[VB]Mordor Clone - my journey

[Salbei]

I´m currently working on a "Mordor" clone customized in a lot of ways.

I just recently got into Visual Basic so things take a bit longer than they should, but at least i´m learning quite fast this way.

At the moment i´m still working on the basic stats, races etc. Still don´t know how i am supposed to implement a map , traders and how the combat should look like... well i´m doing what i can do now and read into the stuff that i´m missing later.

Right now i´m using a few .ini files instead of a database, not pretty, but its working

I would be grateful for any ideas and tips, a lot of things are missing because i just recently started working on this.

to do:
-figure out a combat system
-implement a map (or any way to "move" your character)
-implement "a" town
-add "traders" , vault etc
-add items
-add monsters
-lots of other things ...

Once the basics are done i can still worry about sounds and graphics later or the balance.
It is a quite huge project and i keep coming up with new ideas.



Just blew my mind how complex this is.... and i haven´t even figured out all those little things that are left to do.

It is going to keep me busy for a while

[Salbei]

Todays update:

-Added a system to "train" stats, including a point system. (prolly going to rework that pointsystem, but it is good enough for now).
-added a "walkable" map (via the keyboard). still have to figure out a way to create randomized ones (or save the data somewhere if i can´t get it to work).
Took the majority of my time today to get that map to work at all.
-few minor tweaks to the xp bar
-cleaned up a lot of the code, added more comments etc.
-added a "goldcounter"




to do priority list:
-improve the map (add walls, towns etc), try to figure out randomized maps or a way to readout a file and "load" the map from there.
-implement opponents. "spawn" the map with them (random chance to encounter is what i have in mind right now).
-implement items. already got a pretty good idea how to do this. might work on it when i´m stuck with other things.
-implement different skills / classes / guilds
-implement a combat system , got a few ideas - other things are "more important" at the moment.
-implement "traders", town related things
-add pictures + sounds and other "unimportant" things that don´t require much coding.
-tidy up the code
-character creation related ideas

[MageKing17]

Visual Basic? Good luck trying to produce something interesting with that.

Not that it's not been done, mind, just that it's a lot of effort.

[Salbei]

Well the original game that i try to roughly clone and improve was made with VB. It is also a good opportunity for me to learn using VB in a "fun" way.
By the way the original game is VERY minimalistic visually , but was the most complex thing that i have ever played.

Every day i encounter new mini problems that have to be solved and i really appreciate the good feeling whenever i solve them and learn how to solve those problems in the future.

---

Today i was not that interesting.
-Added a few of features to the map (it is now "following" the player -> autoscroll etc.).
-Added a few buttons (next to the map) that might also be used to move the character (hotkeys are still available of course).
-Added a autosave function.
-tried a lot of things to implement different things on the map. not that successful but i learned a lot of things that will be useful later.
Especially using "arrays" is going to be VERY useful.
Also toyed around with a random number generator that will also come in handy later.

Right now the map is a table (20x20) and i am moving the player by moving the picturebox (in the table) in rows / columns. I did it that way because it is easy to keep track of where things are and where things are supposed to happen.
I´m going to implement more levels whenever i got time for it.
When you move "down" in the dungeon a new field of 20x20 should be generated and so on.

At the moment i am still hardcoding the first level. Once i got sufficient knowledge i will try auto-generate levels.
There are still a few pieces of information missing for that, but i´m pretty close.



Not that much of a visual difference from yesterday , but the gained knowledge will be super handy for other parts.Can´t really see it on the screenshot but the player "box" changes its image whenever you change the direction. Right now the images are just very simple arrows, i will rework the images when i´m close to done with the project.

[Malban]

Hi!

Hi liked Mordor a lot - and its follow up also, a game you could allways play a second time.
For me it is a timeless classic .

Even if it programmed in VB. It was very well made - had multiplayer support and a 3d Dungeon. Allways reminded me of a "Sword of Fargoal" 10 years after .

Good luck on your way!

Greetings

Malban

[Salbei]

Thanks.
I played the original Mordor like crazy.I spend countless hours playing that game.
---

Todays update:

I´ve almost completed the "auto-generated" levels. The basics are complete, right now i just have to add items that should be added, and that requires next to no code.

The idea is to have the same map with your old character and a complete new map with new characters.
Right now it is possible to re-generate all the maps (currently just 10 to test the function, but it could be 100 or even 1000 aswell ... won´t cause any effort because the maps will get auto-generated).

Stairs up/down transport you to the last or next level.
There are just a few minor bugs left to fix and i am done with the map (for now).



The next thing i want to do is to add spawn-positions to the map (will also get auto-generated for levels past level1), add a couple monsters and then finally get into "combat".

What i really like about this project is that you just roughly need to finish everything and then improve or fine-tune things later.
At some point i will implement some sort of fog-of-war (already got a similar idea), but i don´t have to do it now. That is what i mean.
As long as the basics are complete i can still polish different parts one at a time.
In theory i could add features at will so the project will never really be finished.

[Salbei]

Todays update:

I implemented a Fog of War system. Whenever you reveal special fields like "Stairs up/down", "Town" or "Regeneration Fields" they will be shown in the map (also will be saved for other Players, like in Mordor).
So whenever the Player moves, a few checks are being made (am i standing on a town square ? etc)

I could fix a few bugs that where mainly related to the automatic generated maps.I could tweak the code so this way the maps will get generated a lot faster.

At the end of my session i prepared a few things for tomorrow.
Towns are now accessible and each one got a different name.




This is quite a huge difference to Mordor (you only got a single town there at level 1 and had to walk up all the way).

The other thing i prepared for the future was the basic system that leads to combat (set spawnpoints that will of course also be randomized by the automatic generated maps) and the fight button that should initiate combat later.

I still need to setup a few Monsters to test if the spawn system is working fine.

So right now i got two options - continue with the towns or try to implement combat.
Like i said before i´d like to create the basic features first and polish those later (add pictures, sounds etc.)

Every day things get a little bit easier for me since i got used to the problems that arise and most of the time i have already handled those in the past.

[Salbei]

Todays update:

Further improved the spawn system and cleared the path to combat.

Whenever you step on a field that spawns Monsters a new window pops up with the Monsters in there. The RadioButton is there to chose your target (going to be useful for combat later).

Right now all mobs are named "Monster" and got the same image, but already got unique and buff/debuffable stats.Each Monster got its own ID, so i can easily exchange the name, picture and stats.

The current spawnsystem is also looking for the maximumquantity of that mob ID and picks the max number to chose a number between 1 and the maxquantity - the result is the number of mobs that have spawned.



You will also note that i enabled Autosizing. This way when there is just one monster there is not a huge empty screen with just one monster in it.Instead the screensize will grow with each additional monster.

I´ll thought i could implement combat next, but i think i will have to create a few "dummy" items first for the character to equip.
Especially the Weapon should have an influence on the combat damage. Things like that.
This means i prolly have to create the basics for itemmanagement and equipment first.

Also the map currently feels "empty".I think i might have to drop the autogenerated maps to increase the map quality and add new maps sporadically to increase the map quality.
This way i would have like 20+ "good" maps instead of 1000+ "boring" ones.
It still was not wasted. I can still use that code to speed up the process (the maps are already generated, just need to be filled with a couple new items so they don´t feel so empty)

[Salbei]

Update:
Spend a LOT of time on this today.

New features:

-fully working melee combat (including miss chances, critical hits etc.)
-killed monsters grant xp/gold
-items are now equipable
-removed the "Wisdom" stat - just couldn´t find any use for it.
-when you click on an item, then its stats / requirements etc. will be shown in a small window (used mouse_hover first, but that was too annoying).
-major visual changes (used a lot of tablelayouts), intelligent screensizes etc.
-town now offers trainers, its now only possible to train in towns
-significantly improved the code for training (cut the code for it about half)

I decided to use mtg pics for this (i really don´t feel like creating hundreds of monster pictures), so the program won´t be available for the public until i get in contact with a handful of artists, replace those pictures or find another way to use those picture legally.

The program should hit beta status soon.

To do:

-rework inventory
-add a ton of items
-add traders
-add special skills
-add spells
-rework monsters (add names / pictures)
-add sounds/music
-add startscreen / options
-finetune the map
-include more items to the map (rocks, walls etc)
-finetune UI
-balance
-find a name for the program lol

further ideas :

-quests (from towns)
-shrines
-boss mobs
-champions
-mercenaries
-resists
-statistics that influence the game (100 goblins killed - you gain +1 Att against goblin creatures)
-special item abilities
-useable items (potions, tomes etc)

[Salbei]

Update
I was playing a MTG tournament during the Weekend and forgot to update this.I might have missed some changes.

New features:
-added an Inventory (25 slots)
You can equip your items there, but you must meet the items minimum requirements to do so.
-added randomized drops from Monsters.
Currently about every 25th mob should drop an item.
You gain higher quality items the further you go down in the dungeon.
You also gain a bonus to find an Item after very tough encounters.

-added a way to train skills (in town)
-included the first few skills
With each Level up you gain Skill Points and Stat Points. You can spend both at the towns to improve your stats and/or learn skills.
Skills currently can be trained up to 25 times (you must meet the requirements, usually Stat related).
The 2 new skills are:

Brutalize (Strength Skill): You deal 2 additional melee damage per Skill level.
Cleave (Strength Skill) : You got a 3% chance (per Skill level) to perform an additional attack against your target.

General thoughts about the Stat Skills:
Strength - this should be heavily melee related and increase your melee related things
Possible Skills:
lower melee miss rate (higher Attack value)
increase damage output (flat)
chance to grant additional melee attacks
Twohanded Weapons (increased Damage)
Twohanded Weapons (increased Attack value)

I have been thinking about relating the inventory slots to the Strength stat (via skill).So if you got a high Strength value then you are able to carry more items.

Dexterity - this should aid your defense AND offense.
Possible Skills:
increased Critical Hit chance(melee)
increased Initiative (who attacks first?)
a Evade chance
a Block Chance
raising the opponents chance to miss
Thieving Skills (Back Stab, open locks, "Stealth")
Ability to wield 2 Weapons (decreased Miss rate)
Ability to wield 2 Weapons (increased Damage output)

Intelligence - this should be strictly magic and spells related.
Possible Skills:
Combat Regeneration (Mana)
Increased Spelldamage
Increased Maximum Mana
Increased Manaregeneration
Increased chance for your Spells to critically hit
Enable new Spells

Might also decrease Vendor Prices (bartering) and increase the value of your items when you are selling them.

Constitution - this is the "opposite" of Strength and should be mainly defensive.
Possible Skills:
Combat Regeneration (Hit Points)
Increased Resistances(against Spells)
Increased Resistance (against Melee damage)
increase Regeneration rate while resting
increased maximum Hit Points.

---
Most likely going to implement the "easier" skills when i got time for it.
The next thing that is desperately needed are Merchants (in town).

Right now the Program needs .Net Framework4 (Microsoft) and about 25MB RAM to run.
Note to myself: I´m currently at 5681 rows of code (main window)

Once the Merchants are done and i created a "Character Creation" + "log in" screen i might release a Beta version (without the MTG pics).There is still a lot of work to do, so i can´t really provide any specific release date for this.

[Huggybaby]

Damned impressive progress, thanks Salbei!

[Salbei]

Update

New Features:
-You are now able to sell items in town
Currently you have to choose the items you want to sell BEFORE you enter the town (Check Box behind the Itemname).
When you are in a town you are now able to click a button (Sell Items). Now the merchants of that town will offer you a certain amount of Gold for the first item and you will be asked if you want to sell the item.

The price is highly influenced by your characters race (racism ftw!). An Orc Player will always gain less Gold from selling items, Humans will gain the most.
If you agree to sell the item then this specific item will be available to be re-bought in that specific town.
You will then gain your Gold, the Item disappears out of your Inventory and you will be asked to sell the next checked item.

Currently there is no way to buy items in town,i still have to code that.The sold items however are already getting saved. I might rework that system later, but it should be "good enough" for now.
Was obviously quite tough to code this.

-reworked the town window.
Each town now got a unique name and picture.The Town window will display both of them.

-slightly enhanced the way combat works.
However i really need some game sounds during the combat.Right now it is just to fast.
Sounds could slow down the combat, i could tell the code to wait until the sound is complete before anything else should happen.
This way small things (Monster Status , misses, critical hits etc) are way easier to spot.
At the moment the combat just "flies" by and at the end of each round you got about 2 Seconds to check what happened.
Adding Sounds will fix this.

-lowered the cost to train skills.
Initially it cost 3 points to train a skill, i lowered the amount to 1.
The way the skills work you will get only minimalistic bonuses that add up.
It is not fun having to make 3 levels just to gain 2% evade, especially at higher levels.

-implemented additional requirements to train skills
Beside the obvious Skill Points you now need to reach the minimum requirements for the Skill.
Right now that requirement is bound to the Stat you gain the Skill from (this way an additional level requirement is not needed).
It is also possible to "spread" your skills further now.

-implemented 2 new skills.
It is quite simple for me to implement new skills. I know where to add the code and most of it is just copy/pasting with just minor modifications (locations etc).That covers most of the "train" parts.
The only "tricky" thing is to tell the program when to use a "skill" and what is supposed to happen.
I still got a ton of ideas for new skills, it is just a matter of time when i implement those.

My current focus is to release a playable "Beta" version, so obviously i need to do other things first, because the amount of possible skills is pretty much "unlimited".

Falcon Eye
(Dexterity Skill)
Your chance to perform a melee critical hit is raised by 1% per skill level.

Agility
(Dexterity Skill)
Your chance to evade melee hits is raised by 2% per Skill level.
(You may only evade if the monster would hit you!)

-removed all mtg pics
I don´t have permission to use those and don´t want to get into trouble.
WotC would only allow me to use those if i agree to their their license, i really don´t want to do that (would grant THEM permission to sell my game and other things that i don´t want).

The current "pictures" are very minimalistic. Mostly just a window with a word in it.
Sure, it looks boring this way - but nobody forces you to use MY pictures (*cough* Just browse this forum and you will find very nice pictures *cough*)

This way i can just release a Beta version / Updates without having to worry about anything.

-reworked the Programs Folder Layout.
Pictures , Databases and Sounds should now be easy to find (or replace).
This way it should be quite easy to mod certain aspects of the game without much trouble.
There are no hardcoded Pictures/Sounds and you are able to either simply exchange the Pictures (Monster(1).jpg) or directly exchange the "path" at the INI file. This way you could use other formats than .jpg .

---

Known Issues:
1)
When the Inventory is updating there is a very annoying slowdown while the update is happening.(about 75 "things" will get updated several times)
I have to re-code some things in there and might have to split the update process.

2)
You can´t be at the same spot with your player as anything else.You will always force the original thing (Regeneration Field, Town, Stairsup/down) to move while you are at that location.
This is caused by the way the Map works.It is pretty much a table and you are "moving" in rows / columns. If the field is not empty then the item that should be in there will get moved automatically (you can´t have 2 things at the same spot).
I´m not sure how i could fix this,yet.

3)
Ring slots don´t get equipped properly. This is due to a small misconception (Itemslot Ring, Ring1 - didn´t want to create Rings that only fit into slot2 for obvious reasons). I need to rework some code to fix this and check if there is a free Ringslot available when you equip it.

4)
It is possible to equip Items when the slot is already being used.
Should be easy to fix.

Screenshots:
THOSE WHITE SPACES ARE IMAGES (had to remove them)


Mainwindow:
Won´t stay like that. Can easily exchange positions, colors etc.
On the right side you see your inventory.
The Itemslot shows you where the item goes to when you equip it.
Right next to the slot are the item names.Those currently just got VERY basic names (Weapon1,Shield5 etc.) - you can change those names at the Item.ini .
The "Req" Checkbox next to it show you if you have reached the Requirements to equip the Item (Level + Strength).
"Equip" will let you equip or unequip an item.
"Trade" will mark this item, so you can sell it in town.


The Equipped Items are shown left to the inventory.
Should be easy to understand.You can see your total Att / Def from all equipped items in there too.

Combat:
Don´t worry, it won´t stay like that ... removed the pictures like i said above. The current window is transparent (thats why you see parts of the mainwindow at the bottom right).The colors won´t stay like that too.
Currently up to 10 Monsters can attack you.


Town:
It looks a LOT better when the images are there. I initially used obvious Artwork like "City of Brass" and similar ones.I had to remove the MTG pics though.
The "Ja / Nein" is because i am using a German Windows Version. It should be "Yes / No" otherwise.
The "race multiplicator" thing will most likely not be visible at future versions.



Nothing is final right now, positions, colors and other things will most likely be changed in the future.This is just a visual update since the a lot of things have changed since the last time i uploaded screenshots.The game looks a lot better after replacing the dummy pictures with "real" ones.

[Salbei]

Update:

-reworked the map.
Everything is larger now and the autoscroll is a lot smoother.
Also fixed the old "replacement" problem.Had to rewrite almost the entire movement code for that.

-added 2 new skills:

Stone Skin
(Constitution)
Reduces Physical damage by 2% per Skillevel.

Troll´s Blood
(Constitution)
Increases your Combat HP Regeneration to 0,6 per skill level.

-added a Character creation window

-added a very basic startup menu
(create char, load char, delete char

-added 4 more races.All stats might change.

Here is the first beta release (feel free to replace the dummy pics - personally i´m using 288x232 pics).
Let me know if you encounter any issues.
http://rapidshare.com/files/456191488/Beta1_public_.rar (2mb / NET v4 (NETFRAMEWORK) needed!

[b]Hotkeys:
W = Move
A = turn left
D = turn right
S = turn around (up,down)

You need to "USE" stairs/town.
Most of the time you need to leave a field to have an effect. That is still an old workaround for the "moving" pictures bug that i just fixed.

This is just a test version. If you want to play past level 10 you will need to adjust the Map.INI and place the Town / Stairs etc in there (row and column).
Monsters should be available till level 50.Just check the INI files, it should be easy to understand.

This version is NOT balanced at all. That is not my focus right now.
Feel free to adjust the Monster.INI if you feel that some mobs are too strong/weak.

Since this is a BETA version you WILL encounter BUGs and Typo´s. Please report those.
---
Sorry for the minimalistic breakdown, i´m tired right now.

[Salbei]

Didn´t have as much time to code, so no new skills today

New Feature:

-merchant in town
You may now buy items directly in town.The item must be there before you can buy it, they don´t appear out of nowhere, so somebody needs to sell an item to that specific town first before it shows up at that towns merchant.

How to use the Merchant:
First you select the itemslot (note: only AVAILABLE things show up!).
Next you can choose between the AVAILABLE itemlevels of that specific itemtype.
If there is are 3 lvl1 2 lvl2 and 1 lvl5 Torso´s are stored at the trader the dropdownmenu will only show you (1,2,5).
After you selected the level all sorts of things will get filled out. The itemname, att, def and price.
The 3 checkboxes next to this show you if you have reached the requirements to actually equip the item (or got enough gold to buy it).
The 2 labels next to the items ATT and DEF will show you your EQUIPPED items ATT/DEF, so you can easily compare the potential new item with your already equipped item.

---
I stumbled upon an easy way to speed up certain codeparts.
(especially useful for long for/next loops. i pretty much squeezed an additional "if" in there that will always result in a very fast false once the wanted thing has happened.Should safe a ton of cpu time for "useless" for/next searches)

Once i adjusted the "Update Inventory" thing (that even makes my computer halt for like 2 seconds) with that technique it should be fine again.
At the moment updating the inventory is reading the same thing the "full" 25 times (even multiple times in some cases).Dead giveaway for my inexperience with coding - but hey, i´m learning quite fast.

Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/456334145/Beta1.01_public_20110407.rar (1,6 MB !)

[lord of 13]

How often are you doing file I/O? That is often a bottleneck and sometimes merits a loading screen at the start of the game to dump it all into memory. Then, you can just query some sort of database-esque class to retrieve data that you otherwise would have had to pickup off the hard drive. It should be fairly easy if you're using OOP...

Also, peeking at your INI files, you have consistently misspelled "strength" as "strenght". It's an easy find-and-replace fix.

If you post your code, I'll be happy to take a look at it for performance bottlenecks.