Looking for help developing MMORPG

[Smidge204]

I'm currently working (actively working) on an untitled web browser based MMORPG. I'm focusing on the technical/functional portions and making good progress, but I am nearly at the point where I will have to start developing the actual game and not just the functional code.

Sadly, I'm not very good at the creative stuff.

So I'm soliciting help for the development of the game itself. I have a rough world map laid out, but need help filling it in with actual locations as well as developing more detailed maps for "inside" cities and buildings. I would also like help developing quests, NPCs, skill trees and items.

If there is anyone who feels up to helping out, please let me know. NO programming experience is required, since I'd be handling all of that.

=Smidge=

[tentril]

I would like to be a part of this. What is the setting of the game?(Medieval times, the future, etc.)

[Aki-at]

I could help around with the quest ideas and some suggestion to put into the game itself, but I'd like to know a bit more about it so I can suggest things that would fit in the game itself.

Oh wait, this wouldn't happen to be that Sonic game you were going to enter for that contest is it?

[DimensionWarped]

I'd be glad to help you with the design of your world. Now, I don't have a ton of experience with this, but I did get a kick out of reading a number of AD&D campaign settings... even if I never did actually play it.

[Smidge204]

It is, obviously, someting with a "Sonic" theme to it. Although I'm trying to keep the specifics as vauge as possible so as not to restrict possabilities... the game takes place on planet Mobius and wherever things take us from there.

The ideal setting is a conglomeration of any and all Sonic-verses; games comics and television shows, as well as anything else we can come up with. It would therefore be perfectly acceptable, IMHO, to have Sally Acorn talking with Big the Cat.

Oh wait, this wouldn't happen to be that Sonic game you were going to enter for that contest is it?

It would, except that since I'm the guy running the contest I can't rightfully enter it. I only put this project in context of the game contest to help motivate me and hopefully set a good example.

Once I finish the inventory list portion of the GUI I'll open the game up to a more public playtesting. Hopefully this will be done later today.

=Smidge=

[Aki-at]

The ideal setting is a conglomeration of any and all Sonic-verses; games comics and television shows, as well as anything else we can come up with. It would therefore be perfectly acceptable, IMHO, to have Sally Acorn talking with Big the Cat.

Maybe the idea seems a little silly, but in the Fleetway Sonic the comic, the star posts that you saw around the levels of the Sonic games was used for tansportation for connection with Mobius and that of the special zone, you could use that as a sort of explaination why Sonic's talking to Cosmos in one scene and then Rotor in the next, his just using the star post to hop from one place to another.

Anyway I wouldn't mind helping around with the designs of quests, NPC and maybe some map themselfs and the gimmicks along with them. Just wondering if you need any graphics help too or is that taken care of?

[Smidge204]

Maybe the idea seems a little silly, but in the Fleetway Sonic the comic, the star posts that you saw around the levels of the Sonic games was used for tansportation for connection with Mobius and that of the special zone, you could use that as a sort of explaination why Sonic's talking to Cosmos in one scene and then Rotor in the next, his just using the star post to hop from one place to another.

I don't feel like I have to justify the mixing of worlds like that. The current map is 916x721 tiles - more than big enough to accomodate everything with room to spare. (Max map size 1024x1024 tiles, 256 maps available for a total of 268,435,456 tiles... we have plenty of room.)

I was thinking of adding star posts as a possible save-point feature, or teleport destination marker. They would be permanent, non-carry items on the map.

Anyway I wouldn't mind helping around with the designs of quests, NPC and maybe some map themselfs and the gimmicks along with them. Just wondering if you need any graphics help too or is that taken care of?

Graphics I consider "polish" and currently not in a great rush to work on. The game is very light on graphics anyway. What's more important is to identify all the graphics we need, which will evolve over time.

=Smidge=

[DimensionWarped]

So how a display of that map? Finding places for cities will be much easier with a generic layout. Especially with rivers.

Also, so far the only cities to be identified in Sonic games are Station Square, Westopolis, Central City, and Solleana... and Solleana is allegedly a city-state I think.

[Aki-at]

True that those are the only cities, but I'm sure Smidge could also use places like Christman and South Island (and if we want to go into Sonic OVA, that would add another city) and Chemical Plant Zone and Casino Night Zone looked like they had some cities on the background

[Smidge204]

It's been recommended that I post this - the current draft of the global map.

Map scale: 1 pixel = 1 tile

Fun facts!

-Assuming ideal conditions (50AP start, 1AP cost per move, earn 1AP every 30 minutes), it would take 18 real-life days to walk across the entire map.

-If this map of "Mobius" was roughly Earth sized, one tile would be about 8.7 miles. (14km)

It seems DW is taking the initiative so you might want to coordinate with him. This map is certainly not set in stone! If you want to modify it to accomodate an idea then I can do that easily.

=Smidge=

[DimensionWarped]

Alright, I'll go ahead and discuss the geographical changes made.

First, on the western side where I placed Solleana, I formed an isthmus with a southeastern tip being covered in a mountain range that forms a small valley. From the best of my understanding, each area within a given game should probably take place in a generic area. Obviously Station Square can't be too far from Mystic Ruins or it wouldn't be possible to have a direct train route.

Solleana is styled very much after Venice Italy I think, so its only natural that it should be a coastal city on a peninsula. With that in mind, I sculpted the region to resemble the Italian Peninsula. For a quicky job in MSPaint, I think it looks fairly similar to what a region like that should look like.

Over on the east side of the map, only textural changes were made. I was under the impression while playing SA that the Mystic Ruins were fairly consumed by mountains. I changed the part of the mountains with the Station Square train station junction to have a mountainous coastline since its apparent from the design of mystic ruins that many parts of it are cliff areas overlooking the ocean. Also, to accomodate the vast variety of stages in MR, I changed the conjoining mountains to have iced mountain peaks and a single valley with a small stretch of wasteland that resembles a dessert. I'm not really sure if that one sand snowboarding level could exist in a real life scenario...

Station Square is of course a coastal town, so I placed it on the coast line near the area I picked for Mystic Ruins. Its a fairly large city in spite of how little you could explore in SA and the large map area is also representative of metropolitan area and of course, the beach resort and outlying areas.

Right now I'm questioning whether the city stages in SA2 were in fact a part of Station Square. The map in SA2 seems indicative towards all of these levels being part of the same city since all the city stages are adjacent towards one another. However, the map is also supposed to be representative largely of the whole world in SA2, yet thats all turned around in Shadow when they show a full world map similar to Earth yet slightly less eroded looking. Regardless, if the Sonic X adaptation is accurate, the SA2 city and Station Square are in fact one and the same in spite of them never actually saying it in SA2.

Since I'm assuming this is the case, I decided that the SA2 dessert area would be just north of Station Square. Pink areas indicate bases owned by Dr. Robotnik.

Later I'll look into finding an area for Shadow's cities (should be in fairly close proximity since Solleana is far away from the usual Sonic place... whereas Shadow probably takes place on the same continent given the government presence.

As for Genesis Sonic, localities should be placed on the islands to the south of the Eastern continent.

Just think of the whole thing as the Eastern and Western Hemispheres reversed.

[Aki-at]

Well the dungeons for the game, will they be previous zones from the Sonic games? probably be best if you use zones like Oil Ocean or Scrap Brain since they can both be used for a number of quests (Containing the pollution in Oil Ocean, stop a power cell from melt down in Scrap Brain, shut down the badnik factory in Scrap Brain etc etc yes those ideas need more work) since they continue to present active danger in the SonicVerse.

And about the map, it looks great but I'm guessing if we were to put all the old zones of Sonic's in there it'll end up being a bit more "colourful" unless your chosing specific locations from Sonic related media?

EDIT: And with what DW said, South Island should be, like that South Island XD and Christmas Island next to it. But DW, we have to remember that part of Mystic Ruins is floating in the sky, not sure if you took that into account. And can't forget the Egg Carrier! I'd point out that sky rail would be just north of Eggman SA2 desert base as well as Pumpkin Hill. I'll add my thoughts later with an image.

[DimensionWarped]

He wants us to merge pretty much every known Sonic Universe, so I'd imagine that'd be a yes. One problem with that will be finding a way for South Island to be suitably close in proximity to both Knothole and Station Square.

[Smidge204]

You could, of course, add an island. Knothole would be in the middle of a dense forest, and not too far from Eggman/Robotnik's main city... or at least one of them.

And yes, anything from any game, TV series or comic is fair game. In the most ambitious or plans I would have some place om the map representative of every location, but that is probably not feasable.

I think Station Square should be moved to the coast just a little west of Mystic Ruins Junction. We can then place the Egg Carrier crash site in the ocean between the two, and it would also be halfway between the Final Egg base (which is at the edge of the jungle) and Station Square where he was headed. Continuity!.

The location of Mystic Ruins seems appropriate, although the area pointed to would be the jungle portion specifically, with the train station and Tails' workshop being in the "Mystic Ruins Junction" location. We would then need to add Ice Cap somewhere relatively close by (in the mountains), followed by the floating island (Over the ocean) and the entrance to Red Mountain. Windy Valley would be just to the east of Mystic Ruins Junction, at the foot of the mountain range.

I could cram al of Tails' adventure into that cluster of islands just south of Mystic Ruins (Conveniently close to his workshop!). Poloy's and Caron's Forests, Padon Tunnel, Rocky's Sea, Puru Puru Lake, Pori Pori Mountain, and Brocco, Guririn and Kukku Islands.

I'll transcribe this onto a bit map later.

Edit: South Island and Christmas Island. Sonic is, apparently, Australian.

=Smidge=

[Aki-at]

For Sonic OVA locations, placed Ice Cap at the top to tie in with what Knuckles says it being at the northern most tip of the planet. I haven't really thought about where the Presidential Palace would be placed considering it, like Angel Island, is a floating island although it'd probably somewhere close to South Island.

I bunched the three islands (from the Mega Drive games) together because they felt secluded from the rest of the world with a complete populus of animals in the early games so I thought it be best to keep them away from any major piece of land. Although I'd spread them out a bit further (Sonic 2 intro should us South Island was the only land for miles)

Chaos Control being Eggman's base of oparation in Sonic X needed to be close to Station Square if he attacked the city on a regular basis and he did have a gigantic missile pop out out of the middle of the ocean (so he obviously had some sort of bass there anyway)

Sonic Advance 2's island was placed somewhere in the middle of the ocean, although I am un-sure if it is the residence of Cream the Rabbit. If it is, should be positioned closer to a land mass IMO

Never Lake was surrounded by mountains and grass land with no sight of an ocean at all, so I'm guessing it be positioned somewhere deep into the land mass so I positioned it here.

Prison Island. I thought you could use something like the remians of an ex-government base as some sort of level where you find high level baddies to kill, makes sense considering they locked away Shadow there what else would they have? (okay, I'm not really sure if Shadow was on Prison Island when Eggman released but I presume he was)

Going with DWs positioning, I placed Sky Rail, Pumpkin Hill, Angel Island and Egg Carrier accordingly.

I have been thinking that the locations of Sonic Heroes could be placed at the western continent but as of now I'm not sure what to put on there, maybe some Sonic Underground locations? (if I remember correctly, there was meant to be an area that was never discovered by Doctor E.) or maybe the location of the city in Sonic Battle? (it itself is a coastal city)

As for the location of Knothole, not reading the comic books I have no idea where exactly it goes, if it is indeed close to Station Square, I'd say place in between Never Lake and the forest to the right of it. that way its close to one of Eggman's base and Station Square.

[DimensionWarped]

Prison Island needs to be a remote island. There is Ocean for miles and miles in every direction when they show the cutscenes.

Think of a location more like that bonus dungeon lab in FF8.

And that body of water, Never Lake, that is probably larger than the Dead Sea. I don't think it would be appropriate to call it a lake when its a hundred miles wide.

EDIT: Scratch that idea, Lake Superior is actually 150 miles wide.

EDIT: As is, there are going to be like... 3 Ice Caps...

[Aaron C-T]

I haven't really added much of my own here, but I figured it'd help Smidge out a bit to combine both DW and Aki's map. I recommend that anyone else who wants to add stuff do it in Photoshop so that we're working onto layers and not the actual map. It's just easier to move locations around that way. I suppose you could call me a hypocrite for not doing that this time, but at least I got everything on to one map.

I suppose someone can take my map (I only added like 3 things, and did some minor coloring for locations like Ice Cap and Lava Reef so that they actually made sense). My map was going off of Aki's which is why those islands have moved. Have fun whoever takes the initiative to layer these locations. Hope I helped somewhat.

Sonic 'Verse Map:

Edit: Now that I think about it. I should've moved Egg Carrier closer to the coast of the Mystic Ruins.

[Smidge204]

Thank you, Scatta, I was jsut about to start working on that

*Starts working on it*

Edit: Some incontinuities in the games needs to be resolved.

Sonic 3 took place on Angel Island, and so did S&K... and Angel Island also appeared in Sonic Adventure?

Angel Island from Sonic Adventure spent most of the game in the ocean. Therefore, the little floating island that the Altar was on should be, IMHO, a sub-island to Angel Island. (A floating island on a floating island?) That would allow Angel Island to be "big enough" for a bunch of things.

Not that I want to be anal about continuity with the games - that's impossible anyway since they aren't consistent themselves - but I'd like to put some thought into it.

=Smidge=

[DimensionWarped]

Alright, here is a potential explanation...

The wind chamber that sends you to the altar area in Sonic Adventure sends you to floating island proper, which also features a back entry to Ice Cap. Its the same Ice Cap from Sonic 3. The reason only the altar area is accessable is because you enter the Island from an awkard area.

And no, I have no idea why an island that falls into the middle of the ocean is accessable from a perfectly landlocked area just by being blown around.

[Epon]

I'm not sure Lava Reef would be that south :E

[DimensionWarped]

That'd have to be Volcano Valley, and the mouth of the volcano certainly shouldn't be 50 miles wide

[Aaron C-T]

"I'm not sure Lava Reef would be that south :E"

Yea.. you're probably right.

"That'd have to be Volcano Valley, and the mouth of the volcano certainly shouldn't be 50 miles wide :P"

Okay. Volcano Valley with a smaller opening works.

[Smidge204]

Edit: You know, instead of making the opening part of the map, you could make a custom tile graphic and put it in the map. Same with rivers and other "microscopic" map features.

Item inventory is 'done' I think. As promised, the game is now available for public debugging.

http://smidge204.homeftp.net:84/urbansonic/

When reporting a problem, please specify your web browser and exact browser version (eg: IE 6.0.2800.1106). Javascript is required to play. Do your best to break it! Movement currently costs 0 AP so you can explore.

=Smidge=

[LarkSS]

Is this what I'm supposed to see?

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g270/LarkSS/SFGHQ%20Forum%20Pics/urbansonic.jpg

I don't see any map nor does trying to manage my stat points do anything. Talking seems non-responsive, but I'm guessing it's not to that point yet and I can't seem to find any way to test out the inventory system.

[Smidge204]

The game is constantly in development, and I was just screwing with the code. If the game ever breaks like that, chances are I'm fiddling with it.... so wait about 10 minutes and pres F5.

Should be working now.

=Smidge=