-What A Playerworld Needs-
 

When people submit playerworlds, then
the main problem is that they are of poor
level quality. They are
1. generated with level generator and nothing else
in there, or
2. made by creating a new empty grass level and
placing some predefined objects onto it, like trees
or houses.

When I look at a submission then I only look
at the map and on a few selected levels. So
better make a few good levels than making
tons of levels of low quality. I know that it is
easier to make levels described in 1. and 2.,
but playing the game makes more fun when
there is something special in each level and
you feel that the world is professional made.

A map is not always a must (like the Xmine submission,
it doesn't really need a map), but when you make
a world that is based on overworld levels then a
map is a MUST. If your levels don't look good when
connected then change them!

*cough* graal2001 also made by level generator...and you're just slowly filling it up...*cough*

Not that I mind it...its getting better and better every day!
I even re-upgraded my account for a year to see the improovements of g2k1

I try and make my levels perfect. I make up my own paths and I use tiles, like flowers and stuff. I hate it when I go to a PW and I like walk into a tree all the time.

But Graal2001 is full of interactive NPCs and nice tiling and cool graphics. There's nothing inherently wrong with using the levelgen, but people seem to think that they can just make a thousand levels and generate them, and then that's their playerworld.

Moral of the story: Don't drink and play Graal. Trees hurt heads.

Did I said it wasn't good?!
did i said it hadn't good graphics and stuff?
I don't think so, I only mentioned it was made with a level generator
Please read a post good before you reply to it...

You were citing its level generator origins as a fault, by comparing it to worlds of lesser quality. I was simply explaining how it differed from those playerworlds.

well nevermind it
lets not argue on this board
main board has allready loads of those stupid threads/replies

I agree. Getting back on topic, I think what most playerworlds really need is good scripting. Even the most aesthetic levels fail without interactivity.

yes, scripting is the key to a succesfull playerworld
if every level contain something to do for the player it would be to chaostic
but try to do it like new main, make some villages or spots with something to do...that's the key to succes
also make some seats with tables where people can hangout for a while and chat with each other..best thing where to make a hangout is in the town like in the centre..if you make a playerworld like this you'll have loads of people every day! Only you must also advertise and DON'T make your playerworld p2p cause people with p2p account will mostly go to newmain so I suggest you make it a normal playerworld! About the advertising just go to all the servers and invite people do not mass like 10 times in a rope only thing you'll get is that you'll be on ignore
tell people of the beautifull npc's your playerworld contains and make a good website for it
After all this then you got yourself a nice good beautifull server!
at least in my opinion

I personally like my creativity, I just make up stuff with tiles and such. Use my own design, so someone doesn't say "YOU COPIED ME!" Etc. I haven't really thought about making a playerworld, my friend Volt and I were going to make one named Middle Earth, but then with the version switch we had to re-do a lot of the stuff, that is what he said. I may start back up on it, a lot of the levels were very nice quality.

When the overworld of Graal2001 was made
we didn't had a levels generator. All in Graal2001
was made by hand, except the survivor island
and the red trees, and even those tree took some
hand work to fit into the cliffs / rivers.

Graal 2001 doesnt look level generated. It looks perfect to me. They use the right tiles and the paths are really cool looking.

Stefan, what about Mystic Lands?

I've made a mini map for my PW, how do I get it to work? =-)

And do you need a big map or little map of the world?

!!!Down with level generator!!!

I mean its usefull but if server owners are going to make level generated playerworlds and hardly add stuff then please dont use it!

I made nearly 500 city and forest maps by hand!
It's a long and boring process but at least when people play them, they will see that every map is nicely detailed (and wont go through plain grass maps all the time)
;P

Btw: good tip is to have a nice system! System can do wonders, specially when it comes to catching cheaters and more =D

I think the worst part of my playerworld was that I found 1 thing wrong, and I had to change basically the whole playerworld.
Just for me to make the map perfect (meaning all the trees aligned) I had to go through my 500 hand made levels and fix the trees so they align. Oh and gathering playerworld houses isnt very easy either =(

Good luck if you make a p/w
;P

Level Generator is awsome...it saves so much time...I totally disagree you could make 50 plain green levels with it to work off of and just edit them (saves the warping)

Yes level gen is great!
But if you're going to use level gen then make sure you edit every single map, because you can easily tell a map that was edited and wasnt edited (simply because level gen doesnt make chairs, lamps) and other things ;)
what im saying is that level gen is overly used. too many playerworlds are level gen and add some predefined objects and thats it ..
not cool because they dont show ne effort
;P
and warping is easy =P

If you use the level generator you SHOULD go through every level, add stuff making it look better. I'm making a playerworld and I used the level generator but I'm not even close to being done with it. I'm going through every level and adding things. Yes I agree the System NPC can be a great tool, I'm using mine with Autojailing features and others, the triggeraction is good for System NPCs. The only reason I started a playerworld was I was tired of all these playerworlds being a jumbled mess with no organizations etc. etc. etc.

=D
go Xilos!

I'll list everything my system can do:
1-jail some1 from newhere in the world
2-jail some1 for any specified ammount of minutes
3-day/night
4-self update (brings the playerback to the npc level when a newer version comes out. I just change the server.systemver string to a higher version)
5-built in time/date checker
6-Check to see if a person who is not a staff member has illegal npcs (then jails them, and sets string specifing how they cheated)
7-Checks heart ammount , sword levels and more to see if person is hacking (then jails them, and sets tring specifing how they cheated)

See all that neat stuff =D

Did you ever think about having the new system NPC just return to the weapons, for example if your System NPC is named *System and you put a new version, you could have it check for the newer version, and when there is a new version just put toweapons *System, I think that will update it, not sure though, just a thought. Or you could have the x,y,and level name go in flags and after they get the new NPC it warps them back to where they were. Also for Staff I made a Staff System NPC that has everything in it instead of having 23523 NPCs, you just need one that can be used to Jail ppl if you are a GP etc.

No, toweapons cannot be used in weapons.

You could warp people to an update level, though, that had an NPC which gave you the new weapon and warped you back again afterwards. That'd certainly work.

I believe if you have the NPC SERVER then if you have a weapon every time you reconnect it updates your weapon.
and Xilos yes, in my onlinestartlocal if you say 'returnfromupdate' it places you back to the x,y and level you were in =D

It actually already automattically does that without NPC Server, you just have to edit the weapon when it's in the same level and on the same position and Graal will automattically update it to the new version then ;)

so if you have a weapon in whatever.graal at 20,20 and you edit it Graal auto updates?
O.o
I thought only npc server could do that ^_^
You 100% sure?

I'm thinking that is a new feature if you upload a updated version of a level it will autodownload then new level. I think it says that in newfeatures2001.txt, I think, correct me if I'm wrong.

- files are now automatically downloaded again from the server when they have been updated on the server

Thats what it says in the file, but does it go for npc's too? and I mean if youre not even in the current level you're in a totally different place.
I hope so , im gonna ask Stefan, if ne1 knows if it does or doesn't please post ^_^

It does, I recently tested it out somewhere, as lopng as everyone's got the NPC's you can just change the NPC in the levle where they got themfrom and it'll automattically change it's script for everyone :)

It has been this way for more than 2 years.
If somebody does toweapons with the same
weapon name and the modification time of
the level is newer then it will replace the
weapon script in the database and all
players get the new script when they login
(saving it separately for all people would
mean tons of GB for storing the weapon
scripts ...)

you should
 

you should let level 4 rc's edit that database...

so like if they put up a weapon a long time ago and they dont want it to be used any more then they can delete it out of the database so no one can have it again.

take Sidra for example... they usto have a lot of staff weapons that just had no point.. Now darklink is trying to make it so there is few staff weapons (ie boots and thats it)... But like some staff are still getting the old staff weapons because like they can add it through rc...

good idea

no no no

GREAT idea. :D

as said somewhere in another thread...

being able to edit the database and the scripts they contain! from the RC.

that would rock.

I made a system like Liquid for my PW but by changing a server string you can disable people form picking up money incase a hackers comes in to ruin the economy. :)

Babylon is all by hand, i havent used level gen once. my biggest problem is tree errors. b4 i knew how to connect levels i just made and linked them. I almost had to restart once finding out about connecting. :o

Now babylon is amazing but i still have 1 major tree error. Its in that forest at the top...

Damnit, I really like the cliff paths of Babylon, yo!

no, no, no
 

If the level genarator is used properly you can make one heck of a good server for Eg. Me and Sym used the level genarator and slowly by hand filled in the rest of the levels the server was awsome for what we had done then my net died :-( and the project ended although i would still like to finish it and put it online its a realy good server with tonz of good ideas that would be new to Graal

you're telling me that you made that entire level of bushes by hand?


(right below the bakery)

hehe it wouldnt be that hard to do the bushes cuz the map is all bush so you just have to goto the predefined part and do a flood fill of bushes ^_^

They also need to have all of their graphics in .png format because KawaiiSaRiA is deleting the .gif ones in a few days or so.

:megaeek:

if i may
 

Another suggestion to new owners making server's is
dont make it to open have path's to diffrent place's wide path's but dont have it compleatly open an Eg. of this is graal3000 the times i played it i was wondering though tonz of green levels if its a path people wont be lost as ezy. an Eg. of a server with path's is graal2001 made by the master mind of graal if you dont have a p2p account go into maps and take a look at it. :-D


Xanatos(Owner Of Malhangaia) *i need staff am the only one and am not that great of a scripter*