Progressively add the game features for easier learning
Posted: 27 Dec 2018, 11:42
I have a suggestion and a request
Suggestion:
It is noted somewhere that The Mana World has quite a learning curve.
I thought it might be easier to learn if there were different versions of the game, Starting with only inventory, equipment, and no other players, and ending with all the features and other players.
Request
I don't want to inconvenience anyone, so I'm hoping for some pointers towards the right files/functions and whatever input you're willing to offer. It's been a long time since I've used C/C++ but I'm hoping I can figure things out if I'm pointed towards the right functions/files.
I want to copy The Mana World (with full credit to the creator of course) and make it WAY simpler. The ultimate goal is for a bunch of psychologists to play the game on their smartphone for about 15 minutes, so an intuitive understanding of online games is WAY too much to ask.
I was hoping there's a quick-and-dirty way to achieve the following (by deleting some lines of code, moving some functions around, and filling in missing values with some appropriate constants to compensate for the deleted code):
1. Remove all the buttons on the top right, except for Inventory and equipment (thus, hopefully, also preventing the use of ability and skillpoint system) (I don't know on what level this needs to be changed - the code for the platform or the code that defines a game within the platform)
2. Create a dedicated client which will immediately connect the user to the server dedicated to this experiment (I assume I can just call the function that initiates the connection to the server on startup, thus skipping over the server selection and login part, with the IP address for the server built-in or read from a file)
3. Generate a bunch of built-in starting characters for every new user (Perhaps by making a copy of some character I create and develop a tiny bit for every new user that logs on, and placing it on a random spot in the world).
4. Make the game progress much faster (cut monster HP, increase drop rate, etc.)
As I've said, I'm hoping for a quick-and-dirty way to achieve all this, so if that's not possible with the way the code is written, please let me know
Suggestion:
It is noted somewhere that The Mana World has quite a learning curve.
I thought it might be easier to learn if there were different versions of the game, Starting with only inventory, equipment, and no other players, and ending with all the features and other players.
Request
I don't want to inconvenience anyone, so I'm hoping for some pointers towards the right files/functions and whatever input you're willing to offer. It's been a long time since I've used C/C++ but I'm hoping I can figure things out if I'm pointed towards the right functions/files.
I want to copy The Mana World (with full credit to the creator of course) and make it WAY simpler. The ultimate goal is for a bunch of psychologists to play the game on their smartphone for about 15 minutes, so an intuitive understanding of online games is WAY too much to ask.
I was hoping there's a quick-and-dirty way to achieve the following (by deleting some lines of code, moving some functions around, and filling in missing values with some appropriate constants to compensate for the deleted code):
1. Remove all the buttons on the top right, except for Inventory and equipment (thus, hopefully, also preventing the use of ability and skillpoint system) (I don't know on what level this needs to be changed - the code for the platform or the code that defines a game within the platform)
2. Create a dedicated client which will immediately connect the user to the server dedicated to this experiment (I assume I can just call the function that initiates the connection to the server on startup, thus skipping over the server selection and login part, with the IP address for the server built-in or read from a file)
3. Generate a bunch of built-in starting characters for every new user (Perhaps by making a copy of some character I create and develop a tiny bit for every new user that logs on, and placing it on a random spot in the world).
4. Make the game progress much faster (cut monster HP, increase drop rate, etc.)
As I've said, I'm hoping for a quick-and-dirty way to achieve all this, so if that's not possible with the way the code is written, please let me know