21-07-2009, 01:38 AM
This is Copypasta'd from Clan BoM's website. I made no edits before posting here other than these first two sentences.
Boring History! Click to show
[spoiler]So Firecaster has been my pet project for a few years. It started after I was playing some fun platform games, and my friends convinced me to play Maple Story. I was disgusted with how bland the gameplay was, and decided that I could do better.
The first First generation of Firecaster was a platform game in gamemaker. While I had worked with online programs before, Firecaster was my first online engine. It was really fun, but it lagged like hell with more then 3 people on, and could be hacked in about 5 seconds to give you invincibility and 99999 levels. :lol:
After that I thought a bit more about security and lag, and tried a few times to fix up Firecaster. All attempts failed, and for awhile I gave up and moved on.
Later on I worked with a friend on an morpg in vb6. It was using Mirage Source as a base. The game was called Rising Flames and unlike Firecaster it was topdown and tilebased. But like Firecaster I had put in some spells that you had to aim, and actually took skill to use. I found that being top down and tilebased really took nothing from the fun of Firecaster, and it fixed the horrendous lag. Rising Flames fell apart due to lack of flexibility in the vb6 DirectX 7 (that's right, 7) Engine.
The next attempt (lets call this one Firecaster 2) was made in Gamemaker. I tried to take what I learned from Rising Flames and refit it with particle effects and all the fun things you couldn't do in directx 7. But I soon saw a flaw in my attempt, as Gamemaker was simply too slow to handle everything.
Now we get to present day. The new Firecaster is being made in Java, and is hopefully the final working version of this game.[/spoiler]
Firecaster is unlike most other mmorpgs you might play today. There is no "normal" attack, no warrior class, and no masses of weak monsters for you to destroy. Firecaster tries to take fun and interesting gameplay and build on that to make a game, instead of basing itself around boring gameplay like other games of today.
The battle system is designed to require both skill and teamwork to defeat foes. There is no normal attack, only spells. There is also no mana. When you use a spell, you cannot use another spell until that spell cools down. That means you can use set the entire map in flames with a powerful spell, but you better kill everyone because you are going to be vulnerable for a long time afterwards. This also promotes team play, as combos can only be performed with multiple players.
All spells will require some sort of aiming or positioning. You cant cast something "on" another player, you have to aim it at them and hit them, or run up to them and use aoe. This makes for more complex spells, because if you have a powerful skill, but it moves slowly people will just dodge it. Choosing what spell to use at what time is a major part of winning a battle in firecaster.
Monsters in Firecaster work more like boss fights. There is no "farming" in Firecaster, and the game will require you to stay alert and focused.
I am currently debating whether or not to have levels in firecaster, but if I did they would work more like wc3 Ladder levels than traditional levels in rpgs. Levels would be used to show your skill, not to enhance it. A good level 1 could beat a crappy level 10. The main benefit from playing a long time would be playing the game better, not having ultimate items.
I was planning to have you learn new spells after boss fights or quests. I am not sure if I should limit the number of spells you can have at one time, but if I did that I would probably merge spells with items. Spells would be scroll items, and you would carry them in your inventory. Now that I write that idea out, I like it more, so I think I will do it that way.
So as you progress in the game, your library of spells grows, allowing you more choices of spells to equip your charcter with. All spells will be balanced against eachother, so the starting spells won't be worse then the later ones, but later in the game you can create better combinations of your spells. (remember you need teamwork inorder to cast multiple spells at a time).
I worked some more on firecaster's engine today. Here is a list of what I have done.
Chat(95%)
Map editor(90%)
Maps sent to client from server(98%)
Basic Player movement(30%)
Registering accounts (50%)
Most of these features need other features to be made before they can be finished, hence the percentage. I am currently working on player movement.
Boring History! Click to show
[spoiler]So Firecaster has been my pet project for a few years. It started after I was playing some fun platform games, and my friends convinced me to play Maple Story. I was disgusted with how bland the gameplay was, and decided that I could do better.
The first First generation of Firecaster was a platform game in gamemaker. While I had worked with online programs before, Firecaster was my first online engine. It was really fun, but it lagged like hell with more then 3 people on, and could be hacked in about 5 seconds to give you invincibility and 99999 levels. :lol:
After that I thought a bit more about security and lag, and tried a few times to fix up Firecaster. All attempts failed, and for awhile I gave up and moved on.
Later on I worked with a friend on an morpg in vb6. It was using Mirage Source as a base. The game was called Rising Flames and unlike Firecaster it was topdown and tilebased. But like Firecaster I had put in some spells that you had to aim, and actually took skill to use. I found that being top down and tilebased really took nothing from the fun of Firecaster, and it fixed the horrendous lag. Rising Flames fell apart due to lack of flexibility in the vb6 DirectX 7 (that's right, 7) Engine.
The next attempt (lets call this one Firecaster 2) was made in Gamemaker. I tried to take what I learned from Rising Flames and refit it with particle effects and all the fun things you couldn't do in directx 7. But I soon saw a flaw in my attempt, as Gamemaker was simply too slow to handle everything.
Now we get to present day. The new Firecaster is being made in Java, and is hopefully the final working version of this game.[/spoiler]
Firecaster is unlike most other mmorpgs you might play today. There is no "normal" attack, no warrior class, and no masses of weak monsters for you to destroy. Firecaster tries to take fun and interesting gameplay and build on that to make a game, instead of basing itself around boring gameplay like other games of today.
The battle system is designed to require both skill and teamwork to defeat foes. There is no normal attack, only spells. There is also no mana. When you use a spell, you cannot use another spell until that spell cools down. That means you can use set the entire map in flames with a powerful spell, but you better kill everyone because you are going to be vulnerable for a long time afterwards. This also promotes team play, as combos can only be performed with multiple players.
All spells will require some sort of aiming or positioning. You cant cast something "on" another player, you have to aim it at them and hit them, or run up to them and use aoe. This makes for more complex spells, because if you have a powerful skill, but it moves slowly people will just dodge it. Choosing what spell to use at what time is a major part of winning a battle in firecaster.
Monsters in Firecaster work more like boss fights. There is no "farming" in Firecaster, and the game will require you to stay alert and focused.
I am currently debating whether or not to have levels in firecaster, but if I did they would work more like wc3 Ladder levels than traditional levels in rpgs. Levels would be used to show your skill, not to enhance it. A good level 1 could beat a crappy level 10. The main benefit from playing a long time would be playing the game better, not having ultimate items.
I was planning to have you learn new spells after boss fights or quests. I am not sure if I should limit the number of spells you can have at one time, but if I did that I would probably merge spells with items. Spells would be scroll items, and you would carry them in your inventory. Now that I write that idea out, I like it more, so I think I will do it that way.
So as you progress in the game, your library of spells grows, allowing you more choices of spells to equip your charcter with. All spells will be balanced against eachother, so the starting spells won't be worse then the later ones, but later in the game you can create better combinations of your spells. (remember you need teamwork inorder to cast multiple spells at a time).
I worked some more on firecaster's engine today. Here is a list of what I have done.
Chat(95%)
Map editor(90%)
Maps sent to client from server(98%)
Basic Player movement(30%)
Registering accounts (50%)
Most of these features need other features to be made before they can be finished, hence the percentage. I am currently working on player movement.
![[Image: fcscreenshot.png]](http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/3153/fcscreenshot.png)
![[Image: fcscreenshot3.png]](http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/1623/fcscreenshot3.png)
![[Image: guisu.png]](http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/8465/guisu.png)
![[Image: gui2.png]](http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/4470/gui2.png)