FreeGameDev

Tried to google about, but seems that the open source game scene completely lacks 3D RPGs. Seems my effort to create an isometric like game in 3D was one of the last efforts in that direction. Am I right about this or somebody here knows about a 3D RPG?

Yeah, nothing too much right now. But someone is trying to revive Lips of Suna right now, maybe you want to give that project a hand?

Me too trying to 3D However, still struggling to launch pre-alpha.

Julius {l Wrote}:Yeah, nothing too much right now. But someone is trying to revive Lips of Suna right now, maybe you want to give that project a hand?

I have some experience with Ogre, but the site is unreachable from my office network. Seems the dns name cant be resolved.

DNT isn't dead either.

I've almost fully ported the engine to Ogre3d 2.1(instead the old OpenGL buggy renderer) and refactored/rewrote a lot of the code[1] (still need to touch some parts. BTW, the gui library refectory gave birth to a stand alone library, with both OpenGL and Ogre3d - 1.x and 2.1 - back ends[2]).

The idea is that DNT should be easily modable to be used to create other RPGs. Anyway, it depends a lot on my free time, so don't expect it to happen soon (the old game isn't playable yet on the new engine).

A screen of the new map editor:


[1] http://github.com/farrer/dnt
[2] http://github.com/farrer/farso

Nice work farrer. You should update the Project Showcase thread! Would love to see a video too.

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rogerdv {l Wrote}:

Julius {l Wrote}:Yeah, nothing too much right now. But someone is trying to revive Lips of Suna right now, maybe you want to give that project a hand?

I have some experience with Ogre, but the site is unreachable from my office network. Seems the dns name cant be resolved.

Yeah, the official website is down. But the revival-attempt is happening here on this forum: https://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=7487
Would be great if you could have a look

@farrer: That looks/sounds awesome (including the GUI toolkit, which is definitly a must for a complex RPG). Are you using some sort of scripting for game-code that would also make modding much easier?

charlie {l Wrote}:Nice work farrer. You should update the Project Showcase thread! Would love to see a video too.

I'm waiting for it being more contributor-friendly before doing any announcement. In fact, the current tasks are much rewrite/refactor some old code and the engine isn't on the playable level the old engine was. Once more usable, I'll for sure post on the showcase subforum.

Julius {l Wrote}:@farrer: That looks/sounds awesome (including the GUI toolkit, which is definitly a must for a complex RPG). Are you using some sort of scripting for game-code that would also make modding much easier?

The old engine had its own script language (for examples: cattle idle behaviour scriptor normal battle script), but it has some limitations and the obvious flaw of being a not-known-bizarre-specific-language. For the refactoring I'm planing of using a more common script language, probably Python. In fact, this one of the next tasks.

Lyberta {l Wrote}:I guess RPGs is the genre that is not very suitable for FOSS. Most RPGs are very linear and plot-oriented where the whole point is to mindlessly grind experience points until you able to defeat enemies and win the game. After the game is won, you uninstall it and move on.

Not all RPGs are linear. The former DNT isn't. Take a look at its walkthrough and you'll see that.

Anyway, for me, the fact that maybe RPGs aren't very suitable at first, is because they need of a lot of art, and creative effort with good side-applications to create its areas/world. The lack of art is one of the reasons that stalled DNT long ago. The lack of suitable user friendly applications to mod it is another one, and probably the reason that 2D RPGs are more common on FLOSS world (they have good applications, for example, Tiled, and the LPC-compatible assets are awesome for that).

farrer {l Wrote}:The old engine had its own script language (for examples: cattle idle behaviour scriptor normal battle script), but it has some limitations and the obvious flaw of being a not-known-bizarre-specific-language. For the refactoring I'm planing of using a more common script language, probably Python. In fact, this one of the next tasks.

Yeah a standard language is a good idea. Python is probably not a bad choice, but from what I have read its performance for game-code usually turns out to be not so good and embedding it in C code seems to be not so easy. Lua is or used to be a very popular and performant choice, and more programmer centric projects seem to really like Angelscript. However recently there seems to be a strong move towards C#/Mono as it is both very fast and many people are used to it from Unity3D etc. Can't really give you a recommendation from own experience, but there are likely better choices than python.

The best choice is one that gets the job done which is influenced by many things, including familiarity.

eugeneloza {l Wrote}:Me too trying to 3D However, still struggling to launch pre-alpha.

Just share it on a open repository as is... no need for a big launch

Looks like an interesting style though!

Lyberta {l Wrote}:I guess RPGs is the genre that is not very suitable for FOSS. Most RPGs are very linear and plot-oriented where the whole point is to mindlessly grind experience points until you able to defeat enemies and win the game. After the game is won, you uninstall it and move on.

I think that pretty much cover every game in the world. Play, win, and go for the next.

farrer {l Wrote}:DNT isn't dead either.

I've almost fully ported the engine to Ogre3d 2.1(instead the old OpenGL buggy renderer) and refactored/rewrote a lot of the code[1] (still need to touch some parts. BTW, the gui library refectory gave birth to a stand alone library, with both OpenGL and Ogre3d - 1.x and 2.1 - back ends[2]).

The idea is that DNT should be easily modable to be used to create other RPGs. Anyway, it depends a lot on my free time, so don't expect it to happen soon (the old game isn't playable yet on the new engine).

Ok, thats some project where Im definitely interested in contribute. Ill keep an eye on the repo and will see if I can make Ogre work again.

Julius {l Wrote}:Python is probably not a bad choice (...) Lua is or used to be a very popular and performant choice, and more programmer centric projects seem to really like Angelscript. However recently there seems to be a strong move towards C#/Mono (...)

charlie {l Wrote}:The best choice is one that gets the job done which is influenced by many things, including familiarity.

It's what charlie said: I'm more familiar with Python, had a bad time with Lua years ago and never used or saw a piece of C# code... But looking at AngelScript, especially its integration, I liked it, and seems like I'll probably use AngelScript instead.

rogerdv {l Wrote}:Ok, thats some project where Im definitely interested in contribute. Ill keep an eye on the repo and will see if I can make Ogre work again.

Great! If you have any problems just ask. And if you can't download some needed library due to country restrictions, just ask and I'll send to you.

Julius {l Wrote}:Just share it on a open repository as is...

It's already there for almost a year https://github.com/eugeneloza/decoherence
Thou the story is in a closed repository (just to avoid spoilers).

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Lyberta {l Wrote}:Nope, there are tons of games that can be played for a very long time. Xonotic, Hedgewars, 0AD. They are suitable for FOSS development because they don't have story and are based on pure gameplay.

Battle for Wesnoth is definitely not suitable for FOSS development then

Battle for Wesnoth is a mix between campaigns and multiplayer. So, when you have played the campaigns, you can still play multiplayer maps. And of course there are tons of mods to keep you interested...

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I'm the wrong person to ask - I have never played or designed a game like this. You could have a look at Planeshift.

Lyberta {l Wrote}:

GunChleoc {l Wrote}:Battle for Wesnoth is a mix between campaigns and multiplayer. So, when you have played the campaigns, you can still play multiplayer maps. And of course there are tons of mods to keep you interested...

Yep, definitely. But if we go back to the original genre I dunno how to make balanced multiplayer RPG. Start from level 1 at the start of each match?

You can do cooperative multiplayer, like Diablo, or match mode. In match mode, you restrict the game to a single scenario, with some starting points or whatever to spend on skills/items. Again, my reference here is Diablo 2 and Fallout Tactics. At least, that how I would do it.

Lyberta {l Wrote}:

GunChleoc {l Wrote}:Battle for Wesnoth is a mix between campaigns and multiplayer. So, when you have played the campaigns, you can still play multiplayer maps. And of course there are tons of mods to keep you interested...

Yep, definitely. But if we go back to the original genre I dunno how to make balanced multiplayer RPG. Start from level 1 at the start of each match?

I personally don't like levels in multi-player rpgs for that reason. I prefer games with a skill or stat progression and you can max characters within a relatively short time to focus on endgame activities, ie crafting, trading, pvp, pvm (not gear accumulation, I prefer full or mostly full loot games) mini games, server events, player made houses/towns events, I suppose that might end up making a multi-player rpg such as Wograld more like a 2d team fortress where you invest some development time in your character. But actually Wograld is so good I find myself playing it a lot solo just because its fun in-spite of the enormous game mechanics changes, user interface changes and bug fixes that it needs now.