Ye Olde Blah

Hey guys!

I stumbled across your site after looking for old genesis games that I used to play. I had completely forgotten about how much I loved the original SF. I loved it so much in fact that I also wanted to start an SF project of my own.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to take any attention away from the current SO that these developers are currently working on, but I want to make my own version of SF online.

I just thought I'd bring it to the attention of SF lovers so that you can get even more psyched about multiple online SF games!

My idea to start is to keep it simple. An online lounge that players can chat, make parties, ect. and find an opponent to battle. If that panned out, I would add other features like a world to travel in, quests, possibly a storyline, who knows! Just thought I'd put this out there and see if you guys liked the idea. :D

Ciao for now SF fans!

Chris

I thought I'd put this here just so you guys knew I was working on it and not just joshing around. This is the map editor (duh) and it's pretty much finished, nothing fancy. I just need to add the attributes, save and load feature and it will be ready to use. Tomorrow I will be starting on the actual client, server and database for the game. I'm not going to put a date out for first testings because I never know how much time I have during the day.

I hope this gets you guys a little tiny bit psyched that there may actually be another online game comming. :) Sorry about the size guys!!

http://www.freewebs.com/anewcoven/images/MapEditor.JPG

EDIT: It was annoying having to scroll and read, here's a link for this one instead.

Oh...

P.S. I take no credit for the tileset, I got it from this site and I modded it to fit my map editor style. Hope that's ok. :) They are only temporary, if the game ever gets off the ground, I will invest in a sprite artist.

Welcome around Chris!

Don't worry about stealing anyone's thunder - we're very encouraging here and love to see any and all projects. This one looks great, and you've got the right idea by keeping it simple to start with; a lot of projects fall by the wayside by running before they can walk, but you're on the right lines, so congratulations on that.

If you have a name for it and a few other screenshots I'd be happy to make an announcement in the news. I'm sure the entire SF fangame community would be psyched to hear about this!

PS Don't worry about the tiles, it's what we're here for :newtshappy: Take it from someone who knows, creating your own tiles takes a lot of hard work, so stick with these for the time being and you'll go far.

Thanks for the encouragement and the welcome!

I'd love to see this community flourish again, why has it died out over time? Lack of interest?

As far as a name, I havn't thought of anything interesting or suitable just yet. I want something that gives off the SF feel but doesn't copy or make it seem as though it is a replica of the original.

I'm off to work here fairly soon, but once I'm home I'll begin working on the client and some simple screenies to keep whoever is around interested. Looking forward to comments and support!

Ciao for now!
Chris

Well, it's mainly died out due to lack of updates on the projects themselves, even though interest in creating a "true" Shining-style game is probably as high as ever. I think Tateru might have taken some of our audience, but mostly you can pin it on lazy developers and real life.

I'm looking forward to seeing this develop over time, and hope you keep coming here for support and let us know what you're doing!

Tateru?

Anyways, I'm at work right now, rather bored, tired, annoyed... lol you know how it works. Needed a break so I jumped on the computer. I will hopefully have those screenies sometime tonight so you can post some news.

The next few days are going to be the big ones. I've developed so many different engines, it's usualy a breeze to get something workable out within a week and the features are what will take longer. Eventually I'm wondering if someone can act as a host for the server.

Anyways, I really do hope you can rebuild the community. The original SF and SF2 were classics that need to be revived and I look forward to designing something worthwhile that will hopefully appeal to all SF fans.

P.S. Any ideas for a name? lol

I was thinking "A New Coven: Guardiana"

Check it out. :)
http://www.freewebs.com/anewcoven/

Chris

Sounds like a great RPG name to me. Coven is a word we don't hear much of these days!

Tateru is a project by Moogie and her boyfriend to create a "Shining maker", where players can edit graphics and attributes to create their own Shining game without all the hard coding and programming Hell all fangame makers have to face. Sort of takes the fun out of it, if you ask me ;)

Looking forward to more screenshots in the coming days.

Ok so Chris got really drunk the last few days and found it very hard to write code when he was seeing triple. I'm doing quite a bit today but I thought I would just update that the client now loads and moves around on maps. May not be a big step, but a step none-the-less.

I'll slowly post screenshots so you can see the progress. :)

(http://www.freewebs.com/anewcoven/images/Login.JPG)(http://www.freewebs.com/anewcoven/images/SampleMap.JPG)

I'm also going to add a list of features that I plan to implement. This is kind of my record instead of doing it on paper or a text document. If you guys have any other ideas, please, feel free to tell me. :)

Basic Version (Just Battle):
- Chat lounge that allows players to:
1) Chat with other players
2) Recruit team members (NPC's)
3) Shop for weapons, armor and items
4) Check out your own members stats and other players as well
5) Join or create battles:
 i) Choose the map
 ii) Number of members each player can use (up to 10 I think)
 iii) Choose whether there is a set start point or whether players can set their members randomly.
 iv) All sorts of restrictions (eg. Spells, Races, ect)
 v) Choose whether battle ends when team leader is deafeated.
6) Observe another 2 players battles
7) Possibility of TEAM battles, 1 vs 2, 2 vs 2, 1 vs 3, ect.

- Battle
1) Screen moves with battle
2) Hold down a key to have full control of screen movement
3) Terrain attributes (I will need help with this as I don't know how SF uses terrain.)
4) Mouse over member gives stats.
5) Full keyboard control (keeping the oldschool feel, mouse over is the only mouse usage)
6) Day and Night for extra effect (possibly?)
7) Turn based (Obviously)
8) Chat system

I'm not sure how that battles sequences are going to work just yet, so some thoughts on that would be great.

- Other
 1) Your leader is multiclassible with over 15 branchable classes so far.
 2) Members level up and are stored on the server for safe keeping.
 3) Unique armor and weapons for each class.
 4) Tons of spells for magic users
 5) Classic flying AND swimming enemies.

Full Version (If battle version takes off):
 - Full world to explore and meet NPCs that will join you.
 - Quests with an oldschool feel, none of this collect 1000 rattails crap.
 - Gain spells and skill through quests that not everyone can have.
 - Use any map outside of buildings as a battle map with another player.

Hope you guys like some of the features, most of them are fairly common place, but I plan on using some unique elements as well.

Ciao!

Worked on the lounge today. This is where you can check out other members, recruit, chat and shop. It's imcomplete and the GUI is pretty nasty, but I never claimed to be an artist. :) Enjoy.

(http://www.freewebs.com/anewcoven/images/IncomLounge.JPG)

Starting to look great mate, keep it up :)
Give me a private message if you want a hand with storyline.

Hey thanks for the positive comment. :)

The storyline won't be implemented unless I change the game from just a battle system to an online rpg. But it's always good to have it prepared in case that happens. Add me to msn if you have it, chrisposkus@hotmail.com

Yes, this is going to be one of those projects that I update VERY often. :P You will see almost all the steps and features being added to the game. Here is a small update. I'm working on it as much as I possibly can between work and life.

(http://www.freewebs.com/anewcoven/images/UpdateScreen.JPG)

Basicly the plan is for now to get a workable demo out as soon as possible. You are given 5 characters, 1 is flying. The earliest stage I play on testing is once the basic battle system is in with attacking. If all goes as planned I should have something playable within a week to a week and a half.

Oh, also, for ease I wrote the game in VB. Like I said before, if the game is successful enough to put some REAL effort in it, I may re-write it in C.

The reason the basic version will have 5 pregenerated characters is I don't have access installed making it very hard to build and implement a database at this time. I really can't be arsed to install it right now. lol

Ciao shining fans!
Chris

Looking good so far Chris. I think the idea of keeping it as a basic battle engine is very smart at this stage (maybe we should have done the same :newtstongue:), but when the project is finished and successful I don't think recoding it will seem that attractive a proposition.

As for terrain, I think there's a full guide around here somewhere, but I think this is right, but if it's all wrong please correct me!

Grass, cement, bricks and tiles generally have 0% land effect. No defence boost and no movement penalty.

Forests and sand give 15% boost to defence and slow down centaurs by some amount (possibly a third of their speed?)

Mountains give 30% I think. I might have these last two mixed up. Anyway, basically everything except grass increases defence for everyone but those poor flying folk.

I'm gagging to play Shining Force III now.

Hey,

Recoding won't be much of an issue, as witty and clever as I am, I coded it in a way that I can basicly just build onto the engine and add a world, quests, ect. :)

I'm at work again, I'll catch up with you guys later.

Ciao,
Chris

Just a screenshot issue, JPG is mostly for photographs, GIF/PNG is better formats for screenshots.

It does look rather awesome though :)

your project makes me feen for SO *pout*

Thanks again for the encouragement. The project hasn't stopped, but I'm in the middle of a move from Banff back to my hometown.

I'll keep you guys updated. :)

Hey guys,

Like I said, super busy packing and getting ready to go but I took some time tonight to do some more work. I don't have any screenshots but I redid a lot of code to tighten it up. The client and server exchange information wonderfully now so you can check out other players members online. My next step is to make characters more dynamic by adding items and equipment. After that is complete I will be starting on the super duper cool create and join options! And after that the battles!!! Whooo hoo, I'm excited.

The only problem right now is that everyone gets the same characters with the same names and the same stats... so battles won't be all that different, I hope you can forgive me for that. But once I quit being lazy and install access I will design the database and get some customization in there so you can recruit, name and develop your own members for battles.

I've been wondering if I should allow members to have personalities... make them say things sometimes, give commentary in battle and the like. Depending on how you work with them is how they communicate with you. Do you like the idea?

I think it's a good idea that could take a long time to get working properly. I would suggest an in-game commentator, but then we pretty much have that with the text boxes for attacks, magic and so on. Giving them a little battle "in-phrase" would be easy enough, like SFIII's "prepare to die!" and so on, but variable personalities depending on how you play? I dunno, sounds complicated to me :newtstongue:

Holy cow!

I can't believe it's been almost a year. Insane I say, INSANE! Things have been hectic since I moved back home from Banff... and now I've moved again as well as working two jobs just to get by. I almost forgot how much I like developing. I hope everyone is doing well and I'm starting work on the project again.

Ciao for now,
Chris

Great to see you back around, Chris! Awesome to see you're still working on things even though circumstances aren't great. I think most of us are still developing our own projects, just a lot slower than we'd like ;)

Thanks,

It's nice to be back. I've been looking around the forums but I can't tell which projects are still progressing. I hoped that by the time I got back I would be able to test someones game. :(

Guess not *boo hoooo*

Chris

I'm making progress, but unfortunately not on the electronic side...

lol I'm not even going to say that I'm back, because as we all know, that could be a horrible lie.

What I will say, is I did not back up any of my files for ANC, ultimately leading to the destruction of the project. I have been working on a new project and it's coming along fairly well.

I had a question though. Like my last project, it was more of a lounge with the ability to connect with another player and battle them SF style. My question is, if I added a second part, an "off line" world which the player could follow a story, collect rare items, ect and bring them into the online battles, would this be a good or bad idea? Let me know what you think.

It's definitely a good idea for the player, but it depends on whether it's worthwhile for you.
AI can be extremely timeconsuming if done properly.
One of the biggest benefits of a purely PvP system is not having to do the AI.

Sounds a bit like the original Phantasy Star Online way of doing things. Personally, I'd start by creating the online battles and then work backwards. As Elv said, AI can be time consuming, but I'd say the biggest problem is content. Once you're making offline towns and battles, you need a whole heap of graphics, music, sounds and maps to keep people entertained. I like the idea a lot, but I'd work on the core gameplay first before adding extra bits and pieces. That way you have a player base built up to enjoy your work, and you can get feedback and maybe even some help.

Looking forward to seeing some of this project :D

p.s. back it up this time :P