Posts by zfoxfire

We look forward to your input and influence

We are excited to have you here too

Supposedly a bunch of server fixes

I just promoted the Freaks R Us server again. He explored online servers in episode 6 of his last series. I dont think Freaks R Us existed back then. This was pretty much on the Steam launch date.

Fan boy? There are no fan boys here to speak of. never in a respectable community like his!

There has been a horse model floating around in the game files for a month or so now but its not spawnable yet. There's probably some additional code changes or animations needed to make it work. Also, I think Red hinted at wanting to bundle a saddle with the horse update because it just seems natural that we ride horses once they are added. I'm not sure when this is going to be released. I suspect its going to be part of the player model update since it has alot of new animations for all tools and weapons and utilities. The horse animations from player perspective are probably dependant on the new player animations, same with the new boat model.

I doubt if we will see any taming system yet. There's some kind of animal AI update planned which will fix lots of the crazy bugs like flying pigs. Perhap a proper taming system will come bundled with that. For now I suspect that when the horse comes, we will simply plop the saddle on and start riding. Its' a start.

Yeah, Vortac and Weem's video series were the reason I bought this game as well. In all fairness, the last time Vortec did a video on Rising World was in March or April of last year. Ores were not added back then which certainly changed all the recipes (before lots of metal items could be crafted without resources)

I need to have a minimum of five words in this message.

There's currently a restriction that Red needs to address. Essentially each block shape and rotation has its own id number in a database table and we cant store any more variations. This is why certain blocks cant be rotated and also why additional shapes are not possible at this time. Database schema changes are never to be taken lightly and would require a conversion script (just like with the biomes update and such). I imagine some other changes will be bundled with that update, whenever it may be planned.

And that's so lovely of a picture for a place called Dorking

Well, in all fairness. Wurm has been out for a long time wheras Rising World is still in development and there is still a lot of content to be added. Any hostile mobs that come in addition to the bear or tiger will be a realistic. I think a snake might come eventually. Definately no giant spiders or zombies like in Minecraft. Any fantasy monsters will likely be restricted to dungeons when they come out (next major update).

There's still much to figure out and implement such as a story mode and adding of more ages to the game. We currently start out in a medievil age and jump right into modern once the tier 2 crafting table can be built. We want some sort of age progression from stone age all the way to modern but we aren't there yet. We've had some debates in other threads here recently about how do do that and whether it should be limited to just technology. There are also lots of cultural advancements that need to be made such as: working together and forming tribes, learning to paint, learning to tell stories, learning to write, and even forming religion. Culture cannot be ignored.

If you have any thoughts to add, please check out this thread
Civilisation progress: really? pros? cons?

As far as the survival aspect, there's going to be much coming out over the next few months to add. We will be getting new character models, new tools, a boat, fishing rod, armor, clothing, some NPC humans (friendly and hostile) and dungeons (which should have monsters in them to the best of my knowledge)

Again.. early access game but I'm pretty happy with the progress being made so far

Quote from Chrisx84

great idea, that be perfect for clubs.

Yes, just like the night clubs except you wont be able to hear the bass through the walls. ;-p

Well, in all fairness, the survival aspect hasn't exactly been tthe focus until possibly recently with the water update. Prior its been adding new craftable items, bug fixes, texture updates, biomes, etc etc.... over the next few months when dungeons and the new character models come out, new primitive tool set, and dropping the iron tools from our initial inventory, we will see what kind of survival elements come

In addition to what I wrote up there, we still need a skill system. The person in the stone age with the job of fire maker can build his skills in making fire improving the chance that the fire will start. The effectiveness of these skills may also affect other more advanced skills (lighting a cigarette with a zippo on a windy day skill?! )

So I wanted to follow up to this two days ago but I've been too busy and this thread just brought out a LOT of thoughts on the subject that has to be sorted and compiled. So here's the short version of how I think this will be accomplished via "Story Mode". I want to say upfront that I have zero knowledge of what "story mode" is.

DISCLAIMER:
I am not a historian. I hated my humanities class and Most of my understandig of primitive crafting and ages of humanity come from History channel, crafting games, and Wikipedia. Expect some inaccuracies here. I want to throw this idea out to everyone and if Red is ok with it, he can set the framework of the story and then we as a community can build the story as the game progresses

My idea of what Story Mode should be

A story can be a collection of chapters with each requring completion of achievements that advance you to the next chapter or age. Anyone who plays ARK knows you level up, earn engram points, and unlock crafting recipes (implanted memories) in order to advance slowly from primitive pick axe to automatic turret gun. The problem, as Miwarre states, is that it ignores cultural achievements. Another problem in Rising World is that even when this primitive tool set comes out, we are still going to be able to chop down a tree and build a workbench and then an anvil. So we jumped immediately from Stone age to Iron age. In order to stay in character, restrictions must be in place to also encourage discovery. An example of discovery is finding the ore tin. without tin, and without figuring out metallurgy, you cannot make bronze and ultimately enter the Bronze Age. But before you can exit the stone
age, you need to advance culturally in addition crafting a bunch of tools. So other cultural goals must also be accomplished such as making a cave painting, starting a religion, form a tribe (multiplayer only -- place huts next to each other and choose your careers) with other Stone Age players. The concept of a village is just as important as learning primitive crafting.

Lets revisit the current game modes:

• "Normal mode" - this should never change. All recipies are available as long as you have the ingredients and proper tool or crafting table
• "Creative mode" - also should not be touched.
• "Story mode" - not sure officially what this is going to be but I believe it should contain several stories to choose from including the one we are trying to figure out here (advancement of humanity)
• "Stranded mode" - I don't know what the plans are for this but When I chatted with red, it seemed like his intention was to make that the mode where all the primitive crafting would be. I believe this should be a type another story mode where all recipes are unlocked all the way up to the modern era. You basically have the skills but you need to find the resources
• "Adventure mode" - This could be another story mode like stranded mode but more adventurous tasks to accomplish like Raid a dungeon and steal the treasure or defeat a bunch of pirates, be a mercenary, save the princess

Example of a chapter

So in sum, each chapter (Age) of the Story (of Humanity) will have a few sets of definitions. Here are some key points and I'm using the Stone Age as an example

• The first chapter start you out with all recipes locked and invisible
• First task is to gather sticks and stones
• Second task is to make plant fibers from grass or other plants
• First recipe to unlock is a pick axe or hammer
• Each recipe to unlock will have a definition of pre-requisites such as ingredients to find, tasks to accomplish, or recipes to unlock, or all those mentioned prior can be replaced by the age accomplished
• Cultural tasks to unlock: make paint, make a cave painting, form a tribe, place huts next to each other
• Critical ingredients for crafting to be found: sticks, stones, flint, plant fiber, berries
• Critical ingredients for cultural tasks: ochre (might exist as dust settled inside a cave) or loose charcoal (used in addition to ochre for drawing on cave walls)
• A list of careers or jobs appropriate for an age. These will serve to organize much of the above recipes, tasks, and needed ingredients listed above.
• A difficulty level (or this could be story wide) to either hide or show to players what tasks yet to do or new ingredients to discover

Misc thoughts

• Each new player entering a server in Story mode should start out in the stone age. He can join with other stone age members or if a advanced tribe decides to adopt a stone age player then that player automatically inherits the advancement level of a tribe.and can begin contributing.
• For Miwarre's idea that the server advances as a whole, well.... In real life we have lots of civilizations still living as hunter/gatherers. I believe that tribes (or groups) in rising world should replicate real life and unless someone of a earlier age gets adopted into a modern tribe (any modern country or government) then he will not understand advanced technology or cultural ideas.
• Perhaps a story could basically be an extension of the existing permission system in Rising World. The permission files are in YAML so I know we could easily import a yaml file defining the story. The story could be the progress of civilization that we are all trying to figure out how to implement or it could be a completely custom one (stuff in adventure mode)
• The achievements unlocked should be tied to the player or tribe. So starting a new world does not mean you start over (another good concern Miwarre brought up)
• Adventure and Stranded mode are simply Stories and shouldn't be modes. These should be stories in Story Mode. These can be defined by players (or Red can release Adventure and Stranded as official stories. Players can write their own story files in YAML and those will be added to drop-down list of available stories.
• If story advancement is linked to a player or tribe, Red will have to figure out how to track story progress and whether the progress gets wiped out if you switch story modes. Suppose you have a few games saved but each you are playing under different story modes. I'm not sure of an elegant way to solve this problem.
• With careers. If you are in single player mode, it may take longer to advance an age. A career is basically a group of tasks and goals. So if each player in a tribe selects a career, they contribute to the tribe and therefore help the tribe advance to the next age much quicker. My best guess is that after the Stone Age and in multiplayer mode, that each player's career helps the entire tribe
• advance to the next age. So each person might have various skills to contribute. In Middle Ages we might have a blacksmith, a leather tanner, a farmer, a pub owner ( meeting in a cultural hotspot,
• consuming alcohol and tobacco around others are cultural elements)
• Story mode could have a easy or difficult setting. Difficult setting would not tell you what you need to collect or discover not what you need to craft or what cultural task to do. You have to stumble upon it yourself
• Perhaps A small story mode could be implemented into Normal mode. It would be an easy level which would display messages on your screen to "Collect some stone" or "Craft an axe". This could accompany pages of the journal somehow so when you first start out, you get prompted to cut down trees, make lumber, craft a shelter, craft a workbench. (The A14 update of 7 Days To Die basically did this and its actually quite welcoming to see if you never played the game before)
• Whatever elements are officially planned for Story Mode by Red if not this could probably accompany what I've described in this post. This is just an idea to control the flow of progress by restricting recipes

Ideas for Careers

• Stone Age: Meat hunter (crafts hunting tools, harvest animals for all its resources), gatherer (not sure how to break this down further), fire maker (learns how to use flint and stone), story teller (learns panting, performs cave drawing and makes religion, learns writing on stone tablets perhaps?)
• Middle Ages: Blacksmith, Leather Tanner, Farmer, Pub owner (using alcohol and tobacco to lure players into social situation is also part of cultural advancement. It leads to exchange of information and new ideas), Book Writer (converts stone tablets to books)

So yeah, this can be a simple or as complicated as we want it to me but i think that as long as the framework is established and Red codes it then its simply a matter of expanding the content. The Story if in YAML could be made openly available to the community to maintain and improve on as new items are released in the game and Red tells us how to reference them in the api or in the YAML file.

Quote from Miwarre

So, this step took more than two millennia to complete. The previous steps (Bronze, Neolithic, Palaeolithic) took many hundreds of thousands of years.

It should be clear that compressing all of this in a few hours (or minutes!) of game play of a single player (or of a dozen players in MP) is entirely arbitrary and unrealistic; to my perspective it also makes little sense, as it is not so different from including magic.

Keep in mind this is not the real world. Yes, perhaps Newton figured out something that could have been figured out a thousand years ago. But that's just a variation just like how long does it take for a player to figure out how to unlock the next achievement. We don't want to replicate when things happened, just we want to reproduce the route taken and figure out the pre-requisites for everything to some degree of accuracy without making the game too tedious. Even within each age of mankind, different societies figured out stuff before others. Trade routes and knowledge exchange probably helped the majority of civilizations to evolve even close to the same pace. This ofcourse doesn't apply to all which is why we still have hunter/gatherer tribes living in the woods, cut off from modern society

A volume control for radio under settings would be mandatory for sure. Otherwise I'll stay off public servers for good. Also the fmod engine should be set so that music will not be heard outside a building as long as the door is closed.

Oh ok. I really didn't mean any negative criticism towards Waveshapr or the work he's done so far. I think its great and I look forward to future improvements.

I don't think turning down the music or sounds for your personal preference is disrespectful towards the artist at all. I've done some composition myself when I was younger. Totally big into the trackers and the demo scene back in the day

Quote from Miwarre

...hate ambient music in 'real world' situations (shops, restaurants, elevators, ...)

As I told Yak, I'm referring to ambient music (ambient being a genre of music just like rock, rap, country, classical, etc..) not the sound effects in the game.

Quote from Miwarre

About the music itself, being an amateur musician myself, I understand it might sound disrespectful and I am sorry, but do whatever you like, as @YakMe, I will keep most likely it turned off.

Alright, I'm getting a vibe here. I'm offering some criticism about the music in the game. Are you seeing my criticism of the music to be disrespectful? From my point of view criticizing music (especially as a component of this game) should be no different from criticizing any other element of the game whether is be the functionality of the construction system or a recipe on a workbench.

I remember Second Life had the same thing and it certainly added a personalized feel to when someone would teleport into your world. It certainly would be a nice feature to have in vanilla Rising World (its been discussed before here) but if not then perhaps a plugin script could exploit the voice chat feature (does RW even have that?)

Hi Yak,

Waveshapr said that with most of the sfx issues out of the way that he wanted to retun his focus to improving the existing game music and adding some new music. So I'm offering some of my own observations and suggestions. My concern about #1 is not referring to the the ambient sound effects in the game, I'm referring to ambient music (if you ever listen to Hearts of Space or Echoes on NPR then you'll have an idea of what the genre is).

I want to start out by saying that overall I love the music in the game. I just have a few praises/criticisms to make.
My descriptions will likely be horrible because I don't know for sure what to call each track (except the main title and the Christmas title). Also, I'm not too well educated in music so I'm not sure what all the instruments are called. Anyways , here goes...

1. One of the initial songs added with the texture overhaul (it sounds like another song I think added with the biomes update.. but is shorter and does not have a piano solo nor a certain melody that is present in a few others and #2 on this list began with before the into was modified). It doesn't seem to really add anything to the game. The longer version is nicer but it may be because I love piano so much). I wonder if the shorter one is an attempt at adding ambient music to the game (I'm a huge ambient and space music fan so I kind have a feel for that kind of stuff). I was wondering if this one might be improved on as well.

2. The one song remixed and has the pipe organ intro added sounds amazing and is much improved over the old version

3. The sleigh bell sounds in the Christmas title were removed (you can set your PC date to 12/25 to get the alternative title screen music to play) and I actually really liked it how it was before

4. Another piece of music has a wind effect added in. I personally find this hauntingly beautiful in itself However, perhaps later on down the road, when weather is added, the wind effect could either be dropped from the music and played as a SFX. Wind should pick up strongly at this specific point. Also this seems only appropriate for winter biomes, i've heard it play in other areas too but it just has that certain "chill" to it

5. In general, certain pieces of music should play at certain times in the day/night cycle or in certain biomes (I think this is Waveshapr's goal because some of the titles in the fmod file are labeled like "transition to snowy biome", or "snowy biome 1" however I don't feel the music is completely implemented to be daycycle or biome specific)... One specific song has a "rising" sound as part of it's melody. This seems most appropriate to hear at sunrise while the other calm melodic daytime tunes are more appropriate for various times in the afternoon. However I've heard this at other times throughout the day.