New DCRPG Work-In-Progress Screenshots !

[Christuserloeser]

BlueCrab (http://www.ljsdcdev.net/) posted some very promising new screenshots (taken on Mac OS X) from his Online-RPG for Dreamcast, Linux, MacOS X, and Windows:

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/9338/dcrpg20060824im7df2.png

This screenshot shows two of Hawke's old DCRPG sprites on the screen. This was taken in an online mode game. The black mage in the picture is a server-controlled NPC.

Source: DCRPG Project forum (http://www.dcemulation.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=899433)

[Zion]

Looks great :p

[JKKDARK]

Good job :)

[crackkills]

They look completely awsome.

[Dull Blade]

looking forward to enjoying the dc online again. Great work.

[obelisk]

EEEEEEE
(joy)

wooohooot.
will there be offline adventures as well????
i repeat:
EEEEEEE
(joy)

[DarkSynbios]

is look very good!! :) and its play online!! bluegrab continue the good work!! :)

[Video_freak]

is look very good!! :) and its play online!! bluegrab continue the good work!! :)
Ahmen to that! Looks awesome! :)

[BlueCrab]

EEEEEEE
(joy)

wooohooot.
will there be offline adventures as well????
i repeat:
EEEEEEE
(joy)Heh, someone sounds happy there. :D

Anyway, to answer your question, right now the plan is for there to be an online and offline mode (see the other (not so pretty) screenshots in the forum linked to in the first post).

Thanks everyone for your support in this. It really is encouraging.

[ßüboni¢ $oñic]

cann we c anymore screenshots? how many players will the game be?

[BlueCrab]

Well, there really isn't anything interesting to show at the moment, more than what's been shown in the three screenshots in the forum that was linked to in the first post.

Right now, the plan is that online mode will be 8-players per game, possibly more, if its technically possible.

In offline mode, for the time being anyway, its only one player. There is a possibility of a split-screen mode sometime in the future, but that's not for certain.

[RetroGoth]

looks really nice. Always nice to have something new to play on my old dreamcast

[Darksaviour69]

sounds sweet bluecrab, this puts you ramblings in #dcemu in prepective ;)

[ßüboni¢ $oñic]

I RECENTLY HAD A SIT DOWN INTERVIEW WITH THE MAKER OF THIS GAME!


here it is, the interview Part I.

The Q&A

Q. Anymore pictures of game play?
A. no, not right now. when I have them, I'll post them.

Q. What language have you chosen?
A. C++

Q. this game will make use of the DC BBA and 56/33K?
A. initially it'll only support the bba and lan adapter. modem will come later, hopefully.

Q. are DC users gonna have to buy a new game then?
A. It will be free.

Q. Must they burn updated game disks though if on console?
A. Yes.

Q. Is there any code or binary that is public?
A. if you really want to see the code for it, there's a library that sits underneath it that I wrote that you can see the code of now. I haven't released any code or binaries yet.

Q. How many players?
A. Nine.

Q. Do you think the Dreamcast can handle this octuple load?
A. certainly, its just a case of how much work it'll be to manage the graphics. there's texture compression that can help out and all so, it shouldn't be that hard.

Q. Do you think in this pan-platform game the DC could lag behind?
A. right now, yes. right now, it supports Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and Dreamcast. eventually it'll support other thigns.

Thank you...

[Darksaviour69]

nice one

[BlueCrab]

Gee, I was wondering who was asking me all those questions on AIM last night.

Anyway, its 8 players planned now, not nine. ;)

Just a suggstion for the future, if you want to try to interview me for posting on a website, lemme know before hand. Then I can actually give you good, thought out answers, and not just the first thing that comes to mind. :cool:

[Darksaviour69]

Bluecrab have you ever been interviewed? you know like one of wraggs interviews?

edit: btw the latest news on http://dcrpg.ljsdcdev.net/ is FUBAR

[BlueCrab]

Bluecrab have you ever been interviewed? you know like one of wraggs interviews?Nope, can't say I have.


edit: btw the latest news on http://dcrpg.ljsdcdev.net/ is FUBARI know. Its been that way for a while. Once I get a bit farther with things, I'll fix it.

[ßüboni¢ $oñic]

:mad: :mad:
nice one :D ty

I wanted to make a thread about it but the message said i couldnt. Why am I restricted Mr. Sixty-Nine?:confused:


Just a suggstion for the future, if you want to try to interview me for posting on a website, lemme know before hand. Then I can actually give you good, thought out answers, and not just the first thing that comes to mind. so uh you were giving me bad answers?:eek: i didn't know that but I hope you saved tonight's convo since I lost power. :mad:


(Edited by BlueCrab: See the full log of the conversation a few posts down....)

[Darksaviour69]

you can't post new topic in the news forum, only staff can do that. ;)



Anyway, DCRPG's online mode now works on the Dreamcast, with a BBA (HIT-0400). I'm currently looking into an issue that prevents the Lan Adapter (HIT-0300) from working, and I hope it isn't a major issue.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now.

--------------------------------

Crashing issues with the HIT-0300 lan adapter are no more. DCRPG now completely works online with the Dreamcast.

Now, onto more gameplay related stuff, I go.

DCRPG Project Progress Thread (http://www.dcemulation.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=59315) ;)

[ACID]

Looks nice

[BlueCrab]

Here's the actual log (edited grammatically) of the conversation I had last night on the subject....

Q - What in this game was most difficult to program?
A - There's been lots of stuff that has been difficult so far. Heck, Getting all of the network-related code I need in KOS was a bit of a pain, and debugging that code....

Q - Any areas that it seemed like it wasn't worth the time to add?
A - I dunno... there's really not that much done to have any thoughts like that yet. Most everything that's there now is absolutely essential to the game.

Q - The characters in the screenshots, are they the main characters of the game? Is there any help from any artists on the project? Is there a need for more artists?

A - They're old versions of characters. There is an artist that is working on sprites for the game right now. Also, I certainly wouldn't turn down any art-related help... but at the same time I don't want to accept any help right now. I'd rather get the bulk of the game engine written before I think about that. Afterall, DCRPG has been restarted from scratch several times in the past (including once under my watch), and all the art that was made for all of those earlier versions was wasted effort, I feel. I don't want to disappoint anyone anymore. I want to get the code written. I figure at that point, people will come to the project.

Q - Did you decide not to use the old characters because you didn't like them?
A - Its not that I didn't like the art (I really did), its that it didn't work. The characters were quite high-quality, and took up too much space to work on the Dreamcast. It simply was impossible to make things work with the code of DCRPG the way it was.

Q - Ah technical limitations, so what needed to be cut to fix these problems?
A - The sprite sheets were 1024x1024 pixels.... That takes up about 2MB for ONE sprite. And, on the Dreamcast, we only have 8MB of total video memory to work with... Take out the space needed by the PVR to do its rendering, and the framebuffer, and that leaves you about 4 MB. That would be enough for two sprites, and nothing else. No map graphics, no font, nothing else. It simply wouldn't work.

Q - Have you solved these technical limitations?
A - Right now, I'm using reduced versions of the sprite graphics, that only take up 256x256 pixels. I'm probably gonna use the built-in texture compression to save space as well. Also, I've been smarter with the programming, I'm not making unnecessary copies of data; I'm not being stupid, essentially. Finally, I'm not overestimating things anymore.

Q - These modified sprites, is it a possibility that in the Non-Dreamcast versions of this game that we may see these sprites?
A - As I said, the sprites I'm using now are temporary. They will not be in the final game.

Q - So they really are just provisional?
A - Exactly... They're a stop-gap measure so that I could release some work-in-progress screenshots of the game. I personally like the sprites a lot, as a side note.

Q - When will we see the final sprites?
A - I dunno. When they're ready, I'll put them into the game, and take some screenshots, as long as the artist doesn't mind that. If he wants to keep them under wraps until the release, then I will.

And that's all that was said, pretty much.



And to answer one question:

so uh you were giving me bad answers?:eek: i didn't know that I didn't say I was giving bad answers, just not fully thought out ones....