Project Z

[Corinthius]

Project Z is only a pre-release name. It symbolizes the end of learning, we all start with our A,B,C's and advance on to Z. I want to put everything I have learnt into a project that above everything else will challenge me, educate me and inspire any future projects.

The game concept.
Project Z will follow an evolving world where everything is entirely player based. Taking the backbone of a realistic medieval environment and turning it into a persistent atmosphere of "survival of the fittest" while encouraging leadership, manipulation but above everything friendship.

The world will spiral from corruption, power, fame and honor. Players will be divided by their morals, wits and daring inability to form communities and groups, armies and kingdoms to oppose those with contrasting opinions.
Players will be rewarded for the time, effort and enthusiasm they contribute to the world, with several positions for players to gain, starting as a peasant with no coin, home or worldly possessions, at the age of 16 - Advancing towards becoming the Overlord of the world, where no coin is necessary and the world is yours to command at the age of 90, but it's not without resistance from opposing factions. However, they may choose the path of the faith, control people based on religion, cult or passion, warriors of justice and the Holy order - few names in an ever evolving world.

The aim of the game:
Unlike many games, the aim isn't to gain one million levels and gain more money than possibly and realistically useful, there are a total of 5 levels at the moment, with a vast array of gain within each. Every level 1 through to five represents a stage in the characters life, from gaining a home at level 1 and becoming an apprentice within a select amount of professions - all the way to level 5 which holds more secret abilities than any other player can dream of. The game revolves around status and social worth, while a player may be able to take over a town single-handedly with a fine steel sword and lots of tactics, without the support of the citizens or a small militia the invader has no chance of surviving for long. The aim is unity through power, status and strategy.
A lot of games powerhouse the players at the top of the leader board, but in this game, that leader board is created by the players.

Individuality:
Each player will live their lives according to their desire, some may crave wealth while others enjoy community festivals or politics. Everything will be crafted from the earth upwards, resources will have a quality of 1 to 5, going into decimal numbers. The better the combination of resources, the more advanced the refining process will be. Each recipe must be discovered and it is then up the player to record and distribute that secret, if they so wish to. For example: 20 grade C wood and 10 grade C iron. - Most processes will be done in stages, for example a sword will require the blade to be made, handle to be made and then assembly. It will then require sharpening. This gives the potential for real business like team-work to be initiated as these processes take time!

The world will be completely shadowed by an interface of game-play instead of numerical logistics and health bars, players will be enslaved by the myths of society, for example: Stats are not visible to the player, and it is therefore up to communication in order to find out how to improve ones stats.
This isn't to say the players strengths and weaknesses will not be measurable, as certain in-game actions or events will display the players true potential -

Stats will be increased through life style rather than leveling up and fighting, what the character eats for example, and the kind of jobs they take.

Currency:
Wealth in the game is divided by possession, status, and monetary gains - While a peasant may have to save up for a sturdy sword, a man in the army is given one in commission of duty.

Time and actions:
The game takes place in "days". The player can divide actions using hours of that day, for example, spending 10 hours plowing a field and 2 hours travelling and so on...
There will be 24 hours in a day, and most serious actions will take up a good quantity of that time alone; travelling to another town, working or training. Certain possessions will increase the rate of productivity, ox-carts for working in fields, horses for travelling, an apprentice system for manufacturing.

Towns and Community gatherings:
A 'Town' will start as a small gathering of people, forming a village. Produce and environmental gain will bring business, which will encourage growth and immigration, businessmen will move there to increase profit from the resources gained and travelers will spend money in the INN on their travels.
A town is governed by an in-game system for the "government" - this could be a band of unruly pirates to a well organised town of democratic leaders. There will be minimal NPCs and eventually none.
Gatherings will build as a community, taverns, Inns, shops and town-halls - to Grand Inns, Shop complexes and a grand Castle. Each building will take time to build in respect to it's worth, size and complexity. Castles, for example will take a very long time to build and will required lots of expert builders to finish off nicely.

- Much more too...

[Corinthius]

Feature list 1:
--Profession system:
.Blacksmith -> Weapons/Armour Smith -> Expert Smith -> Elder Smith
.Carpenter -> Master Carpenter -> Expert Carpenter -> Elder Carpenter
.Butcher -> Master Butcher -> Expert Butcher -> Elder Butcher
.Baker -> Master Baker -> Exotic/Royal Baker -> Expert Baker -> Elder Baker
.Mason -> Master Mason -> Expert Mason -> Elder Mason
.Weaver -> Master Weaver -> Expert Weaver -> Elder Weaver
.Brewer -> Expert Brewer -> Elder Brewer

(more on the way)

--Town leadership system:
1. Peasant
2. Farmer/Conscript/Military Conscript
3. Professional (see above)
4. Official/ Government intern
5. Noble/ Knight
6. Mayor
7. Lord
8. Royalist/ Grand knight
9. Queen/King
10. Emperor/ Over Lord/
11. ?

(Development needed)

--Resource system:
. Ores
. Woods
. Plants
. Animals
. Stones
. Gems
. Water
. Sand

(Development needed)

[Jackolantern]

Sounds very interesting, and if you can pull off a system like that, I think it could be very cool!

[Corinthius]

Town construction feature updates:
. Buildings apart from common houses require team-work:
I've tried to keep it very realistic, let's face it, you wouldn't have one man building a Tavern in those days. Although I have given the option for it, it's very unprofitable and badly time consuming to the point it won't get done. Builders hired can be paid in several ways: Time-Wages, Salary or by contribution.
Contribution: Builders, ie; Masons, carpenters and blacksmiths are paid for what they contribute, each object given towards the project will be paid for.
Time-Wages: Paid for the hours in one day they spend working on it.
Salary: For senior builders, working for a guild or the town. Paid a fixed amount for the entire project.
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.Construction results are based on an algorithm calculating the quality of all materials and skill levels of the builders.
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.Towns now have a designated amount of building space, to further expand it, they must construct the "vital" buildings in land nearby, for example, a market to allow trade and some form of control building such as a town-hall or outpost, castle or palace. The land available to one town is very large.
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. Buildings now "decay" over time, and require repairing. The time of decay is very long, and not something to worry about much.
. Buildings can also be damaged through wars, natural disasters and sabotage.
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Corinthius.

[ZeroComp]

sounds great and realistic! Certainly a side-step from what the traditional PBBG

[Corinthius]

It's been a while, but I've been stuck on some irritating bugs, as you do!
- Well, after some hard-core debugging, and a complete revival of the game code, I've began further development. After some research, and a bit of influencing from other games similar to my idea, I decided to use the Kohana frame work. This meant a lot of frustrating re-writes to the skeleton of my game.

Now everything is a lot more efficient and faster than before. I've began to implement some Java-script and Ajax functionality to the skeleton.

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DEV 1.0
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O'right, so after all of the above, I finally got down to some hard-core revitalization and improvement of the game mechanics. I thought I would make this thread a little more professional with an update list and a road-map later on, so keep an eye out
This project, in my eyes is going to take a very long time, but i'm sure a lot of you would agree, it'll be worth it in the end? - Besides, i'm having fun - when i'm not debugging annoying bugs

Because of the complete re-write, I have decided to take out some features (for ease at the moment) and add in some other features, and as a result, I have decided to begin a proper update list, with all features included from the start.

Implementation List(Updates) 1:

• Kingdom Owned Towns [England->London]
  Resources [Iron Ore, Lumber, Wheat-Seeds, River Water, Stone]
  Titles and Roles [King, Queen, Mayor, Captain - Priest]
  Structures [Royal Palace, Castle, Town Hall, Tavern, Market, House]
  Currency [Gold, Kingdom currency->eg;£]
  Pets [Dog,Cat]
  Structure Upgrading [limit -> 2]
  Hunger,Thirst & Health [Reduction to 0 in any == Death]
  Commission work [Pay others to do your work ->Town hall, job Board]
  Items [Bread, Bucket of Water, Refined Iron, Refined Wood, Refined Stone]
  Professions [Baker, Blacksmith, Carpenter]
  Land [Buy Land from the Mayor of your town to raise crops or live stock, or build a house/structure]

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Dev 1.1
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To Do List(Road-map):

• Character [Profiles, Equipment page]
  Travelling system [Timed Travel function]
  Equipment [Iron Knife, Wooden Round Shield]
  Structures [Church]
  Commission work [Mercenary Enlistment-> Town hall, Mercenary board]
  Language [Deduct suitable language translation for next update]
  Structure Upgrading [Limit-> 4]
  Titles & Roles [Bishop]
  Trade [Advanced Market trade functionality, Player Trade]
  Database [Organisational Structure implementation 1.0]

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Comments
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This project is keeping me on my toes during the summer holidays here in England, I'm having a lot of fun and although it's just the skeleton with minimal graphics and fancy layouts, I'm enjoying creating this and finding new ways to improve and further my ambitious project.
Because this is a very player based game, I thought it would be best to get some opinions from the public, I've already started work on Dev 1.1, so for 1.2, I need some suggestions on the following, bearing in mind priority of implementation;

A New pet -[To clarify, a pet will just be something to show off, something to splash the cash on and gloat about, they do have small perks though.]
A New country & one city to go with it. [Please, somewhere close to the UK, for over-seas trade testing]
Map system -> Should it be a dynamic map which shows your location and pop-up information about the towns? or a static map, with side links and information? [If it's dynamic, they will only be able to see within a small radius of them, while static provides a full world map]
One new role, what would you like to see in it next?

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End Note
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Thank you all, who've helped me, especially you Jack
All help, even the little things, will be credited and noted down in the development diary.

Corinthius.

[Jackolantern]

Your most welcome, and I am glad to hear you are making great progress It sounds like an interesting project, and it looks like you are doing a good job with organization, too. That is the thing that often can tear us down on our first big projects, but it seems like you have it in check!

[Corinthius]

Tonight, I've been working on some minor updates to one structure in the game, the Royal palace.

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Dev 1.2.2
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Updates List:

• Structures [Royal Palace -> Functionality, Inventory & Graphics]
  Mail [Implemented]
  Function [See Players online]
  Role Function [King-> King_Set_2 -> *See Image "Royal Duties" *]
  Function [Gold to Kingdom Currency Converter]
  Graphics [Rough Background Gradient, Temp_Art]

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Comments
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Well, i'm still hoping for some feed-back from the community, I'll leave you with this:

The Royal Palace.jpg

**EDIT**
The war function isn't working at the moment, it's proving tricky to code, in many ways! - soon though..in Dev 2.0 maybe xD



Corinthius.

[Corinthius]

Your most welcome, and I am glad to hear you are making great progress It sounds like an interesting project, and it looks like you are doing a good job with organization, too. That is the thing that often can tear us down on our first big projects, but it seems like you have it in check!

Indeed, I was struggling along at first, with files here and there, an unstructured way of working - and it really made things complicated, lacking and on the whole, quite poor
I think I just needed to gain the motivation, and this community, namely you, gave that to me

Thanks!

Corinthius.

[alexander19]

The Royal Palace looks nice.
Good Job!