I wrote a little map converter that will take in a basic map, 2d character array, and write out an XML based map that will be the basis for my new map. I'm going to see about modding this to create all the XML for the maps(where entities are placed and such). This might take some fiddling with. Hopefully I can use this to base my map editor off of.

So I sat down for a couple of hours of dev time and ended up blowing it all on getting my Eclipse project to work correctly.

I decided to add in a trunk and branches to my svn project instead of having all my files in the root of the repository. When I did this my project broke and any file I would edit couldn't find any of the other class files. So I said "No problem." I just deleted the project from my hard drive and deleted the eclipse project files from the repository and created a new project and added the source files back in. For some reason this didn't work. It couldn't create build files nor could it use my Enumerations class. Hmm... I spend an hour and a half trying deleting and re-adding files into the project. Finally I figured out that when I needed to reset the sdk I was building off of to 6.0 instead of the 1.4.2 that Eclipse defaults to. So finally I go it finished and then Annie got home from class so I was out of dev time. =(

Jon and I have been discussing what we could do to put some incentive into a sequel that would make people want to play through and finish the game before that. We've been tossing around ideas that wouldn't horribly break the game for the person with the special item and wouldn't make the game way too hard for the person with out the item. Here is the my latest idea and the one I like the best so far.

I'm thinking about implementing a Relic item slot. This would just be pure stats. +5 Str, +10% resist on spells, etc. Depending on how many of these you have when you transfer your character will determine the power of the new relic you get. I'm thinking an exp modifier. Say there are 10 relics in the first game and for each one you get 5% extra exp while having the bonus relic equipped. So if you had collected all 10 relics in the first game you would have a relic in the second that would get you 150% exp while equipped.

Any ideas yourself? Post them here.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I haven't had much time to sit down and write up what's been going on. Been busy hanging out and watching The Unit.

I've managed to get some coding done. Mostly internal stuff like getting the map object classes stubbed out. I've played around with an XML parser and I think I have a pretty good idea what I'm going to need to do to load and save game data. I also have designed out the structure of the data, mostly in my head. And I sketched out the basic flowchart of the game. So I know what screens go to what other screens. I think the next couple of weeks of working on this will be getting the abstracting more of the game entities' functions and working on the saving/loading.

Please, if you have any comments, criticism, or suggestions comment here or make a post on the forums.

Just merged the two blogs together into this one. I found a neat utility that can backup and restore blog posts. So I backed up both separately and restored both to this one, and tada! Just keep in mind that you can only post 50 times a day so if you have more than 50 you are trying to restore you have to do it over two days.

The next couple of months are going to be busy dealing with finding a place to live. So little free time will be had by all. And yet, hopefully, I'll still be able to post some things more frequently. I think I'd prefer to do one or two posts a week with just a paragraph rather than a whole book every two to three months. So I will try to push these out a bit quicker. I had originally planned these last two entries to be one, but decided that I should break them up since they were both a bit lengthy.

Hopefully once this living situation is settled and we've moved I can knock a few things off of my todo list. Which has just bee piling up over the last couple of months.

First thing I really want to get done with is to reformat my PC. I really need to wipe both partitions. The XP one has a bunch of crap on it for MSU's vpn and apps for classes I've taken over the last year. I think that vpn might fix some problems I'm having with recognizing other PCs in the network. This will also allow me to get rid of some of the cruft that has built up. The linux partition is a 64bit based install and is a version back. I want to just wipe it and install a 32bit version of the current release. Which should allow me to install WoW on it and give that a spin. Once that is done I can get started with pumping out some development on the rpg.

I'm thinking I'm going to have to wait a while to get a laptop. I really want to get a Mac Book Pro, but I don't think I'm going to have the spare $2700 laying around anytime soon. So I might just spring for some cheap dual core dell or something that I can get linux running on and just use that for the time being. Really want the Mac though. Either way once I get a laptop it'll replace my bot pc and be my dev machine. I'll then just convert my desktop to a gaming machine(mostly). I'll have to get a new monitor to plug the laptop into to use when I'm at my desk. I think I'll just get another Samsung 226BW, I'm really liking that monitor.

I'm also looking into getting some of my own webspace. I think my current choice is http://www.dreamhost.com/. If anybody has anything to say on them, good or bad, just leave me a comment about it. Also if you have a web host that you love leave me a comment and tell me why its so great. If I get them then I'll just install wordpress and use that as my blogging site. Leaving this and my dev blog to wither and die. Not that I dislike blogger or anything, I just think its time for something new. Plus this will give me a place to host my projects and screenshots. I'll have to build a site to hold all this stuff, but that doesn't bother me too much. Plus I've got Nate to bug about all the silly standards I'll have to follow. A word of warning I won't be adding in hacks to get it to display properly in IE. Nothing personal to those of you who still use IE, but I don't want to take the time or the energy hack up my page to display in that broken browser. So if something is messed up you can just switch to Firefox.

Speaking of the dev blog I'm really tempted to merge these two together and just post everything in one blog. At the time I thought keeping them seperate was a good idea since they deal with different things, but I haven't been updating either of them nearly enough for me to justify keeping both. So I'm thinking about combining them, maybe this weekend. I'll copy the posts over and move the line count module over here.

I've been missing gaming lately. I haven't had much time, been busy working and such and have been having an itch to play some FPS stuff again. So I'm wondering if anybody has any interest in getting a weekly night going to play CS:S or DOD:S. Basically we start at roughly the same time every week and join the same server(or servers if we move) and just frag each other or other people for a few hours. If anybody has any interest let me know what nights are good for you and what times are preferable. I'm usually in bed by midnight so an 8pm or 9pm start works best for me. Also Friday nights are a no go for me, since those are date nights with the woman. But, yeah, leave me a message on here or aim or something.

On a final note yahoo mail pissed me off by adding ads to their new email program. This in of itself isn't a deal breaker for me, but the semi-constant lack of reliability on the program itself is. I've had problems over the last few months of it locking up or not loading correctly, and it doesn't work properly in Opera. So I've created a gmail account and I am looking for current emails from you all. Not that posting your email on the internet is the best practice, but send me a message on aim with what address you are using and I'll add ya in.