April 6, 2007
The Dragons are here! The Dragons are here!
I'm going to tell you about the recent updates to Sherwood and update this entry in a few days - there's a story to tell about last month but I'm not up to it at the moment.
1. Dragons
Yup, they're finally in. I had to rewrite a great deal of the monster code to get larger monsters to work properly. Dragons have eight times the hit points of regular monsters and can kill you in two hits at the same XP level. I also gave them two attack types of different duration to make them harder to block. There are three types: Snow Dragons in Frost Bite, Sea Dragons in Lost Lagoon and Jade Dragons in Ancient Sherwood. There are also "baby dragons" (Basilisks and Lizards) in levels 10 and up in the Dungeon and on three of the islands.
2. Frame Rate Optimization
I found an obscure optimization that improved the frame rate on Sherwood Dungeon quite substantially. For any Director developers reading this, when you remove an object from the world, the bonesplayer still updates and can slow the game down even if there's no animation currently playing. Use .removemodifier(#bonesplayer) on any bones objects not in the world. Just remember to .addModifier(#bonesPlayer) and restart the animation when you bring the object back into the world.
3. Camera Mode
I've been taking notice of the increasing number of Sherwood Dungeon videos that keep appearing on YouTube. This is fantastic and I decided to add a feature to help those hardcore movie makers. /Camera is a new command that switches the Sherwood camera to one that you can fly around the world to get those shots that you can't get from the in-game camera. Here's how it works:
/help camera Displays help on using camera mode
/camera Switches to Camera mode
Once you are in Camera mode:
Orbit Drag the Left Mouse Button rotate the camera around a point.
Pan Drag the Right Mouse Button to move the camera left, right, up or down.
Zoom Drag with Left and Right Mouse Button simultaneously to zoom in or out
<R> Resets the Camera to default position.
<SpaceBar> Ends Camera Mode
When you create Sherwood Dungeon videos, you are creating Machinima. Although the definition is a little more technical, Machinima is basically when you capture the screen of a computer game to video files and edit them it to tell stories or make music videos. Some of the examples on YouTube are great and I certainly encourage anyone who wants to use my games to create entertaining videos.
Sherwood Dungeon on YouTube:
www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Sherwood+Dungeon
Here's a few links on Machinima:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima www.machinima.com
If you want to get into making Machinima, you will first need a utility to capture the computer screen into a video file. It's usually not a good idea to try to capture the entire screen as you will get a poor frame rate for the video. Because Sherwood will scale to the size of the web browser window, I would suggest scaling it down to a smaller size before capture. Keep in mind that your video could get stretched to the aspect ratio that YouTube expects. The ideal capture size for Sherwood to match YouTube's aspect ratio would be approximately 728 by 545. Do some experimenting to see what gives the best results.
For screen capture, the Windows Media Encoder is free. Here's a download link:
www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx
Here's a link to a tutorial for using the Media Encoder for screen capture:
www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/screencap.aspx
I've also noticed that many Sherwood videos were captured using HyperCam. Here's a link: www.hyperionics.com/hc
Although you can put up an unedited video, the best results will come when you edit smaller video files into a final result. Windows Movie Maker is free and comes with Windows XP. This will let you add music and audio files, titles, transitions and effects. Lots of short duration clips edited together with different camera angles will look better than long boring shots. For rock videos, try editing your cuts right on the beat of the music - difficult to do but the results can look great.
Here's a link to Windows Movie Maker if you don't already have it on your computer:
www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/moviemaker2.mspx
March 1, 2007
Scalability and Infrastructure
I've been getting a great deal of email reminding me that it's time to update my Developer's Diary. Next week I'm off to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco for the fourth year in a row. It's an opportunity to meet other like-minded people from the games industry, exchange ideas, get inspired and have some fun. I better get you up to date before I fly out.
The last two months were a period when a great deal was happening, however much of that wasn't visible in the games as new features. I needed to look into the future and ensure we were ready and with MaidMarian.com at over 1.4 million unique visitors a month, we were at risk of being bogged down by our own success. As I looked forward over the next few years, it became clear that in order to handle continuous growth in traffic and game features, I would need to make major improvements in our backend and server infrastructure. All the game servers currently run an "of-the-shelf" application that ships with Adobe Director called the Shockwave Multiuser Server to handle all multiplayer aspects of the games. Although the SMUS has served us surprisingly well, it's no longer in active development or supported by Adobe. As a result, the primary focus over the last two months has been the in-house development of new, custom written server software that offers the performance, flexibility, security and scalability we need for the future. The MMMUS (Maid Marian Multiuser Server) is currently in beta and we plan to switch all the games over in late March. By itself, the server doesn't add new features to the games but we're now in a much better position to realistically tackle database driven community features like user accounts, guilds or friends lists. I also sleep better at night knowing the site should be able to handle millions of additional monthly visitors. You can try a version of Sherwood Dungeon running under the new server at:
www.MaidMarian.com/Sherwood2.htm
* Make sure to select "Test Server" under <select server> before logging in.
Other updates and changes:
1. Amulets
I introduced four new amulet types at the beginning of the year - the Talisman of Fire, Amulet of Poison, Stone of Darkness and Talisman of Ice. Just like the Enchantment of Speed, they are triggered with the <tab> key and take about 15 seconds to recharge. These amulets trigger various magical attacks for use in combat and all display unique visual effects on your opponent. During PVP the magical attacks can be especially deadly against players that like to block continuously.
2. Dragons
It looks like the appearance of the Dragon Statue in the courtyard of Sherwood Castle has created much rumor and speculation. Since I first indicated that dragons were in the future plans for Sherwood, there's been a great deal of anticipation as to when they would appear. I still can't give you an exact release date, other than to say we're working on it. As you can see from the statue, 3D modeling is complete. Animation for the dragon is still in the early stages and integration into the game will start once the animation is complete. With all the server changes, I'm not expecting to release dragons until late April.
3. Interview and Press
I did a two part interview with Hanford Lemoore for his blog recently. If you're curious about my background, design approach or the technology behind the games, have a look:
Part 1: My Background, Building a user base, Using of-the-shelf tools
Part 2: Technical Aspects, Business and Marketing
MaidMarian.com also was mentioned in the Escapist, a popular online magazine covering gaming and gamer culture, in an article entitled "Boutique MMOGs, Under the Radar but bigger than EverQuest" by Allen Varney. Here's the link:
Hey guys this came out Oct 1, 2006
It gives us a better idea of what Sherwood Dundgeon is going to become!
On a day when the MaidMarian.com game servers topped 4000 simultaneous players for the first time, it seems a developer's diary entry is in order. I would like to start out by just saying thank you. I recognize that making a living, doing what you love is a rare thing in this world. You made this possible. MaidMarian.com is not a massive corporation. It's just a guy with a computer living his dream of making massive multiplayer games that people seem to want to play. I cannot express how grateful I am for the support that you have shown and for making my dreams come true.
The redesign of the player avatars is progressing well. Based on the concept image in my last diary entry, it can be hard to visualize how characters will translate into the game. Now that rough versions have been modeled in 3D, you can get a clearer idea of current progress based on the above image. These characters are not yet textured and the female avatar has shoulder armor still in the works. Let me know what you think.
Most of you have already experienced the updates that have gone into Sherwood Dungeon in recent weeks. I mentioned in the last diary entry that I design in a very organic way. The last update really makes this obvious. I was experimenting with a few ideas and realized that I'd stumbled on an approach that could vastly increase the number of islands and variety of terrain types in the game without impacting the download time. Three new islands - Haunted Palm, Frost Bite and Lost Lagoon are the result. Three portals were added to Sherwood Castle for transport to these new lands once you advance to the required XP Level. This also allowed me to update the art direction of the game, making all the lands, including Sherwood, more vibrant and colorful and allowing each to have a distinctive palette.
Yesterday I added monster drops to the three new islands. After defeating a monster, they drop items that you can use or sell at the merchants by the portals. Skeletal bosses drop higher level items and if you character is a higher XP Level than the monsters, they will drop less frequently. As you can see from past diary entries, neither of these updates were planned or scheduled but once the impact they would have was clear, I made them top priority.
Dancing
Oh, and if you haven't noticed already, holding down <Up Arrow> and <Down Arrow> at the same time makes your character dance. Taunt your friends or have a party! Good silly fun. 
Once again, thank you,
-Gene
Here is the e-mail adress to President and Founder of Sherwood Dungeon:
Gene Endrody
The New Look Is Here
Check it out in Sherwood Dungeon There Are New Trees!
Different Looking Water & Different looking Grass There Is Water Under The Brige
But
Greatest Of All There Is A Teleporter Which Takes you to The All New
Haunted Palm Island!!!
The Game has been upgraded once again
Go Check it out in Sherwood there is a
all new Island Called
Frost Bite!!!
It is completely coverd in snow! Now theres a twist we haven't seen before!!!
New Features in the Coming Months
New Vision for Sherwood Dungeon
It's time to give you an update on my plans for Sherwood Dungeon and MaidMarian.com. All my games, including Sherwood Dungeon, go through many phases of development from the original vision through to it's launch on the site. After launch there's often numerous updates to get the final features in place. I design in a very organic way, so providing a list of new features and a timeline for implementation of those features can give players false expectations. If you were a player of the original Sherwood, you probably noticed that Sherwood Dungeon was a much more substantial update than just throwing a few new features into Sherwood. It was based on a new vision for the game, both from a technical and design standpoint. Major technical hurdles needed to be overcome to allow Sherwood Dungeon to have an infinitely deep dungeon and still keep the game small enough to fit on a floppy disk. When you are creating a web based MMORPG, keeping it small is incredibly important because the longer that loading bar takes, the more players your going to loose during the download.
In the past month, there hasn't been many visible updates to the current game because I've been developing a vision for the next major update for Sherwood Dungeon. One of the goals for the next update is to launch a new dedicated Sherwood Dungeon website with a full set of community features including an account system, player profiles, connections between friends, forums and guild support. This will be tied into the save game features of the game, however most of these community features will be available exclusively through the Sherwood Dungeon website. Development on this is currently very active.
The second major goal is to completely redesign the player avatars in the game. I believe this is the best way to make a major visual impact on how the game looks. Don't get me wrong, I think Sherwood Dungeon is already the best looking browser based 3D MMORPGs, but it became clear to me when I started work on the female avatar that it would be better to redo the male avatar at the same time. Concept art for the new characters is going very well and I've got some of my best game industry art contacts helping me on this. It's more important for me to get this feature right than get it fast, so be patient and I hope you'll like the results.
1. Dragons
Yes, Dragons. Easier said that done, but Dragons will be tied to the mission system in the game. It will take more than one player to take a dragon down, so bring a friend.
2. Undead Monsters
These skeletal warriors are intended to increase the variety of monsters in the dungeon.
3. Amulets
"I haven't figured out a great system for differentiating the amulets from magic rings, but I'll come up with something."
Here is the e-mail adress to President and Founder of Sherwood Dungeon:
Gene Endrody
Just a quick update. Here's a list of features that went into Sherwood Dungeon in the past months:
Helmets
Helmets are now in the game, with five different types of helmets available in the dungeon chests. A new slot for helmets is now on the equipment bar.
Quests
Missions, now called Quests, have been added. More quest types are planned in the future including boss and delivery quests. Quests are available from Captain Morgan by the dungeon entrance. Just walk close to the Captain and click on him to be offered a quest. The quest log is on the equipment bar. This shows you how close you are to completing the quest. Once you've completed the quest, return to Captain Morgan for your reward.
Merchants
The merchant store is above the dungeon entrance of the Castle Keep. Click on the merchant to see the store. A number of updates occurred to the store this month and you now have the ability to sell your inventory items to the merchant.
Multiple Servers
Support for multiple servers has been added to the game and a new server is online. You can choose between Emerald Server and Ruby server on the log-in screen. If you don't choose a server, one is selected randomly for you.
Undead Skeleton Warriors and Bosses
Undead monsters are in Dungeon Level 5 on down. There are also Undead Boss Skeletons with three times the health of regular monsters. You may want to bring a friend to defeat one of these. The map indicates the last known location of boss skeletons in purple on the map.
Avatars
Female avatars are a new feature in response to the requests of many players. The dragons and amulets are on hold until this is complete. I'm also planning on adding a help screen to Sherwood Dungeon with more instruction for new players.
I've made some changes to PVP in the Castle level. Blocking an attack successfully does double damage on the next attack and health potions no longer work in the Castle level. This is in response to players that just gather up health potions for PVP and make combat less fun for the other players.
Bug Report
You probably noticed a bug where numerous monsters spawned after a player defeated a monster. This was related to a bug in the boss update and has been fixed now.