Game Development

Land of NoR (LoN) Goes DCS2

by

This post is about the insides of the RPG’s within Second Life. The largest and, what until now, most exciting game in SL has changed its combat/RP system. What does a meter change mean to a game?

Land of NoR (Nation of Remembrance) is self described as a Dark RPG with combat. Previously it used the WARPS (now XRPS – NextRPS) combat system. For two years this 29 sim RPG used WARPS. Now for various reasons Land of NoR (LoN – do we have enough acronyms yet?) begin upgrading the WARPS to XRPS and is now changing to DCS2, another combat system. Why?

Read more

Land of NoR XRPS Tutorial

by
Land of NoR WARPS/XRPS

Land of NoR (LoN), a Second Life RPG, has been working on an improved combat and RP system meter. The one in use is called WARPS, standing for Weapons and Role Play System. In July use of the experimental XRPS version of WARPS started. There are several changes being tested and several questions have come up.

You can follow the discussion in the Land of NoR forum.

Update 7/31

If you have not noticed, going into SPAR (/9 spar) forces a save of meter stats. That is important to know as the meter only saves every so often. A SL or viewer crash or other forced relog can possibly force your meter back to the last saved status. Going into spar and back to combat status does a save and reload of meter stats.

Read more

Skin Design Tutorial

by
Base Skin Color

This is a research and learning project for me. It will be a multi-part series as I work my way through it. The series will have the best of the information I find and the information I feel is important for a new skin artist, much of what others have left out as they covered the basics in their tutorials. The first article on skin design is: Skin Design – The Windlight Age

For a skin design it is often easier to work with a larger canvas/image. A 2048×2048 is reasonable. The templates others have made are mostly 1024×1024. You can save yourself some effort on you first attempt working at 1024. The larger sizes are easier to paint, IMO, and mistakes and paint strokes are minimized when reduced in size for use in-world. Reducing can help.

Read more

Using Audacity

by
Audacity
Audacity Interface

Audacity is a free sound editing tool for Windows or as technically known a Digital Audio Editor. It is great for making sound clips for import to Second Life. If you are doing voice, there are some basic tips one should know for handling voice. I’m no expert but I have learned a few things using it.

The program as well as a number of others, twenty-four actually, are listed here: 25 Free Digital Audio Editors. Audacity is the editor of choice for Second Life types. There are in-game classes by various groups.

Read more

What Makes Virtual Worlds Successful

by
Enacharys_002
Enacharys in Second Life - Puzzle Game

Many game fans are considering whether they can build a game better than the one they are playing. They are looking ahead and trying to work out what will make their game viable and entertaining enough to survive. James Portnow has written a blog post titled Designing a Single Sever MMORPG at GameSetWatch.com discussing what is need to make MMORPG’s successful. JWPlatt founder of OpenUru.org posted about it in a post in that forum. I’ve been looking at RPG’s and MMO’s to find the differences between successful and not so successful RPG’s.

One of the things important to MMO’s that is so basic to Mr. Portnow that it is not even directly mentioned as a requirement in his lists is player population… concurrent participation. He goes directly to population density, game area per player.

Read more

Myst-Uru: Crux Isle

by
Myst-Uru Style Crux Isla
Myst-Uru Style Crux Isla

This is the semi-secret build that Jandai Writer and Taimaru Hak are working on with maybe a hand given by a few here and there that are sworn to secrecy. Its Jandai’s build. Originally code named Puzzle Island (I’m being dramatic) a few of us have been privileged to see it. We had to promise secrecy. Since Jandai put pictures on her blog and linked from the ECC (Explorers’ Community Chronically – SL Group Newsletter), I figure I can let that much out of the bag.

This is a Myst-Style build and game. You are not going to see any of the Myst/Uru ages (regions) in Crux Isle, at least as far as I know. You may see an artifact here and there that reminds you of something in Myst-Uru. This is all new puzzles and I think new story. We will have to wait until it opens to find out. But you can see pictures now on Jandai’s blog Coffee Break: Crux Isle and learn al little about the Isle.