With this post I’ve caught up to my current version of the Anvil Islands map.

I chose an unusual method for my rivers, carving them out of the landscape rather than drawing them on top. I wanted to avoid strange overlaps with my raised edges at the ocean line. The other tricks I tried just didn’t work, but I’m pleased with this solution. The only downside is it doesn’t work with CC3’s smooth polygon tools, so my rivers were carved using ..read the full article

I’ll try to give as much info about the geography and people of these fictional lands without giving away too many project details (for now).

I’ve posted these images elsewhere for feedback and that’s been hella helpful so far, especially since I’m new to making my own maps. I’ve been a big fan of fantasy maps since forever and I’m surprised I took this long to get into making my own. Having a purpose for the maps is a great motivator. ..read the full article

I’m not ready to spill the full beans on this project, that will be awhile down the road, but feedback helps me work. So I’m going to release my maps in progress while I work on them.

Here’s the initial rough sketch drawn on graph paper and scanned:

I’m further along than this now, but I figured I’d post the hand-drawn version first to show my progression.

Tesh dug up this guest article from Penny Arcade and I thought it was worth relinking. It’s written by Daniel James (aka Captain Cleaver), CEO and designer for Three Rings Design (Puzzle Pirates).

The paraphrasing quote hits home like a hammer:

“Money can’t buy you love, but love can bring you money. In software the only sustainable way to earn money is by first creating love, and then hoping that some folks want to demonstrate that love with their dollars.”

Free to Play ..read the full article

I’ve just migrated from the Windows 7 RC1 to the full retail install of Windows 7. I like it.

For years I’ve treated Windows as a necessary evil for playing PC games. Outside of that scope, I’d much rather run Linux or BSD. Windows XP was the first time I actually enjoyed a Microsoft OS, at least in regards to the user interface (with a lot of tweaking after install, those defaults = ewww).

For the past year of running Beta and ..read the full article

I don’t really want to get into another argument with Keen again, but when the nature of Allods Online’s cash shop came up within one of his post threads, I couldn’t help but give my $0.02.

Let me start by saying I think Allods Online is a fine game. Although it’s way too much cute-on-cute for me, I can see the appeal. I hope it does well.

One of the reasons I won’t be playing however, is because I’m expecting some serious ..read the full article

I seem to be in the habit of eating crow lately and here’s another subject where my tune is changing pitch slightly.

I’m not exactly happy that the MMORPG genre is knee-deep in me-too design, but I’m starting to wear down on the alternatives. I don’t know what happened along the way, but somewhere the concept of creating a virtual world became lost on all of the big game houses. Oddly, WoW has been the closest approximation, although it’s been slowly ..read the full article

I’ve been posting less and less lately, which isn’t entirely unusual. My blog has always been more of an outlet than a show. At times I feel compelled to write here and at other times I don’t.

Right now, I’ve been busy with a development project that won’t be officially announced for awhile.

I’m not likely to abandon these pages altogether, but I may redesign them again. I’ll still be on Twitter as NecroRogIcon and will be posting here when the urges ..read the full article

My mother was a Trekkie. She watched the original Star Trek series when it first aired. She followed the early fan-driven conventions and the appearances of the cast elsewhere. She was part of a nerdy movement in the 60’s and 70’s that tried to “keep Star Trek alive” when it was just a cancelled tv show with mediocre ratings.

My ex-wife was a Trekkie. Like many other people, she anticipated the return of Star Trek over many years and stuck it ..read the full article

Metaplace is shutting down and I know this isn’t supposed to be the appropriate time to disassemble why, but I think that’s part of the point. Everyone has been too polite and reserved toward Raph Koster and his big project. The collective web has been a group of yes men. There’s no grand conspiracy, just a lot of respect. Respect != Honesty. Of course, I’m just as culpable as the next fanbois. It’s too damn easy to critique after the ..read the full article

I’ve been bad-mouthing Guild Wars ever since it released in 2005 and I’m here now to apologize. This is almost a classic example of how an early version of a game can be a turn off. I didn’t enjoy it at all during the 2004 beta and the first general experience of the original game (specifically the early areas of Guild Wars Prophecies) still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Trying it again now, taken as a whole with ..read the full article

It took me a couple of months, but after the golly-gee-whiz fascination with Fallen Earth’s clever features wore off, I realized there just wasn’t enough fun factor to keep me happy.

It hasn’t helped that my guildmates have stopped logging in. It was a hard sell in the first place with the bleak landscape and hefty system requirements. On a daily basis it’s just been myself and Nelg for nearly the past month.

Scavenging was oddly addictive and compelling, but that’s ..read the full article

Note: This isn’t really a tutorial and I’m not a texture guru, I’m just charting my progress during my development for anyone who’s interested in following along.

. . .

I really like the “Gor” texture set included with Sauerbraten. The rock face textures are particularly good. They don’t fit into every situation though, so I’m trying my hand at extending the set.

This particular texture I’ve been using for the base of a mountain, but tiling it all over the mountain gets ..read the full article

I like Sauerbraten’s procedural-ish grass system. Creating a lush field is easy enough to do. It’s not quite on par with LOTRO’s beautiful grass & shrubs but with some more variety it could be in the same ballpark. As soon as I realized I could add more than the default basic grass I knew I had to expand it for my project.

I found this nice example of lavender on Flickr and could imagine it in-game:

A little bit of Photoshop masking ..read the full article

I find creating levels in games so compelling and I tried to explain why to Nelg:

“It’s like crafting in an MMO. Except I actually make stuff that I can play.”

I like making virtual stuff, more than real / tangible stuff (I used to make chainmail, but damn that was hard on my hands). I’m no math whiz or geometry guru, so my coding and 3D skills are limited, but I really enjoy creating layout, gameflow and most of all the ..read the full article

I’m currently playing Fallen Earth, plus I’m poking in and out of Champions Online and Left 4 Dead.

For Champions, I’m basically waiting for Cryptic to settle down with their balancing. The initial release balancing is still going on and now that they’ve thrown the Celestial powerset into the mix, they’re bound to be fiddling with all the powers for awhile. I don’t want to relearn my character every week, so I’ll wait and then return. Having the lifetime subscription ..read the full article

My reboot / remix of Gameslate was going well until I realized a fallacy (several actually) in the inherent tab-based design, so I plan to reboot again.

I’d rather not leave Gameslate so long in a non-playable state, but the redesign is a bit of a catharsis process for me. It’s not that it’s hugely difficult to recreate, it’s just something where I have to be in the right frame of mind to recapture the original Gates Motel magic. It’ll get ..read the full article

I’ve been playing around with the Sauerbraten (Cube 2) engine the last few days. I’m toying with the idea of a full conversion Co-Op RPG, but launching a big project like that without getting more accustomed to the engine would be foolhardy. So I’m starting out in more humble fashion with a few maps using the game’s existing single-player campaign system. If that goes well, I’ll progress from there.

The engine is fully open source (zlib license, so quite permissive) and ..read the full article