Pokemon world online

WIP games, tools & toy projects Archived Projects
#21

I personally think it’s OK to use IP to practice game making abilities… not every programmer is an artist or has access to good art…

In your case though, you’re making money through the shop… whether or not you actually PROFIT doesn’t matter, you shouldn’t use someone else’s hard work to obtain money without their permission. By using their art, you’re saving money by not having to recruit a proper artist, and your audience is bigger simply because you’re spinning off the Pokemon brand…

That aside, it is an interesting project, the networking is a feat you should be proud of, and the GUI is nice (in places). You don’t see many MMORPG’s get past the planning stage, so I give you credit for that!

I would just strongly encourage you to remove the ability to trade real-world currency for virtual goods (including the pokedollars themselves). Keep it a personal project that you share with the Pokemon community. There’s nothing wrong with asking for donations for hosting (as you already are). If the players want to keep the game up, they will donate (Wurm did this for 2 years before they even had “premium” accounts and such)

#22

;D Well done! It is an excellent game! You can be proud of it. Which OpenGL support do you plan to add? JOGL? LWJGL? If you use fullscreen mode, take care of the problem under Linux please.

On the other hand, if you agreed, it would be nice to add your game into the Java Game Tome.

#23

Thanks. Though I only wrote the Java client.
Well it no longer needs openGL support because I heavy optimised it. It runs 5-10% cpu usage (less in full screen) on my computer. With the openGL pipeline it uses 1-2% heh, but with the openGL pipeline on it removes all text on full screen. Though I wouldn’t know what I would get for lwjgl but I don’t think its necessary.
The only thing that it bad, that it can use 100 megs of ram because it keeps all tiles in memory but any other image is in a weakhashmap. Next alpha I’ll compress the tiles in memory.

I got reported that Fullscreen works fine in linux.
Feel free to add it to the Java Game Tome but just comment that its an alpha and list a link to the forum message I wrote.

#24

Could you please describe those “heavy optimizations” (or at least give some hints). I’m constantly having issues with CPU usage on Java 2D. I thought it’s normal. But having 5-10% is really great result.

#25

Well basically most of all that info is on this forum.
But some things I did:
I used least possible transparent tiles.
Tile images are 32x32. Images I try do x^2 width/height.
If a image is modified it will save it, to reuse it later when needed.
Have a class that stores all images in a static hashmap so all classes know what images have been loaded and grab any of those images.
Used graphicConf.createCompatibleImage(…) to do all my images.
Gui images are all done in swing.
My rendering loop in a different thread from swing.

#26

Do you repaint the whole scene all the time, or you’re using some algorithm to determine “dirty” areas and repaint only those? And one more thing: do you cache background somehow or just repaint it every frame?

#27

Current version as of now it just paints to the screen at 30fps. Though that’s because I forgot to turn back on the option when the screen hasn’t change it doesn’t paint. But I don’t people would notice the difference with it back on :wink:
I was thinking to work out dirty areas because I was porting over for pda but I have stopped working on that version currently And since my current version is already low cpu I have not worried about dirty areas.
I use canvas using BufferStrategy on 2 and everything gets painted to that.

#28

Thanks for your replies. They are very helpful. One more thing: you’ve told about pda… you’re making java port or you’re going to use .NET for PDA? Once I tried to figure out how to write a Java game for PDA and I’ve found that there’s no “official” JRE for PDA’s. And third party JRE implementation are either commercial or of low quality.

#29

Just to note, depending on your game, my setup may not be what you want. Example drawing to screen is usually the most expensive, so working out dirty tiles might help a lot for you.
As for the PDA version I was working on, I’m keeping it as Java.
I was working with Mysaifu (http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~dat/java/project/jvm/index_en.html), which is not too bad. It gets regular updates.
Though I did find it slow working with my packets, so I need to wait for our server to get optimized in packets area before I continue.
You also have the choice of testing PhoneME(http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~davy/phoneme/downloads.htm) which what I heard works well if works on your device. But last time I tried testing it, it didn’t work for my pda.

#30

[quote]JNLPException[category: Launch File Error : Exception: null : LaunchDesc:


Pokemon World Online Alpha 2
KyroCorp

A full free playable online pokemon game based off the handheld versions!
Free online pokemon rpg game


















]
at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.handleLaunchFile(Launcher.java:210)
at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.run(Launcher.java:165)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:613)
[/quote]

#31

Fixed.
As for your problem Demonpants not sure whats wrong there. Works all fine for me and other people launching. I suggest trying again.
Just to note our the game server which this runs off is down currently so you will not be able to login.

#32

Has it worked for a Macintosh before?

#33

Just found out there is a bug for macs. Though so far the other macs have been able to get to the login screen, just they can’t login. The error is some “NoSuchMethod” error(http://pastebin.com/mfeb1099). Which I’m trying to track down…

#34

Hi,

I really like the idea of this game. I haven’t tried it yet since I’m behind a firewall but i will soon.

I’m actually working on a pokemon style game at the moment too. I’m using the pokemon graphics, but plan to change then slightly later.

Hey I was wondering, could you tell us how you went about creating this game? Like how many of you took part in it, how long did it take, what were the hardest things and where do you plan to take it? 8)

Nice work.

Keith

#35

:frowning: It is a real problem if it doesn’t work fine under Mac.

#36

The game runs on port 800 so if you can unblock that then you could play.

Well the creator wrote the first version all in VB took him about a month to get a basic version to the public to test. He did the whole thing himself grab what free art that was floating around the net,stats and formulas and what not. Once the public started to notice the game they were able to help us with extra art like gui, sprites, etc.
This game started in December last year, so its about currently 6 months old.
The client itself started to had not too friendly vb errors with the users, which some really just would never go away. So I offered him to help about 3 months ago to start on a Java client since I was starting another Java class at uni, thought it would be the best way to learn(which it was). So I been steady working on the Java client for about 3 months now.

[quote]how many of you took part in it
[/quote]
We try make it a community project, but only me and the creator do the coding.
We had lots of help in art and some in music. Have our 10 or so Gm’s who watch over the game and work on the game content, have a team of mappers, etc…

[quote]how long did it take
[/quote]
The current client/server is about 5 months, Java client is 3 months.

[quote]what were the hardest things
[/quote]
Currently is our Lag is the hardest thing to get rid of. Our server is what is making our game look bad. The creator has converted the server to .net and slowly working on it to make it stable for all our servers. Problem is hes been so busy with his job, and then users start complaining over the lag and leave nasty messages. But hopefully that will get solved soon.

[quote]where do you plan to take it
[/quote]
Well the plan is to do every map/pokemon, our suggestion forum is filled with ideas. We are going to add more skills, add houses, guild halls, players as gym leaders, etc…
But for me I’m just planning to finish the Java client, making sure it supports everything that the current client does so we remove the current client all together.

Hope all that answers your questions. Feel free to post more.

[quote]Sad It is a real problem if it doesn’t work fine under Mac.
[/quote]
I don’t understand why its complaining about the method isEmpty(). I did a few changes added some more crash tracking, that will be uploaded soon. Hopefully help solve this.

#37

Thanks for the detailed description. It’s a great effort that you were able to get the java client up and running so quickly.

So did you make level editors and stuff like that for the map guys to work on?

Is lag an issue due to the server being a bit inefficiently coded or just internet/server slowness?

And how much does the server cost?

Cheers,
Keith

#38

Well if the problem is isEmpty(), why not just say if (str == “”) or if (str.length() <= 0) and see if those work?

#39

[quote]Well if the problem is isEmpty(), why not just say if (str == “”) or if (str.length() <= 0) and see if those work?
[/quote]
That’s what I have done. Ill update it tomorrow(late here) when I finish some other stuff.

[quote]So did you make level editors and stuff like that for the map guys to work on?
[/quote]
Yep we have our own map editor which does the trick in making our maps.

[quote]Is lag an issue due to the server being a bit inefficiently coded or just internet/server slowness?
[/quote]
Inefficiently, too many large packets and too many calls to the database atm.

[quote]And how much does the server cost?
[/quote]
Seems a lot more then I said in the previous post.
Was talking to the creator today, it seems we went over our bandwidth somehow. The main server was meant to cost 270 but somehow costed us 500us. Trying to track down what sucked it all up.
The other 4 servers about 100-200us/month.
So it’s very costly. Glad I’m not paying heh.

So looks like we will need to fix our server problems asap and cut down on our servers.

#40

Well when you put the update in I’ll let you know if it works.