Ground and Space Movement in SWIF

Hey guys! This blog's a bit overdue - sorry about that! We've had a lot of design questions up in the air with no real answers to them, so we wanted to hold off on posting another blog until we had something finalized. Or at least nearly so.

So today, I want to talk about new area and movement mechanics in ground and space. Instead of just telling you how they'll work, though, today I'm going to *show* you how they'll work. Take a look!

One thing I want to note about this design is that, for blind players (and people who just want to see it), there *will* be options to adjust your prompt to show numbers, rather than bars. What I'm showing here is the current mockup for the default prompt.

Now, there are a few things the mockup doesn't show about movement, so I'll explain them here.

Firstly, moving to *anything* that you can see in the people, places, and things sections of the map is as simple as "goto <whatever>." So to move to Dracken, "goto dracken." To move to that lightsaber on the ground, "goto lightsaber." However, more arbitrary movement is also possible, and there will be a number of convenience functions to help with that - you can "go 2n3w" to move two meters north and three west, or you can "takecover" to instantly travel behind the nearest obstacle between yourself and your opponent to hide from laser fire, or you can go "toward" anything on the map by an arbitrary amount. Additionally, there will be functions for "rush" and "kite" - kite will try to keep you as far from your opponent as possible while still being in range to fire your own weapon, while rush will try to keep you as close as possible even if they move around. With this, movement speed will be a real thing, and forcers with force speed will gain the advantage of being able to quickly close ground between yourself and your opponent to get within sword range.

This movement even extends to complex pathfinding. For example - in the current game, if you want to go from the lavish hotel to the workshop behind the pawnshop on Coruscant, you have to type "se;e;ne;d;sw;n;n;n;e;n;nw;w;n," which gives no indication of where you're going and requires a lot of random direction memorization. This can quickly become labyrinthian if, say, you're trying to go from the Tatooine landing pad to the Krayt dragon nest - a command that becomes "n;n;n;w;w;n;n;n;e;e;e;s;s;s;s;e;e;s;s;e;e;e;s;e;e;n;u." Using this new system, going from the hotel to the pawnshop is as simple as "goto pawnshop." Going from the landing pad to the krayt dragon nest is as simple as "goto krayt." (This won't work for everything - for example, many buildings may have rooms named "upstairs," so you won't be able to go to "upstairs." It will only work for rooms that are sufficiently uniquely named that the code can determine without any ambiguity which room you wish to go to.)

Secondly, as the above may suggest, combat will actually become more tactical, as every weapon and skill will have a different range, and you will be able to block many abilities by putting an obstacle between yourself and your opponent. This, hopefully, should make the game considerably more interesting.

Thirdly, as you can see, space is also going to be moved to using the same system as ground. This will mean a shift from 3D space to 2D space, but there are a number of advantages to doing so:

• Most notably and most importantly, it makes space much more playable and approachable, especially for new players. Once you can move through the newbie academy, you can move through space - the two will have few, if any, differences.
• Nearly as importantly for both players and developers, though, is the fact that using the same system for both means that a lot of development work can now be done in both places at once. We can use the same code, the same level editor, etc, etc, and just set a flag limiting travel to ships only, and we'll have space in. This means faster development, fewer bugs, and you guys get to play the game sooner.
• The shift to 2D space allows us to leverage the map functionality - something that is impossible using text for 3D space.

Additionally, this change to both ground and space opens up one more nice avenue of potential exploration for us: Eventually, development time allowing, we may develop a custom client for SWIF (with full trigger, alias, timer, scripting, etc. of course). If and when we are able to do that, having this sort of representation of our areas internally means that our custom client would be capable of implementing a real-time 2D representation of the game world, which would mean we could show you where players are, when they move, and even during combat, could animate all the attacks - all the while still maintaining full telnet compatibility. (It should go without saying, though, that for the sake of fairness, even players with that client will have to type in all commands the same as users of any other client.)

One of the biggest advantages of this change, from a content design standpoint, is that this manner of level design - ditching the "rooms" for open areas of arbitrary shape and size that can be traversed in any way by the players - is that it makes the world more seamless and contiguous, and opens up a lot of design freedom to allow us to make the world as flowing and consumable as possible. It will eliminate the need for repetitive room descriptions, meaning that we can make room descriptions far more meaningful, as there will be fewer of them overall. And of course, it opens up limitless opportunities for interaction by you guys as players.

Now, to close up, I want to say that, while we feel good about this change as a whole, this is not a finalized design - not until you guys sign off on it. A change this big is bound to impact the players, for better or for worse. We hope, of course, that the change will be for the better, but we want to know what *you* think before we move forward with this plan.

So! Please, leave some comments, here or on facebook, or send a tweet to @ForgetInfinity, and let us know what you think! We're excited about this new concept, and we certainly hope you are too!

Thanks for reading!
Glitch

Weekly Spotlight: Timeline changes to gameplay

Hey again, guys! Glitch here with another weekly update! This week, I'll be discussing some of the gameplay changes that are coming specifically as a result of the change in timeline. Some of this is still being designed, so I'm going to leave out some specifics that may change, but I think we're solid enough on the timeline that I can give you a general overview of what you can expect the game to play like.

The year is 25,100 BBY. The galaxy is just recovering from the tyranny of the Infinite Empire. The Jedi Order is still in its infancy, having only split away from the Je'daii a few hundred years ago. The galaxy is largely unexplored, and even technological advancement is still a work-in-progress. What species do exist in the galaxy are currently locked in the Unification Wars, with many disparate factions all vying to replace the Infinite Empire as a source of leadership and stability in the galaxy. This unusual timeline leads to some noticeable changes in the gameplay environment for SW:IF.

 

Space travel, exploration, and hyperspace

The first, and probably largest, of these changes is a complete rethinking of space, travel, and exploration. Space is now a continuous whole, and most of it is unknown. Shipboard hyperdrives are unknown - the dark side energy required to power the Rakata's hyperdrives makes them unsuitable for everyday use. As a result, conventional space travel is performed using massive hyperspace cannons, which launch a ship into hyperspace toward a desired target. Unconventional space travel using on-board "tumble hyperdrives" is also possible, but both expensive and dangerous - tumble hyperdrives send a ship into a jump of unpredictable distance and duration, which means it's impossible to tell where you'll end up while using them. Some daring explorers use these to help chart the galaxy, but it's not unheard of for these explorers to wind up flying into a star or bouncing too close to a supernova - and that ends their trip real quick.

Exploration is also a major part of the game. At the start, only a small number of planets and species will be available in game, and players will have to explore to find additional worlds, and once found, will have to take the time and effort to build new hyperspace cannons and beacons there to make travel to and from feasible. In many cases, the location of such a world will come with the introduction of space travel to its native population, opening new race options for play in-game.

This, of course, has implications for space combat. Without a tumble hyperdrive it's impossible to flee space combat without first navigating to and docking with a hyperspace cannon - and even then, it takes a few moments for the hyperspace cannon to lock onto a beacon and alter its heading to ensure a safe trip. That means if you can't outrun your attacker in sublight, you'll have to hope you can outgun them instead. (A prospect which, hopefully, will be less daunting than it currently is - we're exploring new ways of traveling in space that are more intuitive, approachable, and enjoyable.)

 

Lightsabers

I'll put this one bluntly: In 25,100 BBY, lightsabers haven't been invented yet. The closest thing is the forcesaber, a device created by the Rakata that functions very much like a lightsaber, but requires considerable dark side energy to activate. Additionally, and perhaps obviously, the lightsaber forms haven't been developed yet. This means that, in general, most force users will be wielding force-imbued blades rather than lightsabers, and the saber forms will be changed to sword styles. For dark siders, the sith alchemy tree will now lose its sith blades option (which would be redundant with force-imbued blades), and will instead gain a force saber option - meaning the balance of blades to sabers will essentially be reversed. (Don't worry - Force-imbued blades still have the same properties as lightsabers.)

 

Race selection

The galaxy is young. Most races have not yet developed faster-than-light space travel, if they've even left their planets at all. Many are likely in the equivalent of the dark ages on their worlds. This means the race selection is going to be more limited than it currently is - custom races, unfortunately, will no longer be an option. Any race considered playable in the current timeline will be on the list of choices - a list that will grow steadily over time as new worlds and species are discovered by the players. This, I know, is a bit of a drawback, but we believe that the benefits to the gameplay of this timeline are worth this sacrifice. The good news is, since there's limited data about when various races joined the galactic community, we're given a good amount of liberty to release popularly desired races early on in the game.

Additionally, of note, despite the Infinite Empire having fallen, and most of their kind having been wiped out, there are still a few surviving Rakata in the galaxy at large - which means Rakata will become available as a race selection.

 

Factions

This one, I'm not getting into much detail on just yet. All I'll say for now is, the following factions do not currently exist:

• The Empire
• The Republic
• The Rebellion
• Blacksun
• The Bounty Hunters Guild
• The Sith Order
• The Sith Empire

There will be analogs for many of these, but most of these haven't yet been created - the oldest of them, the Republic, still won't be created for another 153 years.

 

Things that *won't* change

There's a lot of technological differences here, but despite those idiosyncrasies, you should know that SW:IF still is the Star Wars you know and love. There are still blasters. There are still starships of all shapes and sizes, civilian and military. There's still bounty hunters and smugglers, light siders and dark siders, crime rings, world-spanning cities, and everything else that comes along with it. For the most part, aside from the things listed here, this is still Star Wars - and we want you to enjoy it for both what's new and unique to SW:IF, and to what's tried and true in Star Wars.

Thanks for checking out this week's weekly spotlight! We're all looking forward to making this game a reality (and you should know that progress has already gotten underway toward doing so), and we can't wait to share the product with you when it's done!

~Glitch

Weekly Spotlight: Crafting in SW:IF, part 1

Hey again guys! Glitch here with the first of a series of weekly design spotlight posts, where I'll be sharing with you the big changes in design that are happening in the transition from SW:KoD to SW:IF. Today's spotlight: Crafting.

In perhaps one of the most jarring (but also, we believe, most necessary) changes from KoD to IF, the engineer class is being removed entirely from the game. We feel that the engineer as a *class* has very little gameplay associated with it, and as we want to make the game very quest-oriented and provide a lot of end-game PvE and PvP content, we feel the engineer class has little to add to that type of gameplay, and would be a sort of odd-character-out that won't be a desirable choice to join any party.

As such, rather than have engineering be its own class, it will now be a sort of side-game available to anyone regardless of class - very similar to in most modern MMOs. You will still have to level it up (which will be much harder), you will have to gather resources (which will be harder), and we will be adding multiple types of engineering that a person can embark upon. (For example, one person will be able to craft armor, another will be able to craft weapons, etc. No one person will be able to craft everything.)

I know what you're thinking... won't this make it even harder to get all of your gear? Well, yes and no. It will make it harder to have all the best gear in the game, and this will be intentional, as gear will become leveled and you will have to achieve maximum level and find a lot of rare items to get the best possible gear in any given category. And it will require interaction with multiple characters to make this happen.

But as a concession, we will be altering some rules on alt transfer. And by altering, I mean removing. Every account will have a multi-character shared bank, so if you have all engineering types leveled up on different characters, you can make your own gear when you can't find anyone else to make it for you.

Also, Skye, yes... ship crafting *will* be one of the professions you can follow.

More details on exactly what professions will be available, and what each one will be able to craft, in the future.

And one final thing: If you can make it, you can repair it. That is all!

More updates to come! Thanks to all of you for your support during our transition from KoD to IF!

-Glitch

Star Wars: Infinity Forgotten is born!

Hello, people of KoD. This is Jaedyn Draper, AKA Glitch. I'm here to inform you about something exciting that's happening with Knights of Darkness: As you may have guessed already, Knights of Darkness is about to be reborn as Star Wars: Infinity Forgotten.

This rebirth comes with a lot of changes. Most of these are changes that have been needed for a very long time, but that we've been unable to feasibly implement iteratively while keeping KoD running the way it currently is.

• One of the biggest changes is to the code. The code for KoD is 30 years old and has been through so many iterations - from DikuMud to Rom to CircleMud to SMAUG to SWR to KoD, just to name the biggest ones - that the code is frankly a mess. It's a pain to work with. Even worse, the mprog scripting language (even after my changes) and in-game editing of levels are just awful. So, KoD is being ported over to a brand new codebase I've been writing from scratch, called Matrix Engine.
  
  Matrix is a full C++ codebase, rather than a 30-year-old C codebase that's been partially converted to C++, allowing us to take full advantage of C++ features in coding the game. Furthermore, Matrix has Python integrated as an in-game scripting language, which allows us to drop the existing mprog language in favor of a much nicer and more powerful scripting language, which will dramatically open up the options for what our in-game scripts can do.
  
  Finally, Matrix will bring with it an offline GUI editor for builders to work with, making building changes both easier and safer, as each builder can work on it at home and then move it through a pipeline of testing before it goes live.
• The biggest problem with KoD at present is the terrible state of the content. It has no clear level progression, no clear quest system - essentially players are randomly dropped on Coruscant and have no idea where to go, so the only effective way to level is to be power-leveled by someone else. This isn't what we want. Unfortunately the only solution for this, really and truly, is to sack our entire universe and rebuild it from scratch. That's the ultimate reason for this reboot. So once the conversion to Matrix has reached a level that is ready for this to happen, we will be hiring as many builders as possible to remake our world from scratch in a sensible, quest-driven way that newbies can hopefully figure out without any help from other players. This will go a long way toward both acquisition and retention of new players.
  
  Additionally, along with this, there will be a large focus on adding world bosses, instanced dungeons, high-level rare loot, and other end-game content, so that players don't run out of things to do once they've maxed out (which, once we've made leveling fun, will no longer be possible in a day).
• With the other changes, we're resetting KoD's timeline. This, I know, will be a very controversial change, as it will require a pwipe. I sympathize with those of you who will be losing your characters (few have put more into their characters than I have into some of mine), but ultimately, I believe it's necessary to increase our population size. Note, however, that those who do come over with us will be reimbursed for any RPP and QP they've earned and spent on their characters, to get their characters a headstart in the new game. Existing players will also get some other form of bonus (TBD) as compensation for the loss of their characters.
  
  JUST to be clear, though: The current KoD is not shutting down, simply being deprecated. Your characters will still exist on that port if you wish to play them. But we are officially dropping immortal and development support for that port, and existing characters will not be brought over to the new SWIF.
  
  The new setting for KoD (hereafter known as Infinity Forgotten) will be ~25,000 BBY, long before even KoTOR. We will follow the era just after the collapse of the Infinite Empire, a time known as the Unification Wars, which ultimately led to the dawn of the Republic as that ruling government of the galaxy. Returning to such a young state in the galaxy gives us the opportunity to place you, the players, as pioneers of galactic government, and explorers of a galaxy that has barely been touched, allowing you to find and discover many new and important pieces of galactic history. More on all of this in a future update!
• Gameplay will also get a lot of changes. Most of it will still be very familiar, but there will be changes to some core concepts, such as the way classes and leveling work, changes to the crafting system, and most importantly, the way PvP works. We will also be instating new, better RPP rewards for non-forcers as well. Again, more on these in a future update.

I know this is a big change, and for some of you, it will be hard to accept. But one only has to log into KoD right now to know that our current way of doing things isn't working. There is a lot that needs to be changed, and it can't be done incrementally due to the sheer scope of it. We hope that you will still be willing to join us on the ride, because we think the ultimate product we put out at the end of it will be the best, most modern, and most *fun* Star Wars MUD ever to be released! For those of you who don't want to come, though, we will be leaving the existing KoD running for the time being, as-is, but we are hereby officially dropping our support for that game - there will be no more updates to what we will now consider the legacy Knights of Darkness codebase.

Thank you all who have stuck with KoD thusfar. To those of you who join us moving forward, welcome! To those of you who don't, we're sorry to see you go. But in the end, I think we are doing what's necessary to transform KoD from the mediocre, half-finished game it is into something great.

-Glitch