Ships! (A Space MMO)

[squisher]

Hi All!

I'm very excited to announce the release of a project I've been working on as a hobby for quite some time now. It's an action MMO set in space, and it's FREE to play. (And there are ZERO Advertisements.)

The game uses four awesome open source engines: IrrLicht, IrrKlang, RakNet, and Bullet. This project is my way of saying thank you to everyone who volunteers their time to work on those engines. It's also my way of having a whole lot of fun!

The latest addition: Space dungeons!



Visit the guide for more screenshots and information about the game. Enjoy playing!

[CuteAlien]

Congrats, looks interesting although still a little empty (I just watched the video).
Some hints about your website:
- squisher.co itself still shows the default apache screen.
- If you want people to trust you enough to install install binaries you should have some kind of imprint to tell people who you are.

[squisher]

Shamelessly bumping, with a new announcement that I've added a bunch of stuff (relatively speaking) to flesh out the game. Also, I completed another project I was working on, so I now have the time to release updates for Ships much more quickly. Here's a pretty picture showing off the newly added tractor beams:

Note that you can see the items you have mounted on your ship. There is a targeting chip mounted enabling you to target things (the green reticle)
A more in-depth overview with more screenshots is here: http://squisher.co/ships/?p=guide. Download link is at the top.

[teto]

For specs see my signature

When updating to 0.007 launcher tells me "warning: could not update irrlicht.dll" or sthg like that. I ran it into administrator mode too same pb.
Then I launched game and tried to login without any account and game crashed. Then I created an account. The captcha "without the first and last letter." is tricky to detect since it's not said in error message (just says "your entry doesn't match captcha", it matches but I hadn't trimmed word).
I am waiting for the email to validate my account. Maybe I will be able to tell you more once I received it :s

[squisher]

Hi Teto,

Thanks for trying it out!

- I've fixed the Irrlicht.dll problem.
- I've added the "without first and last letter" notice to the error message.
- Most likely a spam filter blocked the validation email. I turned off email validation, can you please try registering again?
- I noticed that failed logins randomly cause the client to crash. I will fix that tonight when I get a chance to look into it more thoroughly.

[teto]

For me it's not random. Any failed login crashes.
I registered again. Not very crowded your forum ^^

Indeed you fixed the update pb and I got able to play the game. I like the idea and I know how complicated it is to make a game. I think you've accomplished a lot but it needs still a lot to be "fun".
-We can see the quads of the lens flare billboard.
-too many particles make the game confusing. The particles should die more quickly (trails everywhere).
-I don't like the controls, having to click to change direction + once you release the key, you just stop. The camera should show it. Move it to the middle of your previous and current position to get some visual feedback.
-can we set another camera ?

I am looking forward to a next release

I like your launcher. Is it opensource ?

[squisher]

For me it's not random. Any failed login crashes.

This is fixed! Version 0.009 will automatically be downloaded next time Ships is run.

Thanks for the feedback, I agree and I'll take all your suggestions into consideration! The particles and lens flare in particular bother me too, but I plan on spending my time on adding more content before I go back and smooth out some of the rough edges.

As far as controls go, it's designed to resemble flying in World of Warcraft. It sounds like you are used to simulators or"lunar lander" type games, and I actually intentionally did not want to follow that approach, preferring instead to imitate "first person shooter" games like Quake and WoW, in which you only move while holding down a key.

[aaammmsterdddam]

WoW isn't a first person shooter
But it uses the general control layout, well the control layout of a conventional third person shooter at least

[firewater49]

The one thing that bugged me was the particles, I actually kinda liked the number of them, but it bugged me how still they were. If your ship is moving, and the particles are being thrust backward they should be moving too, right? Maybe something like shipvelocity*.5 (to account for backwards thrust) might look really cool as they will spread out according to the ships current direction/speed. It would also help so it doesn't become quite so crowded on the screen!

Just an Idea )

Keep it Up!!

[squisher]

Newly added: space dungeons!

Several randomly generated space dungeons are scattered around the universe. They have only one entrance, and one room at the opposite end full of loot! Rooms in the dungeon may contain loot as well, or more likely enemy ships.



Also added: smoke canisters



As you explore the dungeons, be sure to bring along smoke canisters of a few different colors so you don't get lost!

[polylux]

Seems to be a neat project, some parts remind me of Vendetta Online (www.vendetta-online.com)
Downside is though: it doesn't start.
Dies with this:

cpp Code: Select all

[me@mycomp Ships]$ ./ShipsLauncher
2012:04:09 18:37:01: Starting Launcher
ConnFSM: NotConnected
Connecting to server at 75.145.134.178|60062..
Creating device
Irrlicht Engine version 1.7.2
Linux 3.2.13-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Mar 24 09:10:39 CET 2012 x86_64
No doublebuffering available.
Fatal error, could not get visual.

...and then segfaults.
It's an Arch Linux 64bit machine, ldd states that the binary correctly links to the 32bit dependencies.
Did you set it to smth other than the standard OpenGL driver?

Cheers,
p.

[squisher]

Hi Polylux, I posted a possible solution in my support forum.

[polylux]

Thanks, I just retried, got this:

cpp Code: Select all

2012:05:13 13:56:52: Starting Launcher
ConnFSM: NotConnected
Connecting to server at 75.145.134.178|60062..
Creating device
Irrlicht Engine version 1.7.2
Linux 3.3.4-2-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed May 2 18:28:42 CEST 2012 x86_64
Using renderer: OpenGL 2.1
Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 0x300): VMware, Inc.
OpenGL driver version is 1.2 or better.
GLSL version: 1.2
Starting main loop
Connection succeeded
ConnFSM: Connected
ConnFSM: sending query and waiting for response
Segmentation fault

Maybe you can provide me with a Debug build, I could then get you the backtrace.

Cheers,
p.

[theweirdn8]

Hey it is not allowing me to register on your site. It just keeps saying invalid code entered and I know I'm entering the right verification code.

[rubenwardy]

like it! just need to get it popular. i have a few suggestions
Radar

The sky map is too small! (It gets in the way of the ship)
I recommend some how not using one, and instead render an image b4 the smgr?