Hey everyone, if you've followed me for a while you'll know that I manage the BuildCity Gaming World in AW. I've been meaning to get things in order there for a while (meaning that they'll mostly manage themselves) so I took some time this weekend to do some maintenance. Here's what's new:
Abandoned/Incomplete plots have been maintenance and are available to new builders.
Tourist building has been disabled.
The global bot is ONLINE 24/7... this grants access to global chat and jump points for ease of reference. It will also save your last in-world location so you don't start in the tutorial when you enter the world.
Players can earn Airpark Achievements for completing certain tasks, such as completing their first build or earning a certain amount of credits. Check the signs in-world for more info on that.
I am still maintaining the world so telegram me if you want to play, but expect a 1-3 day turnaround time as I'm not active daily anymore. Alternatively, you may reply to this thread and receive a quicker response as I am active daily on the forums.
Some good news came out for AW games last week as DM Mercury introduced a new element of gameplay to AD&DRPG -- Dragon Coins.
"Some elder dragons have started distributing a new form of currency in the Mid-Rift to their lesser minions in order to gain their support for an uprising. This currency is quite magical and in the hands of a player can be quite powerful giving players extra abilities that they would not have otherwise had.
You can acquire dragon coins by killing monsters once you are level 10 and fighting monsters who are at least level 10. Not all monsters will have Dragon Coins. If you receive a Dragon Coin it will be added to your character automatically, and you will receive a pretty pink message after the kill.
You can view your current Dragon Coins on the /stats command."
So in essence, a special currency was introduced to the game that allows players to perform special commands when they acquire enough of it. The commands that have currently been implemented are as follows:
/dragon heal
Cost: 1 coin
Heals both HP and MP to full
/dragon gold
Cost: 1 coin
Gives you 200gp
/dragon teleport list
Cost: 0 coins
Lists teleports you have and how many times you can teleport there.
/dragon bind (n)
Cost: 25 dragon coins for 50 teleports
Sets your current location to teleport (n). The value of (n) must be 1,2, or 3. Warning this will override any previous teleport and reset the number of teleports you have to 50.
Example usage: /dragon bind 2
/dragon teleport (n)
Cost: 1 teleport
Teleports you to a previously defined teleport via /dragon bind (n). Teleports are specific to a Teleport (n), where n is the value 1,2, or 3 that you set your teleport to.
Example usage: /dragon teleport 1
/dragon refresh (n)
Cost: 5 dragon coins for 10 teleports
This allows you to add 10 more teleports to a bind location you have already set.
Example usage: /dragon refresh 3
The big feature here seems to be personalized teleportation... which is great in a game like AD&DRPG where the player is always on the move, and doesn't necessarily have to have a 'home.' This feature is still in development and DM Mercury is looking for suggestions, so if you have any feedback feel free to visit the forum thread concerning Dragon Coins.
Hey everyone. Married life is going well and I'll be starting summer classes here soon, so I'll be cutting back on the posts. I have a few more in the pipes... but I've cut down on AW projects as well. Most of my time the past few weeks has been in AD&DRPG world continuing my efforts at renewing some of the older builds. The updated visuals have gotten a lot of good feedback and I've seen a positive upturn to the amount of people in the world, including a few new players. My goal with all of this was to help AD&D continue to be a stable gaming destination for AW users, and as more people are playing (a lot of tourists especially!) I can feel comfortable that my goal has been achieved.
If AD&D isn't your thing, you may want to check out AWMyths world... they've seen an upswing in activity as well and there seems to be a lot of good things coming out of the world.
I don't really want to go into another in-depth explanation of things while I'm away on honeymoon, so I've decided to post a photoblog of my progress so far. :) The visual renovations span over several areas, and I'm trying to work in the order which places the player would generally experience.
A redesigned town fountain in the entry town of Meriel. The benches surrounding the fountain are movers that allow the player to lay down and relax, or perhaps take a nice AFK. ;)
The Magic Users guild. The area in the middle of the room is an anti-gravity zone that lifts players to the next floor, and the cloths in the doorway are cloth objects. All avatars in the building have sequences applied.
Some new landscaping in the southern part of Merinel. The knight in the foreground is actually an enemy NPC spawn-point, and I thought it fitting to position them in what seems like an ambush.
A dense scene in Turkel forest that leads players to an important location nearby. Since players can't fly, the felled trees make a nice transitional barrier from one area to another.
Gro Lahr mansion. The mansion is plagued by a dark fog, and surrounded by a dying forest. There has been extensive work on increasing area of this atmosphere outside the immediate area of the mansion, and the trees from Turkel forest now continue into this area. A sharp gradient occurs where the trees begin to die off.
Turkel forest has been graced with a new mist, low-gravity zones (for good jumping!) and numerous firefly particles. The low gravity zone makes jumping from trees very enjoyable!
The new appearance of the entrance to Traloria. Notice the lowered terrain from the original entry as well as the new procession into the city proper. A lot of detail work has been done in Traloria, though I'm trying to keep with the original vision of the build as much as possible.
A handy newsboard at the ground zero area. If you click on the postings, they are elaborated upon via the say command in the user's chat.
Hey everyone! I've spent the past couple of days in AD&DRPG helping to get the world's half-decade old builds back up-to-date. If you've never been to visit, AD&DRPG is a fantasy-themed role-playing game that uses Dungeons & Dragons gameplay mechanics for character stats, skills, and progression. If you're a follower of the blog, you'll remember back in March when we reported that AD&DRPG would be open permanently. Since they're around to stay, I wanted to contribute some of my time to help address the biggest gripe world visitors have had since it returned: the aging visuals.
In addition to the visuals I've also been addressing some navigation issues by making new NPCs that address players via the say command, but overall the chief concern has been to update areas with zones and particle effects, replace really low-res textures, get sequences to avatar objects... things like that. Anything to help with interaction and immersion is being addressed, and it is really starting to show.
I would like to share all of my progress here on the blog (since this is a building blog, after all) and I think I'll do so in small snippets, to be released while I'm away next week. I'll set them to be posted at various intervals through the week, so be checking for new posts!
Today, we'll be looking at the new world title screen. The title screen appears when players drop into Merinel -- the ground zero town -- and is triggered by a simple bump trigger. You can view it below.
As you can see from the video, there are a few things going on here. Perhaps most noticeable is the camera switch -- this isn't native third person mode. The user is forced into this camera position when they hit the bump trigger, and the camera itself is set to a pole object that moves and rotates back and forward. In the actual view, you see the AD&DRPG logo, a large dragon, and several buttons. The dragon is simple, and is stationary except for an appropriate flying sequence that has been set to loop. The two buttons on the left link to webpages, and the button on the right sets the camera location to the user -- effectively terminating the title sequence.
Used to begin and end the title sequence. The 'location' parameter was first set to a named object (the pole) for the title camera, and then set to the user to terminate the title sequence.
Used for objects that needed to be changed by bump or activate triggers. In our case, everything that was meant for the title screen had a name assigned to it because when the player clicked 'PLAY,' all of the title screen objects needed to disappear. 'Activate visible <name> no' achieves this.
URL is pretty standard for accessing web-links from Active Worlds. It is typically accessed via an activate command, and this is true in our example as it is used for interactive signage.
Anyway I don't want to go into a detailed explanation of how exactly to make a title screen like the one here, but this should get you started. There are a lot of ways to go about it; be creative and see what you can do! :)
VR Farm -- the farming simulation game in Active Worlds -- is looking for a new modeler to assist in continued development of the world. Potential modelers should expect to be designing new crops and other farm-themed objects.
Hey all, I've had some people contact me recently letting me know that they were interested in playing Builder's Challenge, and the game has been inactive for some time... so the other day I cleaned off the cobwebs in BuildCity world and have opened it in a setting that I'm tentatively calling the 'off-season.'
During the off-season:
The chief end of the off-season session is to allow players to practice for times of competition.
The world is not in active competition. The scoreboard will continue being maintained, but prizes will not be rewarded.
Building lots will still be judged as normal, with a score and comments given to the builder.
The global bot is not guaranteed to be online 24/7.
Requests will be processed slower than usual. Expect turn-around times of up to 2 days during the off-season.
Area restrictions are DISABLED -- this means that higher tier areas do not have to be unlocked like they normally do to be built in. However, the player still does have to lock them individually -- they must begin with a plot in Verdant Valley and progress to higher tiers on an individual basis. The only difference now is that they won't have to be held up by other players.
The global bot's online time will be sporadic until I have completed the semester and returned home. This period will last for about another week, and then the bot should be up 24/7.
The off-season will end when we're ready to hold another session of Builder's Challenge, at which time existing builds in the world will be wiped. There is no time-table at present for this, as I wish to automate much of the registration and judging process before I hold another session.
I'll post further updates concerning the off-season to this thread in the AW forums. In the meantime, here are a couple of images from the first plot of the off-season: A Cattle Ranch by Conqueror
Overview of the Ranch
Front-view with completed comment card for the builder.
I'll have some more updates on this after I complete my finals. In the meantime, give the world a tour. It's a P-50 world and for the most part it's completely filled out (except for builder plots!)
Hey everyone! Just a quick note before I get into tonight's post -- I'll probably take a couple of days off the blog Monday and Tuesday to focus on my Calculus midterm. I've got a lot of studying to do and won't have too much time to blog while I'm doing that. On the plus side, after this week is over I will be on Spring Break and will have quite a lot of time to devote to projects. ;)
Now to the meat! I want to use this blog to plug community efforts here from time to time that don't get too much press. There are a lot of groups in Active Worlds who are actively seeking out volunteers and for whatever reason tend to get overlooked... and since I've got this nice blog now hopefully I can help to put a stop to that.
Without further adieu, today we'll be taking a look at AD&DRPG World. AD&DRPG is a massive gaming world that drops the player into a medieval adventure. Designed in the fashion of dungeons and dragons, the player builds stats and skills as they increase in level and gain better equipment. The player's actions influence their moral alignment, and players can even PvP against one-another!
