World of Tomorrow
 

First and foremost, I'm proud to announce that World of Tomorrow is back for another year.


What is it?

If you're not familiar with the server, it's one mostly centered around the concept of time travel.

In a distant age, a ceremony took place finally re-uniting the four Graals that had once been lost after so many wars racked the world with destruction and turmoil. Suddenly, dark menacing creatures burst forth from a portal and interrupted the ceremony, seizing the ancient relics in the process.

As the portals closed behind them, the world's geography and cultures suddenly changed as a result and events were altered which caused many races to become hostile toward others. Even their own kind. Now, in order to gain access to the past and set things right again, virtuous heroes of the world must re-open the portals to the realm of timeless ones and get the Graals back to restore everything to the way it was before.


What has been made so far?

In the first year, several talented developers and I worked hard to get the foundation laid for much-needed systems and content available. This is what we've gotten done:

- Custom Movement System (Hill Sliding Physics, Jumping, Drowning, etc.)
- Player Stat Menu Framework
- Looping Terrain Overworld
- Classic Gmap Test Dungeon
- Custom Gmap Tilesets
- Basic Combat / Looting System
- Custom Enemy AI
- Weather and Day / Night Effects
- Particle Effects and Dynamic Shadows
- Controllable Pets
- Scripted Interactive Objects and Actors
- Online Editing Tools


What needs to be done next?

- Overworld Detailing
- Dungeons
- Inventory System
- Quest System
- Player Skills
- Player Classes
- Content Information (Item Stats, Monster Stats, Quest Specifics, Etc.)


Which positions are currently available?

Level Designer (Overworld) - This role involves sculpting a set of terrain gmaps and placing class objects where they are needed. The maps are terraformed offline, but the rest of it can be edited online.

Level Designer (Dungeons and Insides) - This role involves designing dungeons in the standard 2D Graal level environment, but it involves some thinking outside the box since we'll also be doing vertical and side-scrolling dungeons as well.

Graphic Artist (Buildings and Objects) - This role involves creating sprites for objects and buildings, or other things we might need to populate our maps with.

Graphic Artist (Items and Parts) - This role involves working on a fair amount of sprites for different appearance-related things like items, equipment, body parts, etc. This job also involves checking an upload folder to see if new things have been submitted.

Content Developer (Database Information) - This role involves editing and testing entries in our database tables used for things like items, equipment, and quests.

Animator (Ganis and Particle Effects) - This role involves arranging impressive animations for both Ganis and particle effects. Editors are available for both tasks, and we will need plenty of custom animations for special effects in the future.


What will you need to submit?

If you're interested in becoming a regular contributor and cooperating with others on this project, please send a sample of your best work. The more time you put into detailing what you send, the more likely I am to consider your application. Sending several works couldn't hurt your chances, either.


What will be expected of you?

Above all else, I value communication with those I work with on collaborative projects. At this point, I no longer have any sort of 'master plan' for the server, but I do have some things in mind. So long as you can provide some good reasoning for changing, adding or improving something, I am very open to suggestions about the direction of the game right now, and actually encourage fellow developers to discuss these things with me.

If you do not participate or contribute often, you may be removed from staff. I generally suggest things that need to be made, rather than making assignments. So making other things for fun is perfectly acceptable instead of doing a major project, as long as you're doing something productive on a regular basis and not just idling or playing around with things.


How can you contribute to the growth of this server without being on staff?

If you don't have the time to work as a staff member, but still want to help out by submitting something, we have a file uploader that everyone who logs on has access to. Press F11, and you can upload files and leave comments along with your work. If your content is used, we will include your name in a publically viewable list of donors.




With that said, please send all sample materials to [email protected], or try any of the stuff I have listed in my profile info on the forums.

Good luck to all applicants, and I hope to hear from you all soon.

Good Luck to who apply's

Hey Draenin. The screenshots look fantastic. I haven't been online to see what you guys have done for while now, so I'll have to jump on and take a peek in a bit. Good luck man.

I apologize that the lighting is a bit dark in some of those shots, and that the levels aren't super-detailed yet. I'm looking for level designers especially right now, so definitely apply if you have even moderate skill in that area.

nice to see a post that is not "now hiring for Geno1337world5"

hope it pans out.

Glad to see you posted this Draenin. Your server is coming along very nicely and hope you find some reliable staff to help you out.

Oh, and here's some additional material. Just in case the screenshots aren't convincing.

What you've just showcased in your video is nothing new sorry. I do like how you have the npc say something when they die but perhaps you could pick a phrase from an array randomly?
Your traps seem a bit rushed as well, do the flames even hurt the baddies? As a player there's nothing more annoying in my opinion than npcs evading traps,slopes,etc that the player has to endure.

The content also seems a bit grindy, I for one prefer a more compact environment where strategy must be put into killing an enemy. I'm not saying you should be Thor's classic but you should model your approach off what he's created which is similar to the original zelda.

Other than that, it's a nice start. I can't wait to see how it evolves :)

Note the sign at the beginning of the video that says 'We will be adding more to this over time.' But thanks for the feedback. :]

I don't know if enemies will be hurt by traps at any point because enemies aren't smart enough to avoid them yet. But we will be adding more behaviors to the objects we have as we make improvements. The dungeon in the video is just straight-forward and 'grindy' because it's not meant to be an open-exploration dungeon. You're just supposed to go from start to finish and kill stuff. That's not how every dungeon is going to be.

Looks pretty fancy! Keep it up!

The video looks like GK and Zodiac had a baby. Grindy and repetitive, you did the same gathering and killing thing for 6 minutes. The only original thing I saw was 'jumping' which didn't seem to have any purpose in that particular showcase.

The screenshots and typed up OP seemed more impressive than watching the gameplay video. I'd like to try it out when it's all finished though, hopefully your response is accurate and not every dungeon will just be start-finish grindy.

Keep it up, seems to be a good concept.

World of Tomorrow was so two thousand and twelve.

Currently, the plans I have for dungeons are to instance them and make full clears possible. So when you abandon or clear a dungeon, the enemies will reset for the next time you run it. While some may argue that it may get repetitive, I am trying to keep our dungeons small but plentiful, so you can clear a lot of them in one day if you so choose. Some dungeons will have to be thoroughly explored, while others may be more linear and filled with traps all along the way. I have several dungeon styles in mind, and I plan to do some experimental things with them.

The enemies will be statistically scaled to be difficult but killable if you are the appropriate level to fight them, and when you get to the current 'endgame' level, options may open up to run different challenging modes of dungeons. These will probably include a stat-based hard mode, a time attack mode, and possibly others that challenge players even at the highest levels. I really want there to be a purpose to running older dungeons even when you hit max level, and it's entirely possible that we could have a reward system for doing so.

So, while we're discussing it I must ask... What kinds of other features would you all like to see available?

Npcs hurt by traps please.(legit demand... i'm not trolling lol)

This is a cool playerworld.

good job draenin... keep up the work

looks nice

Keep up the work man

I am, thank you.


I've started the routine of making one new dungeon a week, and I'm actually two ahead of schedule at the moment. Our 7th dungeon is next. By the time we reach 10 dungeons, I'll have one available for each of our overworld gmaps.

If anyone is interested in sitting down for a few hours one day to make a dungeon with me, they're fairly small and easy to complete. Each one consists of about 25 maps at the most, and we use a custom tileset that is much easier to work with than the default tiles. I have also been working with new types of puzzle and trap systems that can be added to dungeons to increase their difficulty and complexity, and we'll continue to add more to that list over time. All of the editing is done online so you can work collaboratively with more than one person on each map, and it tends to get done way faster as well.

In addition, our database tables are filling up more quickly now, so if you consider yourself a kind of 'idea person' and you're interested in working on actual game content like monsters, items, gear, quests, pets, mounts, and so on, now would be the best time to apply for such a position. Once I am happy with the content we have, chances are I'm going to be saying 'no' a lot to people who want those kinds of things to be changed later on. So be advised, that ship is about to sail.

not sure what you wanted me to do...not sure what a bump post is.....

Do I smell an update from Draenin coming, or? :confused: :D

Yeah, pretty much. I don't like bumping my own threads with a double-post if I can help it. :p



Still looking for some assistance with getting the second half of our game content done. The positions I've listed before are still open, but now we have a fair amount of the work already done.

This year we're trying to focus on getting the maps filled out, as well as getting information into our database. (Like monsters, quests, items, gear, etc.) After that, everything basically just needs to be scripted to work properly with the player menu and everything will be mostly prepared for launch.

So I really need some people right now who are willing to work on maps with me especially, because last year I worked on terraforming about 10 island gmaps and 30 dungeon layouts that are currently kind of empty, and we need to fill them with objects. I'm also working with a brand new tileset for our dungeons which we'll improve over time, and currently trying to add detail to lots of levels.

There are some screenshots below which kind of show where we're at currently, but it won't all look 'put together' and impressive until we get all the objects in, which is what I want to get accomplished.



I'm really not the best at levels or graphics or anything really, but I'm still getting stuff done almost every day. Even if it's small projects.

And I could really use a hand because things get done faster that way. I like co-op editing levels with people, because the levels usually turn out better. We're always taking submissions for objects and items as well, and if you consider yourself to be a person with good ideas, we will need help getting the rest of the pre-launch content information put in.

So if you'd like to join me, just shoot me a forum PM or a message when I'm on RC. There's a good possibility we could get to closed beta by the end of the year, but that's really a matter of whether or not enough things get finished. Right now we're at roughly 60% completion, so it's very possible to get everything ready for the transition to Hosted status.
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