Fantasaar Alpha 0.0.8a

Greetings,

The last few days i have been busy working on the engine basics for the Fantasaar MMORPG game.
The engine can carry arround 100 players on 1 screen and give you a nice 50+ FPS. That is graphicly.
(I have not yet done much on the online part, this is not operational a.t.m.)
Some of you have assisted me and helped me alot, theirefor i decided to release a little Alpha that demonstrates the loading of 9 RPG layers with 2 Collision layers & Tweening. It also shows a text bubble with 1 line. However, this bubble can take as much lines as you feed them. Creating a new line using \n in your string. Also the max width of the balloon can be configured. Unfortunatly i have no time to intergrate to much testing controls for you.

Only controls available are:
CTRL+SHIFT+
- : speed down
=: speed up
D: debugging (collisions)

http://www.fantasaar.com/download/fantasaar_0_0_8a.zip
http://www.fantasaar.com/download/fantasaar%20alpha%200.0.8b.zip
On my older laptop i gain 80FPS
On my P4 HT i gain 140FPS
This is with FLIP 0



Using just FLIP will take arround 20 FPS off.

I get 188 FPS on my P4 3.2GHz. Hey this is pretty neat for a few days work. Where are the gfx from, did you make them?

Doesn't work here.

Intel GMA 965 chipset + OpenGL + BlitzMax = No go.

Looks very nice. :)

190 FPS on Duo T7100.

@Grey Alien, Yes. Fantasaar is from top to toe custom work. To awnser your question i better post the team info's (altough it may look big, please note that this is all sparetime & hobby for all of us)

Mathias Kærlev ~ DarkKiller
Security supervisor
Nicklas Nygren ~ Nifflas
Map-engine planning
Jamie McLaughlin ~ Jam
Extension developer
Casper Weijtenburg ~ Casper
Weapons artist
Alex M. ~ Zero
Lead alpha tester
Steven Harrington ~ BlackNight
Community supervisor
Tommy Shilliday ~ Vincent
Co-pixel artist
Mike Shilliday ~ tommy631
Concept art

I run the whole project and write it, also i am responsible for marketing and look & feel of the game, the logo, etc..
I did most of the GFX you see now, altough Tommy is taking over this job. Then we have also a small fanbase that keeps posting new features, quests, suggestions, etc... so there is plenty of input. I wrote a working mapeditor with LUA intergration.
Soon i hope to intergrate the LUA in the game and setup the API.

Fantasaar will be a freeware MMORPG with membership which basicly allows you to develop faster by buying items and stuff, so you can focus more in the things you really like. One thing we do not want to happen is that paying players dominate and can do things normal players cannot They buy time basicly. The GFX is really what makes Fantasaar, Fantasaar. And also the font used in the Logo. We aim for a unique Manga'ish cuty style, yet with all the real action as you find in Zelda games. The tite is already arround for 3 years. We had build a version before in 2005 that hit a stunning 3000 member in a matter of 2/3 months. We never expected that to happen. The project died because of the overkill. Yeah... it happes :( So, we are now working on a larger scale. Because i run a business in the webindustry i have my own servers in Amsterdam, which realy is an advantage as i can easly at very cheap rates get my hands on 100Mbit lines. Anyway, we took the site down for 1 year to kill the traffic, with success. The die-hard fanbase actualy never left us, when we re-launched the website it took 2 weeks to get all these people back. They now form a solid core for alpha testing. If you do a search on google you find some info, and some failed attempts of me trying to list Fantasaar on Wikipenda (Haha!)
The WebArchive can show you what was up there back then, in case you are interested.

-Edit-
I thoughd it maybe interesting to know that battles will take place in real-time. Also anyone is free to join a battle without question. Basicly, a group of 10 n00bs can beat the crap out of someone. Fantasaar also allows you to build custom houses, the game will have an intergrated RPG-Maker-like editor, to draw your house. The world is virtualy unlimited, zones are endless. Players can customize their characters. We have also choosen for the simplistic setup to allow custom animations. Without spirting work, using the custom animation engine, you can create combos and the most unique motion effects for the players. You dont just control a picture. You can define it from A-Z. It is what Fantasaar is about really... a world shaped by players. Also, it maybe the last RPG standing that has NO magic or fantasy. It will be very realistic.

@GfK, How old is that PC?

Three weeks.

(and no, I'm not joking).

It runs GL stuff perfectly, unless its written in Blitzmax. Then it doesn't wanna know.

Strange... you have any idea how that can be fixed? ( i guess not :) cause you would have been the first to find out)

Mark knows whats wrong - check here. Not sure if he's going to fix it though.

(IMHO, he really needs to)

Hmm. i think i will just add an option to select the driver :)

Make sure you default to DirectX, then. Because otherwise I won't be able to see anything in order to change it.

Haha. Good point ;-)

Maybe i should change my signature
"Your PC is incompatible with OpenGL. In the menu you can change to DX7 drivers."

bout 150FPS Nvidia Geforce 6600

Goldstar: OK thanks for info, big team!

I would always use DirectX first on a PC and flip to OpenGL if it can't be found. You CANNOT release a professional game and rely on OpenGL.

Could i turn that arround, Set OpenGL and if that cannot be found witch to DX7?
OpenGL is much faster as DX7.
Anyway, i plan to add a configuration tool, like they have in some commercial games.
After installation it will boot that, people can configure the game and start playing.
I will also add a menu shortcut for it.

Could you please make a version that allows either dx7 or opengl? And also allow it to run either full screen or windowed? Right now when I run it, nothing happens, so I'd like to try it in a variety of ways on my old pc. Thanks!

On some systems.

But on the majority DX is slightly faster, and at least DX works on pretty much all cards unlike OpenGL.
(There's a reason that the Windows version of BlitzMax defaults to using DirectX if you don't specify a graphics drivers)

I've found that often the system reports OpenGL is present yet all you get is a load of white squares so to the user it is not working. That's why I choose DX first then OpenGL if DX fails (unlikely).

Ok. I see some advice here. Ill set aside my own ideas cause i beleive in all honesty you guys are right about it and have more experiance at this area. (or it must be plot :-P) DX7 it is, optionaly i will allow OpenGL if the user specifies it. Having read that DX7 is the Max default driver, is there still need for me to specify it?

@MGE, i will update the game later today so you can test. Your testing is b.t.w. very much apriciated!!
Thanks all!

use the compiler directives like ?win32 and ?MacOS (you need to close the section with a single ?) to set DirectX for PC and OpenGL for Mac (or just leave DirectX as the default driver on PC as you suggest)

This is precisely what happens on my new laptop.

Haha, ok, i know where to ring a bell if i need "special-case" testing :-P

Goldstar- When do you plan on making it online? :) are you starting right away or finishing engine?

Hello, here is the update as promised. Just took a bit longer. (This one also has animated waterfalls and such.)

p.s. You can enable OpenGL in config.exe, and also change other settings.

http://www.fantasaar.com/download/fantasaar%20alpha%200.0.8b.zip

All testers, please report back the new FPS. Thank you! (by default VSync is set to -1, please change to 0 to compare FPS with the last test + enable OpenGL)

When i compare the new game with the old one, same settings, i lost 5FPS. However, it now supports collisions unlike the other one.

@Xzider. The first multiplayer test release is expected 1st of March 2008.

Makes me want to finish my engine! I haven't tested this yet but good job :).

Edit: 50fps seems pretty low for what is on screen, I'll test later on my hardware.

if blitzmax doesnt like intel x950 or x3100 thats 90% of laptops under £500 then

Heres a new screeny.

(Preformance related discussion continued here: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=75824 )

I update the screeny above.. those bars are really ugly, are they not? im looking for an alternative, but ran out of ideas. (It will have numbers printed over them anyway)

You've spelt 'Strength' wrongly.

Maybe just use shortforms for the stats, and have a mouseover effect with the full length name and description of the stat.

Hp
Def
End
Dex
Str
Int (Which you have cut off on the screen, and is missing an L)


Very nifty looking game though; love the graphics+UI...they blend together very nicely.