Developer's
Diary
"The
dream of MaidMarian.com is to create an online escape into
Sherwood Forest. Games
like Sherwood, Marian's World and Moon Base are milestones in
the journey towards that goal, bringing together an online
community of like-minded players.
I
hope
to push the envelope both through technology and visually so
this 'experiment' continues to represent the state of the art
and revolutionizes
the way massively multiplayer games are delivered. The unique nature of
this project allows a more open development process so you can
watch and participate in it's growth. The Developer's Diary is
where I can keep you up to date on the changes and the
challenges I'm facing. Feel free to contact me with
suggestions (and encouragement) by email."
Regards,
Gene
Endrody (My Bio)
................................................................................
March
20, 2011
Is
Sherwood
Dungeon a WOW Clone?
Our
Sherwood Facebook fan page has largely taken the place of the developer diary in the last three years because the player feedback is much more immediate. My last DD entry here was back in 2008 and obviously a great deal has happened since then in terms of updates to the game and news of our success. Recently a player on our Facebook page made the assertion that all fantasy MMOs, including Sherwood Dungeon, are basically clones of World of Warcraft. "Them�s fightin� words!" It seemed like great topic for a developer diary entry.
Let�s start with the obvious. Although we�ve both had numerous updates, Sherwood was launched in August 2004, three months prior to World of Warcraft. It�s pretty hard to be a clone of a game that launches AFTER yours. Now I could be cheeky and say that makes them a clone of us, but that�s not really true either. Even at the most basic level we are very different.
First a little game design history lesson. WOW is the most successful of an entire genre of traditional fantasy MMOs that can trace it�s roots back to early text based MUDs and then arguably back further to pen and paper role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. When WOW was launched it was accused of being a clone of Everquest. One of the keys to their success was to follow the same basic formula as Everquest, but to improve on it by using quests more effectively to guide the player though the game and tune the experience so that solo players could still succeed. Everquest itself was largely based on the text based MUD (Multi-user Dungeon) Diku. It was so similar, in fact, that three of the Everquest programmers signed a sworn statement denying any source code was shared between the two games. Raph Koster, former Chief Creative Officer for Sony Online Entertainment and makers of EQ said, �...the line of inheritance from Diku to EQ and thence to WoW is completely undeniable. In the end, the central elements of phase-based combat, combat states, cool-down based special attacks, tank-healer-nuker triad, and basic aggro management are what you play today in WoW.� Long time players probably know already that I�m big fan of Raph and his musings. Most current MMOs follow this same basic formula. Sherwood Dungeon, however, does not. Really, we don�t!
The vast majority of traditional fantasy MMO's use a psedo-turn based approach to combat. In those games, most attacks have cool-down periods that give players time to make a strategic choice for the next attack. As players level, their �skill� tree expands and those choices become increasingly complex. They are rewarded largely based on the hours dedicated to the game and their ability to crunch numbers. This makes the traditional MMO more of a cerebral strategy based game than a truly action oriented one.
�Skill� in Sherwood means something entirely different. It�s not a reward your character earns in the game based on stats, it�s what happens to YOU when you practice and develop your muscle memory and reflexes. We break from convention and focus more on an action RPG style of melee combat based on a set of moves that every player in the game has. My intention was to make PVP combat similar to Street Fighter, where timing and practice count but XP Level does not. In this way any player is a potential opponent for any other player and you're never running around looking for opponents of the same XP Level. We don�t have character classes so there is no tank, DPS, healer trinity. This makes Sherwood�s combat easy to learn, but because timing is so important a player with skill always has the advantage.
Rogue-type games like Net-Hack are a big influence on the procedurally generated dungeon and world building in Sherwood. Thus our DNA is really the shotgun marriage of Net-Hack and Street Fighter. In practice, however, the pace and flow of PVP combat in Sherwood feels more like a boxing match than Street Fighter. It is absolutely possible for a talented low level player to defeat a high level player. If you�re trying to play Sherwood as if it�s based on World of Warcraft then you�re going to have your ass handed to you by the first player you meet who understands this is not a psudo-turn based or phase-based based game and that XP levels alone do not make you a hero. You have to time your blocks, look for openings based on what your opponent is doing and develop your own style. Talent, skill and timing counts here.
................................................................................
October
13, 2008
Sherwood
Dungeon on Facebook
I've create a Sherwood Dungeon game page on Facebook. If you become a fan, I will be posting updates from time to time. Honestly I haven't sorted out all the ways we might use the Events, Photo Album and Discussion Board, but have a
look:
................................................................................
October
6, 2008
Stone Circles and Knightly Virtues
It was with a great sense of relief that I was able to finally launch pets in Sherwood on September 19. This was the final feature planned in a whole series of changes to the game that started ten months ago. The finicky nature of the work, with major server and database changes and the implementation of a payment scheme meant much was happening behind the scenes, but little of that was visible to you. Now that the groundwork has been set, I'm optimistic about the year ahead.
On October 2nd, I launched Stone Circle Island. It contains a structure obviously inspired by Stonehenge. I was forced to take some creative liberties from the original design. After removing some standing stones to leave room for the arena, increasing the overall size and changing the relative scale of the five inner monuments I decided that calling it Stone Circle would be more appropriate. The Stone Circle Seer has a few challenges for you, including the Wolf Pack Leader, one of the most difficult creatures in Sherwood. I launched Stone Circle Island shortly after the launch of pets to send the message that I am committed to continue releasing free content.
Sherwood is born from an independent spirit and it's truly unique among online worlds. We are everything the big game companies are not. Viral and grassroots, we defy the odds and survive in an industry that eats small game developers for breakfast.
Hopefully this means that as a Sherwood player, you feel you're a part of something special. We live or die on word of mouth so email, text or MSN your friends about Sherwood. Put a link on your Facebook, MySpace or personal website. I would like to extend my thanks to those webmasters who have created the amazing variety of Sherwood fan, guild and help sites that exist online today.
My focus has been on creating the setting for your online adventures, however Sherwood is something beyond that. It's a place where we suspend disbelief and exist in a world that doesn't exist; a place where graphics and imagination meet. You are the truly important part of Sherwood because it's ultimately the citizens that define this place. What kind of a place do you want it to be? When I see the leadership of various groups like the Sherwood Amazons, who promote and support values like tolerance and inclusiveness, the idea of bringing together an online community of like-minded players becomes more than just some guy making an MMO in his basement. Sherwood needs guilds, clans and organizations that support knightly virtues of chivalry, honor, courage and nobility. In Medieval England, knights had to swear to the code which asked them to "protect the weak, defenseless, and helpless, and fight for the general welfare of all." Sherwood should be a place where all players feel welcome. I need your help building this community because that part of Sherwood that isn't bits and bytes is very much in your hands.
................................................................................
September
19, 2008
Pet and Mounts Released Today
I'm finally ready to launch the pets and mounts feature. I'm doing a soft launch, under a new URL:
www.MaidMarian.com/SherwoodDungeon.htm
This provides me with the opportunity to catch any last minute bugs I may have missed without the entire population of Sherwood affected. In about a week, this version of Sherwood will replace the one at Sherwood.htm and become the default.
PayPal is the only method of payment accepted for pets right now. I'm working on adding new options. If you don't have access to a Visa or Mastercard, you can use a Coinstar machine at many grocery stores to get a prepaid Green Dot Master Card. These are at over 65,000 locations world wide. You can use the Green Dot card with PayPal.
www.coinstar.com
Crossing my fingers, knocking on wood - We should be good to go. Once we get through this launch, I'll put up another diary entry and let you in on what I've got planned next. Remember, Pets expire one year from the date of purchase.
................................................................................
July
25, 2008
Pets and Mounts: Mid Term Status Report.
I've received numerous requests for a status report on the pets and mounts. As expected, it's been a daunting challenge but work is progressing very well. All of the models, animation and shockwave code is complete. However, pets and mounts require fairly substantial game server and database updates and this work is currently in progress. I'm not going to commit to a launch date for pets yet but I suspect it will be in September. Enough is complete now to provide more detailed information:
A pet menu button will be added to the equipment bar where you can shop for new pets or summon pets that you already own. There are four pet types: Horse, Wolf, Dragon and Spider. They cost $5 US dollars each or you can get all four at once for $15. Pets expire after one year of use. At launch, payment will be handled through PayPal and they accept most major credit cards. I recognize that a percentage of players do not have access to a credit cards and I will be working on adding additional payment methods after launch, including
Premium SMS. Pets are only available to players with membership accounts. They are locked to a single account and cannot be transferred between accounts.
Once purchased, the pet menu includes their expiry date, a summon button and an option to change the pet's name. With the exception of the horse, other players can see the name of your pet over it's head. The horse provides an extra 50% movement speed and can be used anywhere, including the dungeon. The horse does not participate in combat and you dismount automatically when you press the <Ctrl> key to swing your weapon. The horse disappears when you dismount, however you can summon it again at anytime from the pet menu.
The pet dragon is the smallest dragon in the game, but it include a new set of flying animations. The dragon hovers beside you in flight as you walk around. The other pets walk beside you, doing their best to avoid obstacles. They fight any enemy that attacks you and aid in combat. Although pets will appear to attack during PVP, pets cannot damage other players. Similarly, other players cannot damage your pets. This maintains the integrity of the game, ensuring players cannot purchase an advantage over other players during PVP. Pets provide 15% extra damage during combat with AI monsters or MOBs(PVE). Their attack speed is fairly high and they continue to attack as you block or cast amulet attacks. As a result, pets are an effective ally during combat. Pets are soul-locked to their master and share the same health bar. They die when you are defeated in combat and respawn when you do.
Guild or Rank Tags
In today's Sherwood update, I included an option to insert a guild, clan or rank tag under your name and visible to other players. This is available by pressing the "Change Guild / Rank" button in the Character Options Menu. Guilds and ranks are not technically features of the game, rather they emerged from the player community along with the many guild and clan websites. Putting the rank and guild name into your user name worked reasonably well before we had membership accounts but user names are locked for members and cannot be changed. With this new feature you no longer need to sign up for a new account every time your guild promotes you - just change your guild tag. Because pets are locked to user accounts and cannot be transferred, do not use account names or user names that include ranks or guild names because you may want to change them later. This new feature provides a better way to deal with rank or guild changes.
................................................................................
May
15, 2008
The
Future of Sherwood.
If
you haven't noticed already, www.SherwoodDungeon.com
was just launched. You�re also likely aware of the account system that was introduced to the game a week ago. These are the latest pieces in a series of planned updates that included the new avatars, gladiator arena and rune crafting. I wanted a fantasy feel from the moment you got to
SherwoodDungeon.com; like opening the cover of a fantasy novel. While MaidMarian.com needs to be a portal for all of the games, SherwoodDungeon.com is unapologetically medieval fantasy. The design and art came together in a way that matches the original vision for the game.
The account system has been a success, with 50,000 players becoming members in the first week. I didn�t want to loose the benefits of being able to login quickly without registration, however there are clear advantages to being able to access your character from other computers and being able to reserve a character name. The new system accommodates both quick entry without registration and accounts for players who sign up for membership. This also opens up new possibilities for the future of Sherwood.
Sherwood Dungeon is one of the only medieval fantasy MMOs that is sustained solely on advertising revenue. I�ve made an effort to keep these ads as unobtrusive as possible and they�ve helped keep Sherwood free over the years. With changing market environments, ad revenue can be very volatile. It also leaves us in the ironic position that it�s the advertisers, rather than the players, who are the real customers. I�ve known for quite while that for Sherwood to continue to grow, we will need to make some changes. I looked at some of the things other games are doing, like premium subscriptions and virtual items or currency. I didn�t like the idea of making a new island or dungeon and having to decide whether everybody gets access to it, or just paid subscribers. There are also many free games where you are forced to purchase virtual items in order to accomplish anything of value in the game. I needed to come up with something that maintained the integrity of the game, but also ensured sustainability for the future.
After weighing out all the options for many months, I�ve come to a decision. In the coming months you will have the option to purchase a mount or pet for your character. I�m planning on introducing a pet wolf and horse during the summer. These will be available for $5.00 US each and will remain with your character for one year. There is still work to do on these two features, but I�m taking the unusual step of announcing my plans today so you know what to expect. All other Sherwood features, current and future, will remain free for the foreseeable future.
The addition of mounts and pets will ensure that Sherwood has the resources for continued growth and vitality in the future. You can see from the home page that some of the new art for the website includes the horse and wolf. I�m also including a few images of the game models to give you an idea of how they might look in the game. I hope this is greeted by Sherwood players with enthusiasm, but I am also well aware of the community's feelings and I'm striving to meet your expectations to the best of my abilities.
................................................................................
March
31, 2008
The
Isle of Heroes.
Well, I'm still working through my New Year's list for Sherwood. I hope you're enjoying the updates, because I'm sure having fun making them. I added the new Viking and Female Ranger avatars in February to increase choice and variety of characters. You'll likely notice I am avoiding Dwarves, Elves and Orcs for now. I'm settling on a spot between extremes of fantasy and medieval historical fiction that feels right for Sherwood.
Colleagues of mine indicated that traditional Lord of the Rings' races might be a bad fit. I've considered Dwarves however they are often portrayed as stout Vikings with Norse inspired lore. Although I
ended up taking liberties with their appearance and armor, Vikings have the burly bearded look I wanted along with historical precedence. The female ranger was inspired by Maid Marian from the Robin Hood stories. In the years of working on these games I've drifted away from the Robin Hood legends with Sherwood Dungeon but Maid Marian's spirit and character continues to influence the game.
The other major update is the addition of the Isle of Heroes. This new island, with it's palm trees and sandy beaches, contains an gladiator arena inspired by the Roman Colosseum. The Arena Master NPC can summon a dragon or a squad of fellow soldiers in your team color to engage in combat against a gang of enemy warriors. This way you can get involved in a larger battle scenario without having to organize a group of players. The portal to the Isle of Heroes is located at the top of the tower in Sherwood Castle. Since I had to add the portal anyway, I took the opportunity to improve and add details to the tower.
The key to this update was improving combat and AI so that MOBs can find and fight each other. A mob (Mobile Object) is a type of non-player character (NPC) or monster
that has the ability to move around. MOBs can now be members of the same team
colors that players are members of. They can also be members of their own team, like the monsters in the dungeon. They are aware of
who is an enemy and who is a friend so if you change team colors near a MOB teammate they will turn on you immediately. You can probably imagine some of the future scenarios and
game play that become possible with this change and why I thought it was worth the work.
I've always found game AI (artificial intelligence) to be one of the most amazing parts of the job. Sometimes MOBs
exhibit behaviors that I didn't anticipate and personality quirks emerge. Although Sherwood's AI is similar to systems used in other games (A-star
path-finding, basic attack, wander, run-away and grouping behaviors) it is fundamentally the same as what I used for
Ratinator. You can fool around with
path-finding and AI directly in Ratinator's design mode. You can pick game elements or enemies to add from the menu and use your yellow cursor on
the grid to create in that location. Just go to
<Level Design> from the main menu, add some enemy monsters under
<Enemies>, a few walls under <Game Items> and use
<Move Enemies> to move the monsters around with the cursor and see the
path-finding. The Scarab Beetles are one of my favorite enemies in
Ratinator because they attack for four seconds and then run away for two seconds and then repeat.
Press <Try Level> in design mode to try your creation out.
Raph
Koster, an industry veteran and thought-leader in virtual worlds and MMOs, said some nice things about my work in a presentation at GDC Prime. He included this chart of MMOs with the highest estimated active
users. He was making the point that of the top 13 most trafficked MMOs in Europe and North
America, World of Warcraft was the only traditional boxed game available from a retail store on that list. All of the rest of the games on that list are either played in a browser or downloadable. I was ecstatic just to make the
chart in 13th place. (Actually MaidMarian.com gets more traffic than ToonTown, so let's call it 12th place.) Considering how much I enjoyed and was influenced by retail boxed games like Everquest and Everquest II, Ultima Online, Lord of the Rings
Online and Star Wars Galaxies, to have passed them all in active users is mind blowing. And as usual, I have you to thank.
Gene
................................................................................
February
5, 2008
A
new beginning.
I've been reminded twice by players that it's time to post another diary entry.
I'm off to San Francisco in a week for the Game Developers
Conference, so now is the time. MaidMarian.com continues to reach
more and more players. We experienced a bit of a drop in early January, however that's
normal after Christmas and after another record high of 1.8 million unique monthly
players, rumours of our demise are greatly
exaggerated. I added two more servers, bringing the total to 11.
You can check the five year pattern at Alexa.com:
Alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/maidmarian.com
After releasing Club Marian in September, focus shifted back to Sherwood Dungeon.
I came up with a preliminary list of features that were needed to bring the game to another level. The changes
you are seeing are just beginning. I received some very vocal criticism from the women of Sherwood about the Female Warrior. I wanted strong characters that would resonate with
players and apparently the female avatar was just not there yet.
After generating a list of changes and getting the updates in,
feedback on the new updated look with a choice of hair styles
is overwhelmingly positive - so thanks for your help. One of my goals
is to create an MMO adapted to the web but with the 3D graphics and
visual impact of a boxed product. Just being the best looking 3D MMO
in a web browser is not good enough. In particular I want the avatars to hold their own against well known, mainstream MMORPGs. Although naturally there is going to be some bias, for the first time with
the characters I feel like we're reaching that goal. As far as I'm concerned, there's no technical reason why a browser based MMO can't look as good graphically as a boxed one and I'm going to keep pushing for this in all areas of the game.
Crafting and blacksmithing is something I've wanted in Sherwood for a long time. Those ideas morphed into the Runes and Scrolls system
you now see in the game. It's basically a collecting and combining
game mechanic, where you use runes to envoke the magic of a Scroll of Summoning to craft magic weapons. Originally I was going to have players spell the Old English translations for words like "Sword" or "Axe", however the symbolic circular pattern of runes
that I used created more of a feeling of alchemy, magic and mystery. Runes have a fascinating history in Viking, Germanic and Old English lore. Have a look:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_alphabet
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_Futhorc
I increased the number of inventory slots from 16 to 25. This was planned for a while, however the Runes and Scrolls system forced the issue. A reduction in icon size was required to create the 5x5 slot grid on the inventory. This turned out to be
more work than I anticipated as almost all other screens in the user interface were also affected.
So what else is planned? You'll have to wait and see, however this year will mark a turning
point for both the game and the company. Some of the changes may take you by surprise and will, with luck, be more fundamental to Sherwood's future than just new features. It's time to put my game face on.
Other random stuff:
I just started kick boxing. Wow am I ever terrible. My avatar can kick, what's wrong with me? I also play ice hockey twice a week. I'm not
great at that either but I'm Canadian, so it's in the blood. My
parents are Dutch
(Mom) and Hungarian (Dad) so I enjoy the popularity of the games
in both
Western and Eastern Europe. And a big hello to the huge numbers of visitors MaidMarian.com gets from Poland!
My wife's father was from Poland. She quit her job to join
this crazy company as CFO about a year ago. If your curious about where players come from, check this out.....
Only the ten countries with the highest traffic levels are shown.
If you country is not there, your in the 29.99% grey area that represents the rest of the world.
Cool eh? I've always been blown away by how evenly balanced the traffic is around the world.
The word on Sherwood is spreading because of you, so keep recruiting those friends! And thank you for continuing to support the games.
Gene
...............................................................................
November
17, 2007
The
Fog is Lifting.
The texture updates for the avatars and monsters
are out and I've been taking note of your feedback and opinions from the game, email and guild forums.
Yes, I'm a forum lurker. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to
register for a Sherwood forum when your name is Gene and nobody believes
it's you.
The Dark Knight was the most challenging
and delayed the release of the update by a couple weeks. As the original Sherwood
avatar, the Dark Knight was interpreted by players in many ways - Dark Knight,
Paladin, Roman Soldier, Gladiator, Barbarian or Warrior. I hope the result meets your expectations.
The
success of Club Marian and the new visual update to Sherwood Dungeon
have required a few more servers to keep up with the 15 terabytes of monthly
bandwidth. For those keeping score, that's nine servers all together. We also attracted more
than 1.5 million monthly unique visitors for the first time - that was a cool milestone to hit. Club Marian
now attracts over 2000 simultaneous players at peak.
October and November have been lighter months than normal as I recharge my batteries.
When I worked in the console games industry, I always hated crunch
time. That's the time at the end of game development when you're trying to hit a release date come hell or high water. It's ironic that I found myself in a
self-imposed brutal crunch trying to get Club Marian out on a date that only I was aware of. The fog is lifting and the desire is coming back now, so stay tuned.
................................................................................
September
23, 2007
And
the Winner is.........Sherwood Dungeon !!!!
You did it!
You amazing bunch of passionate Sherwood players have done the impossible. Thank
you! Sherwood Dungeon is the 2007 winner of the PopVox Best Game and Best of British Columbia awards at the Vidfest New Media awards.
This was in a field that included games like Need For Speed Carbon, NHL 07, Company of Heroes, Scarface: The World is Yours and Mario Strikers. I felt a like the high school geek running for class president, so I�m a little light headed today. In a gala event, in front of new media and games professionals from around the world - we ruled! Just so you know, Best of BC was not only the games industry, it included Web 2.0, digital animation, music score, mobile games
and visual effects that originate in BC. Best Game was open to entries from around the world. It's a big deal, it's all because of your votes and you're the ones who won this!
You must have also noticed that Club Marian was launched
early this week, right on schedule and seems to be doing really well. I hope the new avatar creation, music interface, disco lights and driving were a nice surprise. I've got a few more things planned down the road for this, but Sherwood has been taking most of my time lately. Here's a few teaser screenshots of a visual upgrade I have planned for
October (I hope). The new Dark Knight is still to come - harder
than I thought, but we'll get there.
................................................................................
August
10, 2007
Very
busy, but very good time.
I've been working like a mad man through June, July and August and honestly haven't had time to update this diary. I'm off to Aruba today for a holiday, but here's an update before I go.
1. The new multi-user game server software is fully up and operational. The MMUS (MaidMarian Multi-user Server) has performed beyond my expectations and the performance and stability has been outstanding thanks to
help from my friend. (He knows who he is.) This software provides the foundation for future growth and will impact game features in the coming months.
I've also had to add a seventh server to keep up with traffic.
2. New features have appeared in Sherwood over the last few months. This includes a new system for building interconnected buildings and bridges. The grass huts in Haunted Palm and tree houses in Frost Bite are examples of this and are in direct response to the many requests I've been getting around buildings and towns.
3. A new Sherwood NPC type has been added. Right now the Castle Guard by the bridge in Sherwood Castle is the only example in the game, however more
of this type will appear in the future for storytelling elements. The Castle
Guard is there to answer frequently asked questions and help new players.
4.
Work is underway on new textures for all avatars and monsters in Sherwood. I don't have an exact timeline for release, but this should provide a nice visual upgrade to the characters and overall improvement to the look of the game.
5. I'm about 85% through a new game or virtual hangout as a successor to Marian's World. Although Marian's World was the first multiplayer game I developed for the site, it still attracts over 600 simultaneous players during peak times. Not bad for an old game with
limited feature set and backwards visuals by my current standards. I decided to take some of the ideas from the original game and bring it to a whole new level. The new games features much more sophisticated avatar customization (yes, there are male avatars), music features, emoticons, a shiny new roadster to drive around and a few other surprises. I've been working seven days a week on this game and it's almost done. Expect to see it in September. I'll keep the game's name a secret for now and not to worry, the original Marian's World will remain on the site after the release. I know how you get attached to my older stuff and then yell at me when I try to upgrade ;)
6. It was a good
time for press and publicity with blog entries from games industry
insiders like The Escapist, The Forge, Wired Game Life, FreeToPlay.biz, Raph Koster, Lost Garden and a bunch of others. The article that started it all off was a
Showcase and Case Study that Adobe did on Maid Marian Entertainment. Adobe is the company that makes Photoshop, Flash,
Shockwave etc. Here's the link.
7. I
also spoke at the Vancouver International Game Conference and nextMEDIA 2007 in Banff, Alberta.
Here's a
video webcast of my nextMedia panel presentation on Interactive
Games and Social Networks. (OMG, you finally going to see what I look like
I'm not the host, rather the balding red head with the beard- - don't be too
harsh.)
................................................................................
June
3, 2007
Digg,
Tank Ball 2, Ignore, Shadows and other Random Ramblings.
It's been a busy two months since my last post. Yesterday I integrated Digg into the site so each game has a "digg it" link under the start icon on the main page. You can show some support for the games and leave a comment if you wish. I will check these on a regular basis to see what players are saying. I see Digg as an important way to collect more feedback and drive new traffic to the site. I even put
Digg on this Developer's Diary to see what comes up, particularly if there are developers out there who wish to leave some public feedback.
I created a new updated version of Tank Ball, now called Tank Ball 2. This new version cycles between three environment styles (Snow, Forest and Tropical) and includes weapon and speed
power-ups. Thank you to those who sent me email to provide early feedback. I put in a number of changes based on these comments and made sure to retain the original Tank Ball for those of you who preferred the older version.
For Sherwood Dungeon, I implemented a landing page with instructions and screenshots. This adds one more mouse click to get into the game, something I didn't take lightly, but I thought it was important to give new players information about game and what it looks like. I added a player list and ignore feature to Sherwood Dungeon. On the Character Panel, which you get to by clicking on the
hit-point bar or by pressing <esc>, there is now a Player List button. When you click on a player's name, it brings up information about
their health, team color and weapons currently equipped. The <Ignore> button on this page allows you to ignore future messages from this player. So if there is a particular person you'd rather not interact with, ignore them. I've also
implemented a new shadowing system for the outdoor environments. The difference is subtle, however trees now cast shadows.
For shockwave developers out there, this was done with Imaging
Lingo. Thank you to those of you who caught bugs related to this upgrade (white ground on some video cards and black shadows in Ancient Sherwood). These issues are fixed now. Other visual upgrades related to the characters in Sherwood are in the works.
The support for the Microsoft Vista operating system has been getting much better for the games. Adobe released two new version of Shockwave last month to help with slow frame rates under Vista and to solve problems with certain keys in the game that were affecting both the game and the browser (like the Tab and arrow keys). There are still issues with certain video cards under Vista, but for most players it runs the same as with Windows XP. As graphics card drivers improve for Vista, I expect these issues to go away. Adobe is working towards an updated version of Director early in 2008, and this will likely result in improved frame rates, Intel Mac compatibility and allow me to explore some
new visual updates to the games.
Work is underway on a new version of Marian's World with many new features, avatars and
an updated look. I'm not going to talk much about this as I'm in the middle of development and the feature list has not been locked down yet. The new version will not replace
the old Marian's World, more like it's spiritual successor and I'm still trying to come up with a name for this new game / social hang-out.
Work on the new multi-user game server software has been going slower than anticipated, however this is progressing and I expect to begin the process of transitioning the games to the new servers in the coming weeks. This software is the first step towards implementing an opt-in account system down the road. I'm not
committing to a timeline for the account system, but once the new servers are up and stable I'll be looking at this.
I presented in a round table on design for massive multiplayer games at the
Vancouver International Game Conference early last month and
will be leaving to present at the nextMEDIA Conference in Banff, Alberta in a few days. I'm going
to do more game conferences over time as I really enjoy interacting with other game developers, something I miss from my Radical Entertainment days.
Well, you're up to date. Thanks for reading my ramblings.
-Gene
................................................................................
April
6, 2007
The
Dragons are here! The Dragons are here!
1. Dragons
Yup, they're finally in. I had to rewrite a great deal of the monster code to get larger monsters to work properly. Dragons have eight times the
hit points of regular monsters and can kill you in two hits at the same XP level. I also gave them two attack types of different
duration to make them harder to block. There are three types: Snow Dragons in Frost Bite, Sea Dragons in Lost Lagoon and Jade Dragons in Ancient Sherwood. There are also "baby dragons" (Basilisks and Lizards) in levels 10 and up in the Dungeon and on three of the islands.
2. Frame Rate Optimization
I found an obscure optimization that improved the frame rate on Sherwood Dungeon quite
substantially. For any Director developers reading this, when you remove an object from the world, the bonesplayer still updates and can slow the game down even if there's no animation currently playing. Use .removemodifier(#bonesplayer) on any bones objects not in the world. Just remember to .addModifier(#bonesPlayer) and restart the animation when you bring the object back into the world.
3. Camera Mode
I've been taking notice of the increasing number of Sherwood Dungeon videos that keep appearing on YouTube. This is fantastic and I decided to add a feature to help those hardcore movie makers. /Camera is a new command that switches the Sherwood camera to one that you can fly around the world to get those shots that you can't get from the in-game camera. Here's how it works:
/help camera
Displays help on using camera mode
/camera
Switches to Camera mode
Once you are in Camera mode:
Orbit
Drag the Left Mouse Button rotate the camera around a point.
Pan
Drag the Right Mouse Button to move the camera left, right, up or down.
Zoom
Drag with Left and Right Mouse Button simultaneously to zoom in or out
<R>
Resets the Camera to default position.
<SpaceBar> Ends Camera Mode
When you create Sherwood Dungeon videos, you are creating Machinima. Although the definition is a little more technical, Machinima is basically when you capture the screen of a computer game to video files and edit them it to tell stories or make music videos. Some of the examples on YouTube are great and I certainly encourage anyone who wants to use my games to create entertaining videos.
Sherwood Dungeon on YouTube:
www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Sherwood+Dungeon
Here's a few links on Machinima:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima
www.machinima.com
If you want to get into making Machinima, you will first need a utility to capture the computer screen into a video file. It's usually not a good idea to try to capture the entire screen as you will get a poor frame rate for the video. Because Sherwood will scale to the size of the web browser window, I would suggest scaling it down to a smaller size before capture. Keep in mind that your video could get stretched to the aspect ratio that YouTube expects. The ideal capture size for Sherwood to match YouTube's aspect ratio would be approximately 728 by 545. Do some experimenting to see what gives the best results.
For screen capture, the Windows Media Encoder is free. Here's a download link:
www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx
Here's a link to a tutorial for using the Media Encoder for screen capture:
www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/screencap.aspx
I've also noticed that many Sherwood videos were captured using HyperCam. Here's a link:
www.hyperionics.com/hc
Although you can put up an unedited video, the best results will come when you edit smaller video files into a final result. Windows Movie Maker is free and comes with Windows XP. This will let you add music and audio files, titles, transitions and effects. Lots of short duration clips edited together with different camera angles will look better than long boring shots. For rock videos, try editing your cuts right on the beat of the music - difficult to do but the results can look great.
Here's a link to Windows Movie Maker if you don't already have it on your computer:
www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/moviemaker2.mspx
................................................................................
March
1, 2007
Scalability
and Infrastructure
I've been getting a great deal of email reminding me that it's time to update my Developer's Diary. Next week I'm off to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco for the fourth year in a row. It's an
opportunity to meet other like-minded people from the games industry, exchange ideas,
get inspired and have some fun. I better get you up to date before I fly out.
The
last two months were a period when a great deal was happening,
however much of that wasn't visible in the games as new features.
I needed to look into the future and ensure we were ready and with
MaidMarian.com at over 1.4 million unique visitors a month, we were at risk of being bogged down by our own
success.
As I looked forward over the next few years, it became clear that in order to handle continuous growth in traffic and game features, I would need to make major improvements in our backend and server infrastructure. All the game servers currently run an "of-the-shelf" application that ships with Adobe Director called the Shockwave Multiuser Server to handle all multiplayer aspects of the games. Although the SMUS has served us surprisingly well, it's no longer in active development or supported by Adobe. As a result, the primary focus over the last two months has been the in-house development of new, custom written server software that offers the performance, flexibility, security and scalability we need for the future. The MMMUS (Maid Marian Multiuser Server) is currently in beta and we plan to switch all the games over in late March. By itself, the server doesn't add new features to the games but we're now in a much better position to realistically tackle database driven community features like user accounts, guilds or friends lists. I also sleep better at night knowing the site should be able to handle millions of additional monthly visitors. You can try a version of Sherwood Dungeon running under the new server at:
www.MaidMarian.com/Sherwood2.htm
*
Make sure to select "Test Server" under <select server> before logging
in.
Other
updates and changes:
1. Amulets
I introduced four new amulet types at the beginning of the year - the Talisman of Fire, Amulet of Poison, Stone of Darkness and Talisman of Ice. Just like the Enchantment of Speed, they are triggered with the <tab> key and take about 15 seconds to recharge. These amulets trigger various magical attacks
for use in combat and all display unique visual effects on your opponent. During PVP the magical attacks can be especially deadly against players that like to block continuously.
2. Dragons
It looks like the appearance of the Dragon Statue in the courtyard of Sherwood Castle has created
much rumor and speculation. Since I first indicated that dragons were in the future plans for Sherwood, there's been a great deal of anticipation as to when they would appear. I still can't give you an exact release date, other than to say we're working on it. As you can see from the statue, 3D modeling is complete. Animation for the dragon is still in the early stages and integration into the game will start once the animation is complete. With all the server changes, I'm not expecting to release dragons until late April.
3. Interview and Press
I did a two part interview with Hanford Lemoore for his blog recently. If you're curious about my background, design approach or the technology behind the games, have a
look:
Part
1: My Background, Building a user base, Using of-the-shelf tools
Part 2: Technical Aspects, Business and Marketing
MaidMarian.com also was mentioned in the Escapist, a popular online magazine covering gaming and gamer culture, in an article
entitled "Boutique MMOGs, Under the Radar but bigger than EverQuest" by Allen Varney. Here's the link:
www.EscapistMagazine.com/issue/75/15
................................................................................
December
7, 2006
Lots
of updates.
I've
been working very hard over the last two months getting a series
of updates into Sherwood Dungeon that I hope you like. With over
100,000 unique visitors everyday, pleasing every player is an
impossible task. I've read every email, visited Sherwood clan
sites, chatted with players inside the game and tried to make sure
that you know I'm listening. With close to 100 emails everyday,
it's tough to respond to everyone and still have time to develop
the game. I want you to understand that I care great deal about
the players. Giving everyone the attention they deserve despite
the information overload that I face everyday can be a brutally
frustrating process. I am trying to be different from other
developers and the last thing I want is to be perceived as being arrogant,
aloof or detached from the player base.
So
what's new? Here's the list of new features in the game over the
last two months.
1.
New Player Avatars: Finally!
Two new human avatars and a skeleton avatar are in the game.
You've seen the evolution of the character art here in the
Developer's Diary and the new characters in the game are the
result. There are still some changes to come, but they will be
minor. The character selection screen is the first thing you'll
see after login. You can rotate the characters from this screen by
dragging the left mouse button. Helmet selection for the Dark
Knight avatar is now accommodated in the character selection
screen as well.
2.
Ancient Sherwood Island: I've
had repeated requests to revisit the original Sherwood land that
started it all in 2001, with it's four temples dedicated to each
of the teams. Only the eldest Sherwood warriors will remember this
land, now rediscovered and reclaimed by the Kingdom. A few rocks
have moved and the land is overgrown with trees in the years that
have passed (got it as close as I could). Ancient Sherwood is a
level 30 area you can teleport to by using the portal on one of
the two smaller outpost towers or by typing /teleport 5
<return>. Just like in the original land, Blue Warriors and
Red Spiders roam the land.
3.
Changes to Sherwood Castle Area:
I've heard your requests for the return of Tower battles. The
portal on top of the highest tower was getting in the way of
combat so I have enlarged the two outpost towers and placed the
portals there. Let the Tower Battles resume!
4.
Amulets:
Remember I said I was planning something special for Amulets?
Amulets replace helmets on the equipment bar. Helmet selection for
the Dark Knight is now done from the Character panel. Most Amulets
provide an armor bonus, but I added a special level 5 magic item
called a Talisman of Speed. A new energy bar has been placed under
the health bar to go with this. When the Talisman of Speed is equipped,
use the <TAB> key to activate it. The energy bar will turn
yellow and begin to discharge when you attack. Your attack speed
will almost double while the Talisman discharges. Once completely
discharged, your attack speed will return to normal and the
Talisman will recharge over time. This item is intended to make
Player vs Player combat more interesting. The high speed attack
should make it easier to get inside your opponents blocks. If your
opponent also has the Talisman of Speed, you'll need to be strategic
about when to activate it during combat.
................................................................................
October
1, 2006
Thank
you
On
a day when the MaidMarian.com game servers topped 4000 simultaneous
players for the first time, it seems a developer's diary entry is
in order. I would like to start out by just saying thank you. I
recognize that making a living, doing what you love is a rare
thing in this world. You made this possible. MaidMarian.com
is not a massive corporation. It's just a guy with a computer
living his dream of making massive multiplayer games that people
seem to want to play. I cannot express how grateful I am for the
support that you have shown and for making my dreams come
true.
The
redesign of the player avatars is progressing well. Based on the
concept image in my last diary entry, it can be hard to visualize
how characters will translate into the game. Now that rough
versions have been modeled in 3D, you can get a clearer idea of
current progress based on the above image. These characters are not yet textured and the
female avatar has shoulder armor still in the works. Let me know
what you think.
Most
of you have already experienced the updates that have gone into
Sherwood Dungeon in recent weeks. I mentioned in the last diary
entry that I design in a very organic way. The last update really
makes this obvious. I was experimenting with a few ideas and realized
that I'd stumbled on an approach that could vastly increase the
number of islands and variety of terrain types in the game without
impacting the download time. Three new islands - Haunted Palm,
Frost Bite and Lost Lagoon are the result. Three portals were
added to Sherwood Castle for transport to these new lands once you
advance to the required XP Level. This also allowed me to update
the art direction of the game, making all the lands, including
Sherwood, more vibrant and colorful and allowing each to have a
distinctive palette.
Yesterday
I added monster drops to the three new islands. After defeating a
monster, they drop items that you can use or sell at the merchants
by the portals. Skeletal bosses drop higher level items and if you
character is a higher XP Level than the monsters, they will drop
less frequently. As
you can see from past diary entries, neither of these updates were
planned or scheduled but once the impact they would have was
clear, I made them top priority.
Oh,
and if you haven't noticed already, holding down <Up Arrow>
and <Down Arrow> at the same time makes your character
dance. Taunt your friends or have a party! Good silly fun. :)
Once
again, thank you,
-Gene
................................................................................
June
25, 2006
New
Vision for Sherwood Dungeon
It's time to give you an update on my plans for Sherwood Dungeon and
MaidMarian.com. All my games, including Sherwood Dungeon, go through many phases of development from the original vision through to it's launch on the site. After launch there's often numerous updates to get the final features in place. I design in a very organic way, so providing a list of new features and a timeline for implementation of those features can give players false expectations. If you were a player of the original Sherwood, you probably noticed that Sherwood Dungeon was a much more substantial update than just throwing a few new features into Sherwood. It was based on a new vision for the game, both from a technical and design standpoint. Major technical hurdles needed to be overcome to allow Sherwood Dungeon to have an infinitely deep dungeon and still keep the game small enough to fit on a floppy disk. When you are creating a web based
MMORPG, keeping it small is incredibly important because the longer that loading bar takes, the more players your going to loose during the download.
In the past month, there hasn't been many visible updates to the current game because I've been developing a vision for the next major update for Sherwood Dungeon. One of the goals for the next update is to launch a new dedicated Sherwood Dungeon website with a full set of community features including
an account system, player profiles, connections between friends, forums and guild support. This will be tied into the save game features of the game, however most of these community features will be available
exclusively through the Sherwood Dungeon website. Development on
this is currently very active.
The second major goal is to completely redesign the player avatars in the game. I believe this is the best way to make a major visual impact on how the game looks. Don't get me wrong, I think Sherwood Dungeon is already the best looking browser based 3D
MMORPGs, but it became clear to me when I started work on the female avatar that it would be better to redo the male avatar at the same time.
Concept art for the new characters is going very well and I've got some of my best game industry art contacts helping me on this. It's more important for me to get this feature right than get it fast, so be patient and I hope you'll like the results.
................................................................................
May 29, 2006
Quick Update
Just a quick update. Here's a list of features that went into Sherwood Dungeon this month:
Helmets
Helmets are now in the game, with five different types of helmets available in the dungeon chests. A new slot for helmets is now on the equipment bar.
Quests
Missions, now called Quests, have been added. More quest types are planned in the future including boss and delivery quests. Quests are available from Captain Morgan by the dungeon entrance. Just walk close to the Captain and click on him to be offered a quest. The quest log is on the equipment bar. This shows you how close you are to completing the quest. Once you've completed the quest, return to Captain Morgan for your reward.
Merchants
The merchant store is above the dungeon entrance of the Castle Keep. Click on the merchant to see the store. A number of updates occured to the store this month and you now have the ability to sell your inventory items to the merchant.
Multiple Servers
Support for multiple servers has been added to the game and a new server is online. You can choose between Emerald Server and Ruby server on the log-in screen. If you don't choose a server, one is selected randomly for you.
Undead Skeleton Warriors and Bosses
Undead monsters are in Dungeon Level 5 on down. There are also Undead Boss Skeletons with three times the health of regular monsters. You may want to bring a friend to defeat one of these. The map indicates the last known location of boss skeletons in purple on the map.
Female avatars are a new feature I'm hoping to add in the next while, as requested by many players. The dragons and amulets are on hold until this is complete. I'm also planning on adding a help screen to Sherwood Dungeon with more instruction for new players.
I've made some changes to PVP in the Castle level. Blocking an attack
successfully
does double damage on the next attack and health potions no longer work in the Castle level. This is in response to players that just gather up health potions for PVP and make combat less fun for the other players.
Bug Report
You probably noticed a bug where numerous monsters spawned after a player defeated a monster. This was related to a bug in the boss update and has been fixed now. Thanks for the emails from players that described the symptoms of this to me....very helpful.
................................................................................
April 26, 2006
What's Next for Sherwood Dungeon?
Rumors abound regarding my plans for Sherwood Dungeon in the coming
months so I'm taking this opportunity to set the record straight and
provide some detail on the launch. Sherwood Dungeon is up and running
and so far the servers have handled the load and the feedback has been
very positive.
Bug Report
- It
didn't take long for players to discover a way of holding a shield in
their sword hand. This resulted in a crash for everyone else logged
into that room. It was the only major crash bug of the last two weeks
and it's fixed now. (Players have gotten into the habit of calling
these crash bugs "Shockwaves".)
- Rings
in your inventory were magically transformed into shields when you quit
the game and logged back in. Great, I suppose, if you want a shield,
but obviously a problem if you had magic rings in your inventory. This
is fixed now and thanks for the email from the player that first
discovered the problem.
- Players
were suppose to be able have more than one health potion as this is a
stackable item. This is fixed now, so collect away. I'm assuming
players thought this was by design because I received no complaints.
- You may have noticed that players and monsters were getting many extra attacks during combat in busy areas. This is fixed now.
- Sapphire: Yes, I spelled it wrong. It's fixed now so please no more
email on this one. Just for reference, although though I'm Canadian, I
decided to use the American spelling for words like Armor. (Armour for
those of us using the Queen's English.)
- Not
really a bug, but blocking an attack gives you double damage on the
next round. Block two attacks in a row and you get triple damage. This
works both in PvP and against monsters. It's intended to replace the
"combos" that existed in the original Sherwood. Those combos in
Sherwood were actually a bug, but when I tried to take them out
originally, players complained bitterly.
There
are a number of features that didn't make it into the beta release of
Sherwood Dungeon. For example, I've been getting tons of email
regarding what to do with the gold that you collect. In the coming
months I will be adding many of the features that didn't make the Beta.
These are not set in stone and I'm reserving the right to make changes
to the list. Here's what I'm intending to add in priority order.
New Features in the Coming Months
1. Helmets
I consider this one of the most important new features. Helmets
allows players to personalize their characters, manage their armor and
demonstrate achievement in the game.
2. Stores and Merchants
Yes, I got the message and I'm working on it! Give me a little time.
3. Missions
I'm intending to have a mission system in the game. Players will be
able to get missions from NPC characters to fight boss type monsters in
the dungeon, collect special items and return for a reward.
4. Dragons
Yes, I said Dragons. Easier said that done, but Dragons will be tied to
the mission system in the game. It will take more than one player to
take a dragon down, so bring a friend.
5. Undead Monsters
These skeletal warriors are intended to increase the variety of monsters in the dungeon.
6. Amulets
I haven't figured out a great system for differentiating the amulets from magic rings, but I'll come up with something ;)
Anything that you hear from other players beyond this list is just a rumor.
Another important piece of news is that I've decided to quit my day job
to concentrate on MaidMarian.com full time. This website was my hobby,
evenings and weekends, for a number of years. Not any more. As some of
you may know, I've been a Technical Art Director for Radical
Entertainment for the past five years, working on console and PC games
like Crash Tag Team Racing, The Hulk, CSI and many others. (Look for my
name in the credits in Crash Tag Team Racing and select it..pretty
funny eh?) Radical Entertainment is a great company, but MaidMarian.com
has grown to the point were it deserves 100% of my attention.
MaidMarian.com games are played over six million times per month and
during peak times over 2000 simultaneous players are participating in
the multiplayer games. This move should result in faster updates and
more polished games. Wish me luck!
................................................................................
April
9, 2006
Sherwood
Dungeon is in Open Beta.
I'm
exhausted but very happy. It's taken seven months, but I hope
Sherwood Dungeon lives up to expectations. This game features
an infinitely deep dungeon filled with monsters and treasure.
It includes character advancement, new weapons, magic rings
and more. The new code base is faster and should provide a
stable foundation for future enhancements. Sherwood Dungeon is
in Open Beta, which means I'm still finding and fixing
bugs.
Important
Game Notes:
-Games
are saved on exit and when you leave dungeon levels, but if
you remove Shockwave from your computer, you will lose the
saved game.
-The
Dungeon entrance is in the Keep of Sherwood Castle. Player vs
Player combat is valid only outside the Keep and away from the
two smaller towers near the spawn point.
-The
monsters get tougher the deeper you go, but you'll get more XP
points. If you team up on a monster with
a friend, the XP earned is based on the damage you do. The
monsters in the Castle Level scale to level of the player,
however you'll get only a small amount of experience from
these. There's no level cap and the dungeon is infinitely deep.
-Make
sure you keep re-equipping with higher level weapons as you go; you'll
need them. The level of the weapon is listed along with the damage and
magic bonus when you mouse over them in the equipment bar or
inventory.
I
hope you enjoy the game.
................................................................................
November
16, 2005
Growth, News and
Design Philosophy.
Development efforts
on Sherwood and TankBall ramped up in July and August.
Sherwood
received a major update to the 3d environment and now includes a castle
to explore. This is a significant step forward in the visual 3D quality
and immersiveness of the world. TankBall's updates include improvements to
physics and frame rate, timed five minute multiplayer games with team
and individual top scores and a health bar. Judging by the response,
these changes have been well received by the players. Traffic has grown
to over four million page impressions per month with some days
exceeding 200,000. Since November of last year MaidMarian.com has grown by over 600
percent in traffic and revenue. During peak times the multiplayer
servers host over 1,200 simultaneous players. I've added a third server
to keep up with traffic demands and all of the games have received
numerous security and stability updates in the last few weeks.
Since September I have been working on what I originally thought was a major update to
Sherwood. It looks more like these features will now be rolled into a new game to be launched in a few months. For now I'm calling
this game The Dungeon's of Nottingham
and it will include a more sophisticated inventory, character and
combat system, new items and weapons and a large dungeon environment to
explore. Although it will initially launch with a relatively modest
feature set, this game should establish a stable foundation that will
support many future enhancements. This is easily the most ambitious
project I've done to date, so wish me luck.
The process of creating Sherwood and the other games has been very organic. I love the idea of someone finding
Maidmarian.com
by accident, clicking on a link and finding themselves in a fantasy
world way beyond their expectations. In console games, they use the
term "out of the box experience" to describe that first twenty minutes
of playing a game. To maximize the impact of the first impression, I've
placed a priority on trying to create immersive 3D environments with
high frame rates, real-time physics, motion captured animation and
dynamic time of day lighting. These are features players expect from
games purchased in a store, not from something you play on a web-page.
It's my goal to have the best 3D visual impact and "out of the box
experience" of any web based game.
So
what was I thinking when I designed these games? It becomes critically
important as an independent game designer to be efficient with
development time. Game content that takes me months to create can often
be ripped through in an evening by the average player and I don't have
the resources to stay ahead of them with fresh material using a
traditional approach. Linear story lines that rely on large amounts of
content will lead to an unsustainable game design. This is one reason
why the web is littered with the dead bodies of old failed independent MMORPGs.
I believe that leveraging emergent gameplay is critically important. I
try to provide the setting to allow players to play their game, not
mine. The fantasies that players bring with them are far more vivid and
compelling than any a developer might impose on them. Ideally the game
features or objects should interact in fun ways the developer never
anticipated. The trick is to create a game that can hold together when
you haven't accounted for every possibility. This is challenging to
design but very efficient because it maximizes the amount of gameplay
created by new content. There's always the possibility that the new
feature you're working on could exponentially increase the amount of gameplay.
................................................................................
June
24, 2005
Things
are great!
Obviously
I need to update this Developers Diary more often.
MaidMarian.com has seen huge growth in the last while. When I
look at the early entries in the diary, I have to laugh. In
2001, I was trying to get the site above 400 visits a
day.....now I'm getting over a million unique visitors a month
with the games being played over 2.5 million times. It's been
a wild ride. (In 2010 I hope I'll be looking back at this
diary entry and find it just as funny as the ones in 2001.)
In
October 2004, I issued a press release that resulted in a
major increase in traffic. During peek times there are over
350 players in the multiplayer games and I've added another
dedicated server this week to ensure there's plenty of room to
grow.
I
added Tank Ball this year and it rapidly became one of
the most played games on the site. Finding a creative solution
for internet latency in a shooting game was not easy but I
hope you enjoyed the result. I've had numerous requests for
improvements and there's more to come for Tank Ball.
I'm working on an update that includes timed game starts every
five minutes with stats gathering and a health bar. Tank
Ball should get much more competitive very soon.
I
hate having to play 3D web games in a little window just
because the developer had to take into account users with
800x600 displays. I've completed an update to make all of the
multiplayer games re-scaleable. If you scale the browser
window, the games will expand to fill the available space.
Users with higher resolution video card and monitor settings
can enjoy a more immersive experience. If you use View/Full
Screen (F11) in Internet Explorer, the multiplayer games will
fill most of the screen.
................................................................................
October
16, 2004
New
Web Site, New Server, New Game!
There
have been numerous updates in the last few months...and your
looking at one of them. The MaidMarian.com website was long
overdue for a redesign, and I hope you like how it turned out.
A new dedicated server has been added to host Sherwood, Moon
Base and Marian's World. This will allow up to 2000 simultaneous
players in the 3D worlds. Moon Base is very close to
it's 1,000,000 visitor. I'll give another update once the
magic number has been reached. The
community forum has been updated with a few new features and a
new look an feel.
The new online world, Sherwood, is the biggest news of the
last few months.
"Sherwood
is a free online 3D world where hundreds of players come
together to defend their honor in combat and join a community
of like-minded participants. Players enter this world by
choosing one four guilds and game play features team-based
player vs. player and player vs. monster combat. "
................................................................................
July
5, 2004
Moon
Base just got it's 600,000 visitor!
Moon
Base has been averaging about 5000 visitors per day since it
was launched in March 2004. Marian's World is at
250,000 visitors lifetime, with an average of about 2000 per
day. Thank you everyone for being so supportive during this
period of growth for the site. There has been numerous
feature updates since March.
My favorite
moment was when some of you noticed that with the gravity
turned down on the Moon, you can use the rocket pack to get
to the Earth. There is nothing funnier than seeing two player
avatars standing on the Earth like little specks in the
distance, taunting everybody on the Moon who hasn't figured
out the trick yet.
I'm working on
a new project that you should see soon. This will have
more of the medieval fantasy theme you'd expect from a site
named after a character from Robin Hood. I hope to have a
dedicated server very soon, and this should allow the
3D chat rooms to have user accounts, passwords and
profiles....assuming I can get up to speed on my database
coding quickly enough.
I'll try to
make the next update quicker....(I've said that before.)
................................................................................
March
3, 2004
Marian's
World and Moon Base
I'm
back! It's been a very long time since my last update, any
many of you have given up hope. I'm going to blame it all on
Ratinator.
"There's
only room for one mouse in this house! Ratinator is the
ultimate light-hearted shooter with a quick-footed mouse
leading the charge against a host of evil vermin, insects and
other pests."
Ratinator
started out as an experiment to see if I could find an
effective way to handle AI and pathfinding. (Special
thanks to the guys at Tildruin
Fantasy RPG Online.) I was thinking about using the
results for RPG applications....and got sidetracked.....for a
year. People seem to either love Ratinator...or they hate it
with a passion! Ratinator was launched on Shockwave.com in
September of 2003, and made the Adrenaline Vault's list of Top
Shareware Games of 2004. This project helped grow my coding
skills considerably and finally I got back to Maidmarian.com
in October 2003.
I've
always found the raycasting performance in Shockwave 3D to be
way too slow and this made it impossible to implement many of
the feature I wanted for the 3D chat worlds. I developed a
height field terrain generator that uses a bitmap image to
displace procedurally generated geometry. This gave me a
unique way to approach raycasting, and a huge performance
boost. Marian's World and Moon Base are
fundamentally the Maid Marian 3D chat code, with the new
terrain generator and Havok physics integrated together.
I'm also much happier with the 3D characters and world
geometry in these movies. I came up with a good hack to
resolve physics problems due to latency in the 3D chat
worlds....it's not perfect...but you can play bumper cars with
your friends in these new worlds.
The
result? I launched it two weeks ago and the site has gone from
300 visitors a day to 2500. For me, that's a lot of
traffic. It's not a big deal for my ISP (VFX
Digital Solutions), but I was borrowing Multi-User Server
bandwidth on the good will of an industry colleague. I didn't
expect a 1000% increase in traffic....neither did they. So the
chat functionality of Marian's World and Moon Base is down for
a few day while I get it sorted out.
I'm
still working on the MMORPG concept with good success. Expect
some more samples in the coming months. I had a desire to try
an create something non-violent in the MMORPG space a few
years ago. A Tale
in the Desert came out in the meantime, and I'm impressed
with what they've done with a similar concept. I hope you
don't think I'm selling out, but there will be monsters,
swords, magic and combat. The pathfinding and AI work
from Ratinator is coming in very handy for the Maid Marian
MMORPG, and I should have a swordplay / combat sample up soon.
................................................................................
January
1st, 2002
New Version 2.0 of Maid Marian, The Secret of Sherwood
So
if you've been wondering if I've abandoned this project in the
last six months, the new version is finally up. This version
includes a major redesign of the interface. I felt it was
important to design an interface that looked less like a
multi-media application and more like a computer game. The
chat console is integrated into the 3d environment. Maid
Marian has been remodeled and textured. She has a lower
poly-count than the old version (faster frame rate) and the
texture mapping has improved the overall visual quality.
Terrain following has been fully implemented and multi-layered
texturing was used to ensure that the mountain textures don't
look pixelated when viewed close up. The entire interface can
be rescaled to any screen resolutions by just resizing the
browser interface. Sorry the rewrite took so long. I hope you
like it.
................................................................................
June
5th to 10th, 2001
Generating Traffic for the Web Site
Since
the site was opened in April, there's been very little done to
generate traffic. MaidMarian.com currently gets about 125
visits a day, primarily because Macromedia is using the Maid
Marian Tech Demo as one of the Shockwave
3D samples on their website and links to us. My goal is
1500 visits a day. With this level of traffic, there should
always be about five to ten people in the 3D Chatroom. These
are some of the things I'm doing to increase traffic:
These
steps should boost the site traffic to 350 or 400 visits a day
in about four weeks. The rest will hopefully come from
participating in networks of similar websites, the quality of
the 3D experience and word of mouth.
................................................................................
June
4th to 6th, 2001
New Collision Detection and Terrain Following System.
Major
breakthrough. I found a creative way of approaching the
collision detection issue without using the Havok Xtra. This
involves a major change in the way the 3D environment is
designed but I have the benefit of being able to follow uneven
terrain. There also seems to be no loss in frame rate with a
virtually unlimited number of collision objects. The Terrain
Following Example uses a similar approach. The current
version of the Maid Marian chatroom has these changes
implemented, but I still need to redesign the 3D environment
to take full advantage of these changes. (Hopefully soon.)
................................................................................
June
1st to 3rd, 2001
Havok Physics Xtra Experimentation.
The next major challenge in the development of Maid
Marian's virtual environment is cleaning up the collision
detection and handling. I thought I had this sorted out
earlier, but when I ran a test using Director's collision
modifier on 100 test objects (cubes), the frame rate dropped
from 77 frames per seconds down to 45 fps. As you can imagine,
this really limits the size and complexity of the world.
So, back to the drawing board. I decided to try the Havok
Physics Xtra. Havok produces a great physics plug-in for
Director that implements collisions, forces and rigid bodies.
I ran the same test with the Havok collision modifier on 100
test objects with a loss in frame rate of only three frames
per second. I had to rewrite the entire character navigation
system to use Havok's impulse forces to move Marian around and
collisions are more difficult to control because Marian tends
to "bounce" off of obstacles in the environment, but
the approach has promise.
Here's
a test version of the single player Maid Marian that uses the
Havok Xtra. Use the "Add
Collisions" button to add the test collision objects.
(There will be a drop in frame rate, but that has more to do
with the added polygons than the collision detection.)
................................................................................
May
1st to 30th, 2001
World
Creation and Optimization
Most of May was focused on the process of creating the 3D
virtual world and streaming it in once your online. I teach Alias/Wavefront
Maya 3.0 in the Digital Animation Program at the British
Columbia Institute of Technology in Vancouver, Canada (my
day job) so the initial environment was created using Maya. No
final decision has been made on which 3D package is going to
be used for building Sherwood Forest. The final test
environment ended up less than 350k. Camera clipping and fog
is used in the world to keep the polygon count down and still
allows for a large environment. A lower polygon version of
Maid Marian was created for better performance on systems
without advanced 3D graphics cards. This optimized version
runs at over 100fps on my PC. (850mhz, GeForce II GTS)
................................................................................
April
20 to 22, 2001
UCON2001 at the New York Hilton
Macromedia
nominated the Maid Marian Technology Demonstration for a
People's Choice Award at UCON2001. This is Macromedia's yearly
User's Conference at the New York Hilton. I used the
opportunity to take my wife and kids to New York for a week. I
was up against two very large competitors, Sapient
and Intel.
Just like David and Goliath, except I lost. Oh well, it was an
honor just to be nominated.
................................................................................
November
2000 to April 2001
Shockwave 3D Beta Program
I
was fortunate to participate in the beta program for Macromedia
Director 8.5 with it's new 3D capabilities. The support
and encouragement from the employees at Macromedia and other
developers in the beta program was amazing. Macromedia and
Intel used the Maid Marian Technology Demonstration to help
promote Shockwave 3D to the press. Many of the beta testers
participated in server tests to help troubleshoot early
versions of the 3D avatar chat. As the beta came to a close I
finally had permission from Macromedia to open up the web site
in late April. Macromedia continues to use the Maid Marian
Tech Demo to promote Shockwave 3D on their site.
................................................................................
Contact
Information
Maid Marian Entertainment
Inc.
1151 Croft Road
North Vancouver
BC, Canada, V7K 1K2
Gene Endrody - [email protected]