Will be spending alot of time coming up on different types of crafting so have been crazy busy.

Last couple weeks I've been working on poison crafting. Poisons can be applied to weapons and proc randomly.  Fun stuff.

I have it setup that a player first uses Chemistry in mixing harvested materials and then use the Chemistry item in the final poison crafting.  So have 100 Chemistry and Poison recipes currently setup.

Figured I'd post some pics of the harvestable items for the Poison Crafting. Nothing awe inspiring, just where my time has been lately.

Thanks for the comments.

@Duran3d,

FoHO is similar to other fantasy games, I just have toned down alot.  There are no mystics, magicians, sorcerors, druids, etc...  Instead the Humans have Gifts based on Spiritual Gifts that are used.  While I have not yet, later I will reference these spell type skills to verses in the Bible. 

The Saurians and Dragons on the other hand use mental abilities(psionics) to perform their special abilities. So it is more of a scientific nature.  When humans cast a 'spell' it says "character name begins praying".  When Saurians or Dragons do the same it says "character name begins focusing psionic energy".

Other than that much is the same as other games.  A person could play a Saurian or Dragon and never get hit by Christian concepts.  My goal is just to tone things down so parents feel more comfortable about playing in the game instead having their kids in what they might refer to as cultish activities.

While not Christian, there is also chat censoring for swearing.  Just one more layer for the teens.

@Ionselon,

There will be a nerfed Free version(more like Demo) but to access higher levels and Premium items, a player will need to purchase the Premium edition.  Most likely a low yearly fee($39-$49) for Premium online access. 

Testing is always open. Just sign up in the www.foundationsofhope.com forums under General Game Information=>Pre-Alpha Signup.

Haven't posted recently. Been too blasted busy. The last couple patches were crazy huge and the next one is going to be just as huge.

The last patch I had to modify almost every zone to include foresting and mining spawns for crafting. All crafting is now done through harvesting trees, rocks, etc.. I probably have over 1000 resource spawns through the game. Thankfully never saw a performance hit on the server and tried to keep them seperated enough through the zones to not kill the FPS too bad on the client. For resources, I implemented eleven of the twelve mining rocks and all six harvestable type trees. I also had to add in mobs around the resources to make harvesting a bit more challenge. I'm not that nice :)

Because I implemented my own mineral deposits and blacksmithing items, I had to also go through and modify the weapon and archery crafting configurations. I now have things like they have to mine copper and tin to make bronze. Or iron and nickel to make steel.

After that patch, it really become noticeable on the Map Windows on what happens when you place alot of spawns in one location. You can't see anything :) So I created new map filters which allows the user to turn on or off Resources, Vendors, Quest NPCs, Trainers, as well as the original NPCs, enemies, etc..

The Tracking Window was totally flooded as well. So instead of removing Resources from the tracking window I decided to change the color the spawns with different colors based on their category. Resources now show up as green, Vendors blue, Trainers yellow, Quest NPCs purple, etc.. But wait, couldn't stop there. Had to color coordinate my game, so I changed spawn colors on the map to coordinate with the Tracking colors. And of course, that wasn't enough of a color coordination. If you looked at the spawn it showed a different color. So I then changed all the different categories to now have a different color to match the map and tracking. Whoosh! I can now leave my house color coordinated. I also was able to remove the "corpse" from the dead resources. No more Copper Vein Corpse or Pine Tree Corpse!

The next patch I am finally working on armor crafting. Ugh. I am just working on the coding side and it is killing me. For now I will implement one texture for light, medium, heavy armors. I just want to get the coding out and tested. Why so difficult? Armor is shown on the characters by swapping out textures. Each male/female Profession(race) has its own UV mapping. So right now I have 3 humans and 3 Saurians(will have more later) and each has a male and female model that has its own UV mapping. Therefore, I have to create the code for 12 chests, boots, arms, etc... Alot of copying/pasting, but still alot of time. Also that is, 12 UV sets times 36 different armor types(12-light, 12-medium, 12-heavy), then times that by five different texture armor parts(chest, boots, hands, arms, legs) equalling 2160 textures. Uhm, I'm going to wait until I try and texture all those :) Unfortunately that is ALOT of textures calls and VRAM usage, so will probably in the beginning just do 1 texture per armor type(light, medium, heavy) instead of 12 and then go from there.  Thankfully the Animal Armor Crafting for pets and Dragons characters will be only one UV to work with so should go fast to implement. Pets don't get texture swapping, but the dragon players do, so that will another set of textures. But besides that, my armor is using resistPhysical to decrease damage so had to spend a few days playing with the numbers per mob level to figure out the appropriate settings to use.

Some pics to show what I mean:

New setup of New York:

Mining in New York(mining all underwater):

Mining in Gulf of Mexico(a total underwater zone):

The new Map and Tracking windows. Also notice the new filter buttons on the map window:

And just some showing of different text colors on the spawns.

Originally posted by Eronakis

Ooo reminds me of EQ! I want to play!

There is a sign up at the forums if interested in being part of the testing.

Newest addition to the harvesting.  I was actually surprised on the difficulty of getting a pine tree poly count down.  This one is still 460 polys.

The newest edition.

I started implementing the initial stages of the mining skill with breakable rocks.  I previous had just implemented some changes to the charm spells and had a thought I had better test.  Sure enough, I had to tighten down the charm spells.  Why?  I ended up charming the rock I had just placed into the game.  Had a nice big rock following me all around

But in the end everything was locked down and put in place for testing.  I will implement trees that fall and other type of animated harvesting in the future.  Need to remove the 'Corpse' tag still from harvestible items. The inside of the rock does have UV stretching, but it looks like sheared rock so may or may not change it.

I forgot I had videos on youtube.  Some special effect testing and also you get an idea of the dragons that are the playable 3rd realm.  You grow your dragon character from a hatchling to an adult dragon.

http://www.youtube.com/user/LeathelGrody

The technology portion is using the Torque MMOKit which is the same technology from Minions of Mirth.  It is using a newer version of Torque than MoM uses so I can use shaders and more special effects.  We(the kit community) have added alot to the coding that goes beyond MoM(harvesting, synched combat, auction system) so hopefully most of the lackings people found with MoM are gone. So on the technology side we have a group of developers working on seperate games but all helping one another to increase the techology.

Other than that I am doing everything(website, modeling, zone creation, python changes) myself to take the technology and make it how I need it to be for FoHO.  I should be done in 6 months with the technological changes and art assets, then can start working on the biggest part of the game the storyline/quests.  As an author this is rather important to me since I need to almost create a whole story that coincides with my books. 

Just one more old update to catch people up. The rest of the updates will be the new additions to the game. 

December 2008 was my underwater design/modelling of the game. Not sure how many MMORPG's have underwater zones, but thought it was pretty cool. More pics are at the website, but a few to show off here. One of the underwater zones take place in a flooded New York where people will be able to swim around skyscrapers and such. The other water zone is the Gulf of Mexico. While I don't have it yet, the goal will be to have some sunken ships in the Gulf of Mexico zone players will be able to swim around in.

Speaking of website, I use the website as the foundations of what the game guis look like, so since I recently updated all the website images, here is a glimpse on how the game guis turned out.

Thanks for the responses.

The website initially was a full flash web template but has been heavily modified to fit over osCommerce and phpBB.  So I get the special effects of flash, but still get the full operations of the other technologies.  My worry it is not the standard MMORPG company type website(a little to flashy) but good to hear you didn't mind it.  I just updated the website with new content after creating it over a year ago.  Kind of funny cause the website is rather large and I had to go through a bunch of files to figure out how I achieved many of the tasks.

The search engines are defintely on my mind, but for now just relying on direct linking.

I agree on the Christian labeling.  I have seen games out there, and well they are just not my type.  Hoping I can break that stigma with a good raw non-preachy game.  The FPS game that Lethal Games has planned will be an even darker, hardcore game, but still Christian acceptable.  So we'll see if I can pull off the style  

Title:  The Foundations of Hope Online
Genre: Christian Fantasy MMORPG
Game Website: www.foundationsofhope.com
Company Website: http://www.lethalgamescorporation.com

Background:
The Foundations of Hope Online is the online game based on my Christian Young Adult Fantasy book series and is being marketed as a Christian Fantasy MMORPG.

I am hoping I am 6 months from going full Alpha and figured I'd start posting updates at MMORPG.com.   Alpha to Beta should take less than 6 months after that.  Currently FoHO is in pre-Alpha testing which means I am letting people into the world as I still build it.  Pre-Alpha is all about creating the technology and the art while Alpha will be about testing the storyline, quests, etc. and Beta will be everything in full testing before going live.  I am hoping MMORPG.com will setup a Foundations of Hope Online area so I can post updates there, but for now I'll just post them in this thread.

Storyline Intro:
From the back page of Book One: Faith of the Unforgotten
---------------------------------
Four hundred years into the future, after the Great Pulse Storms began, the civilizations on Earth have managed to stay alive and cope with the changes that were dealt to them. The Great Pulse Storms have made it impossible for electricity to exist, and the ionic atmosphere from the Storms ignites nearly all explosive substances. Overnight, the Storms had set the civilizations back to a medieval-like time, and only the strong and knowledgeable survived. But the potential for humans to remain alive and free on the planet will once again be tested.

Dragons have returned from a time of old, and an intelligent lizard species from within the Earth is waging war upon the upper land-dwelling humans in an effort to take their lands and take the humans as slaves. The merciless enemy is stronger, quicker and more intelligent than humans, and all looks to be lost for the descendants of the Heroes of Sorms.

Rebekah Ann Smith, a spirited, fifteen-year-old innkeeper's daughter, has been placed at the forefront of the battle for the existence of their lands and lives. Rebekah and a small, scattered group are all that stand as a chisel against a mountain that is ready to fall. All they have left is hope that their faith can move that mountain, and hope that the Gifts given to them by their God can cut through the falling boulders of human desolation.
---------------------------------

Game Intro:
The Foundations of Hope Online game will place a player in the middle of the Saurian(lizard creatures) and Human battle. The storyline of the game will run along side the storyline of the series. Players will not play characters from the book, but who knows, the characters from the book may pop up every now and then(GMs). FoHO will be part Realm vs Realm and the rest PvE. Players will choose to be either a Human, Saurian, or a dragon. The game will take place in a future medieval North America and will have many zones taking place in areas such as Lansing, Detroit, Chicago and New York. North America will be divided into two realms. The Saurians control the southern half and the humans control the north. Each of these realms will be split into either PvP or PvE zones. PvE players may have to cross into another realm's PvE zones, but they will not be forced into PvP action.

During the physical battles, there is another battle going on that humans can deal with if they go that route, the Spiritual Warfare aspect.  My goal for the game is to not make a 'preachy' game, but acceptable to mainstream and Christian-gamers. It is a very very thin line, but I have done it with my books, and I am confident I can do it with the game. I personally would never play a preachy game, so I stay far away from that. For example, the human 'magic' is replaced by Gifts given by God. They still will have abilities of swords of fire, lightning strikes, 'fire from heaven', etc. Is that overly preachy to a gamer? No. Is it Christian-acceptable? Yes. Everybody wins.

FoHO will have both a low-end and high-end client.  Players will be able to play on older computers or players can turn on shaders and play with the eyecandy.  There will also be a Windows and MacOS client.

The base game will take place in North America.  From there, expansions using the other continents are planned.

The FoHO Project Tracker can be found here:

http://www.foundationsofhope.com/mantis/roadmap_page.php
--------------------------------
Marketing:
Provided are the covers showing how the game is being marketed in the bookstores.

http://www.foundationsofhope.com/screenshots/fotu/fotu_paperback_72.jpg

http://www.foundationsofhope.com/screenshots/itd/itd_paperback_72.jpg

--------------------------------

Here are just a few of my favorite pics, but you can find the rest at.

http://www.foundationsofhope.com/screenshots.php

What constitues as non-grind? Quests that don't request "go kill # critters?" Reading these forums I see alot of mention of the F2P games are all grind. Is that because there are no quests? From a development standpoint, what would you rather see?

Possibly it was the Left Behind game?

It was called an MMO in a few articles but it actually looks like it ended up as an RTS for up to 8 players to be networked. It had controversy for allowing players to play both the 'good' and 'bad' sides.

Great post.

Is there a technological breakdown somewhere on what they are modifying between each option? Size of textures, turning off shaders, etc...