Each ship and structure is individually dealt with} to {Squads and stars are individually dealt with} to {fleets} to {win!} (or loss)
Coming from Empire and Civ, I was impressed at how good that progression was
^^ Yes to both replies
I remember Pirates! was a pretty reasonable system, yeah
Theres always the choice where some stuff goes from manual to automated so the user is constantly only making decisions that make sense and arent busy work
Inherently though, work will be thrown away
..sort of fascinated me that thats not true for everyone
I would watch smart kids take easy classes cause they wanted to keep up a 4.0 rather than a harder class where they would learn more. That always seemed broken to me
Yeah, I feel super bad for teachers. Itll all get sorted eventually, but for the next <period of time> its going to be rough
Learning for me has never been about grades or a piece of paper. Learning is an intensely personal thing where I know something new about the universe
Its always {cont}
But only you know your game, so all or none of the above might apply
I also have a blind spot where some useless-mechanically things build immersion for players. Im trying to work on it
walking around is great
If walking around is just the menu, thats worst case
Walking around needs to serve a purpose
Then again, I think adding barren random planets is dreadful too; yet folks seem to love that
They did make it work in Starflight II well though
Depends on your focus
I love this genre, but I generally like the {Im a starship captain} fiction
For me, that means rolling into a new outpost, selling off any particularly great deals, taking on provisions, finding work
If the fiction is more a regular RPG with spaceships, then yeah, {cont}
debugger and we'd essentially get crazy deep crash bugs with great repro steps and often "hints" (which ended up being exact fixing steps. Fkn Gold; wish we had 10
frustrating
Wrong assignment was just going to happen
All-n-all that stuff was rare though. I could tell which QA person wrote each bug by the details I got, how they wrote up steps etc)
We had 1 QA person who just loved it. They were a fantastic programmer too, so we set them up with a {cont}
QA get sh!t on yet they have a critical job
Theyre all messengers, they didnt manufacture bugs, then hand them to programmers / designers / artists
Every single one should feel great for every bug they find
(Now, theres plenty of 'bad' QA behaviours. For me, bug morphing was particularly {cont}