FERN: A Web Based Adventure MRPG built in Delphi

[Taqyon]

Hi Guys

I was notified of this site from sagamedev.co.za.

I've built a web-based MRPG in Delphi 7 over the last couple of months, and would love your input from a Pascal / Delphi perspective!

Here's the blurb - hope to hear from you!

FERN: Free Web Based Empire Building RPG Released

It's set in a fictional, medieval world that is at the point of being overrun by unnatural forces. In this world you explore, fight monsters, enhance your character and build your empire, all real time with graphics.

Simple enough to start right away, huge fun, very addictive. Good help and tutorials.

Some of it's exciting features:
* Persistant on-line world. Log in from anywhere and continue your quest alone or with friends.
* Battle 43 types of enemies with over 70 types of arms and armour in 50 000 locations and growing weekly
* Non-player Character control - hire peasants to build your empire.
* Construct farms, harvest, sell crops, use profit to expand even more, etc
* Terraform areas to suit your needs
* Persistent world, your employees continue working and living while you are off-line
* Many objects and weapons with rare enhanced items
* Easy to understand combat system
* Player vs. Monsters, Player vs. Player or Coop battles
* Inter-Player communication
* E-Mail notifications of events occurring concerning your empire so you can log in wherever you are and take action!

I am adding new features and creatures almost daily and the player list is growing steadily. I have players playing up to 5 hours non-stop each day... So I must be doing *something* right!

For more information, please see http://fern.game-server.cc/Help.

Please go to http://fern.game-server.cc, join and conquer!

[Taqyon]

http://fern.game-server.cc/Help/Images/ScreenShot1.png

http://fern.game-server.cc/Help/Images/ScreenShot2.png

http://fern.game-server.cc/Help/Images/ScreenShot3.png

[Nitrogen]

I'm a lvl 17 ;)

[{MSX}]

Hello! Very nice game :)
I have a question: how do you get some heath back? i've been on healer tiles but there doesn't seem to be anything to do..

ps: you should do something for graphics, it's not realy convincing :) try and hire an artist.
other than that, it's a very addictive and well made game :D

[Taqyon]

Thanks MSX, really apreciated!

If the healer is empty, somebody has bought up all his stock, he will get more stock eventually, but you might want to travel to another town.

If you are a beginner with low cash, go explore the grass plains area - there are healing herb bushes that will supply you with free health, albeit a lot less than the medikits.

Nitro is assisting me with the graphics at this stage. I've done the current graphics, but something more convincing would be a great benefit.

We're having problems fitting in proper creature icons, so we are thinking of resising the tiles, and also thinking of individually shape the tiles. But this is a massive job and I have much to do still from a game play point of view.

Suggestions are really apreciated!

Thanks again for the encouragement.

Regards

[{MSX}]

it looks like the health is not increasing automatically.. i didn't get any point back since i started playing.
could you look into this? or i'll be doomed to kill scorpions and rats forever :)

[Taqyon]

Ok, seems like a timing issue. I've set it to once evey minute for the time being - will check tonight (GMT+2) and refine.

Thanks for the bug alert =)

[Nitrogen]

Yea, it's supposed to be 1 HP per minute but it doesnt seem to be working properly!

About the graphics: Dont worry we working on scrounging up some MUCH better stuff! it's going to be awesome!

[Robert Kosek]

I must admit that it looks interesting. I'll have to give it a try this afternoon. Uh, will this remain free, or is this considered a public beta?

[{MSX}]

A little tip: make selling items easier :)
When you have multiple item, you could default the value to the max instead of zero, and also maybe remove the second warning..

PS I'm level 7 now :P

[Taqyon]

Robert:
Thank you - yes, it will remain free, but I'm considering a new map, where some features will be available as a payable extra, such as owning land. By owning land you can exponencially grow your wealth in the game.

MSX:
Yes, got to change the default! The confirmation is just for multiple items - the items sold affects the selling price, for in the case of selling coffee or tomatoes etc, you dont' want to sell at a loss. Just hit enter twice ;)

Level 7, excellent going. You're catching up with ME! 99% of Fern time is spent behind Delphi ;)

[Robert Kosek]

Well, I'm level 11 and I noticed a bug. If players sit on a medical station, no medicine is generated. :? And I currently have drained all the medical supplies in the immediate area (the 3 east settlements and all the herbal bushes) due to fighting bandit captains.

It's hard leveling up from 5-10 as the barbarians and cave savages don't spawn frequently enough, and there really isn't much else you can take on during that time that's worth it or won't kill you. I cleaned both rocky sides of the first mountain range for almost an hour.

Multi-sell/drop would be extremely handy. :)

EDIT: Oh yeah, and clicking the "exit coach" button gives me a server error. I think that there's something wrong with the query. FF2 is my browser, and I have firebug, so if you want I can do a quick inspect of the element.

[Taqyon]

Hi Robert

This is an effect of the respawning engine. For health, objects and characters, I spawn at a random location suitable for the health / object / character.

So if you clean up the enemies / health at a certain location, it might spawn there, but it has an equal chance to spawn anywhere else. Repeat this process and you will end up with a clean area and the spawned objects & characters have naturally concentrated at the "safest" locations.

Take a coach to the mountain town - there are 2 healers there.

As for the barbarians, there are two rocky sides of the mountain - I've noticed they have for the most collected on the east side - go there for a bonanza!

Soon I'll have the creatures move around on their own and distribute themselves equally.

I hope this makes sense?

[Taqyon]

Ok, that and the LifeEngine had a small bug with enemies that where overkilled (negative health).

Fixed!

[Robert Kosek]

Sure, it makes plenty sense, but only few SP's. :P I keep dying from the bandit captains and no health, I did go to the mountain village, or dying from boredom in fighting the lower level barbarians. And yeah, I clean one side, travel through the caves killing barbarian guards and savages, then clean the other side of the mountain. It's still slow at lvl 11 though.

[Taqyon]

In your level, you can go for:

Bears in the Forest
Barbarians at the rocky areas
Cave Savages

The Bandit Captains are more meant for the level 15 - 20 players - you'll have a rought time with them!

If you are looking for health, go to the remote locations - the Oasis now has 13 medical care kits, thanks to your cleaning on the other locations =)

[Robert Kosek]

The funny thing is, early morning I have my cup of tea, and there were only 2 savages in the ENTIRE cave system. Bandits too were scarce on either side. So I did a little commodity trading, followed Kthulu for a little to get some wealth (it worked!) and then searched for some health. Thing is, I had the best armor and weapons that money could buy but I just couldn't buy enough health. ;) I had no clue health spawned in random locations, as I thought that would have periodic respawns.

Maybe you should, for a fee of course, permit players to heal themselves on the healer tiles for a higher fee than the actual medkits? That'd come in handy more times than I can count.

Oh, and as soon as you and Nitro signed in there were savages and bandits galore. I couldn't believe it! :shock:

[Taqyon]

I'm adding a new type of spawn that makes sure some squares are populated with certain objects and not distribute randomly!

[wodzu]

Hello, I've registered yesterday but still haven't received confirmation mail :?

[Taqyon]

wodzu

I'm using the same email queueing system that I use for my customers.

Unfortunately they decided to bomb my server with email yesterday, so I'm running a bit beind.

I've bumped all the Fern emails back up, so you should receive you'rs withing a few minutes.

Sorry about that - I'm working on a second email queueing system.

[wodzu]

no problem mate, thanks for such quick "customer" support ;-)

[Taqyon]

Here to serve ;)

Hope to see you there!!

[Robert Kosek]

Hey Taqyon, just noticed a bug. Health packs are always purchased at list price, not the advertised price discounted by supply. You might want to either change that, or make it a little less tricky for players. Might catch a few newbies unawares.

[Taqyon]

Yea, aware of that one - fixed in the next version with new features, coming hopefully tonight, depending on how busy the mrs keeps me ;)

[WILL]

Wow, your game has gotten pretty popular here. :) Nice job!

[Taqyon]

Thanks Will

But there is still *so* much to be done! :shock:

[wodzu]

Hello Taqyon.

Just tried your game and its pretty cool:) It reminds me Lineage 2 which I played a lot.
I don't know why but I couldn't see a fight log on the bottom of the screen and I everytime I wanted to see what happened I had to trun it on the main window. The one cool feature which you might add later is to obtain a cash and items by killing monsters. Just mine idea;)

See you in game:D

[Taqyon]

Thanks Wodzu

Some characters do carry cash and items, but you're not going to find five bucks behind the ear of a rabid wolf ;)

i'm rethinking the battle interface, so many options just not sure what is a practical and fun combination in the long run.

[wodzu]

Yeah, tough decisions for you to made;)

And what about the creatures? I am only lvl 2 but as far none of them attacked me. I mean Bandit, Snake,Wolf or Scorpion. Are they always so peacefull?;-) Also I've noticed that Snake is very easy to kill (always one hit for me) and gives 3 skill points and Wolf is a lot harder and gives 2 points. Of course things are different if Snakes attack first sometimes;)

Will be still playing your game to see how it grows:)

[Robert Kosek]

AFAIK, it used to be that if you landed on the tile the AI got to attack first. You can imagine what would happen if a bandit got first dibs on you. ;) So that was taken out. I know an AI system to make the areas even population out more, and make the enemies tougher is in the works ... I just don't know if Taqyon has updated Fern's online copy yet.

[Taqyon]

Yes, thanks Robert

Wodzu, along with these problems, it caused a headache when auto-routing though the map, where you can get auto-attacked while in a coach etc.

It also slowed down the game, where a player gets stopped if he crosses an agressive (but much lower skilled) enemy. It also causes a tonne of unlcaimed loot lying around and reduces the number of enemies available for new players.

I'm working to get a work-around with all those issues, but I have to work on the AI first.

[wodzu]

I can imagine that:) I think that in the future auto-routing might cause you even more problems. If I undersand it correctly auto routing allows me to move from point A to point B almost instantly? So this feature is something like a wormhole :D where time and distance doesn't matter. I don't know how you plan to make a combat but I guess you will have to prevent auto-routing in combat mode? Maybe instead of auto routing player could buy himself some sort of scroll of teleportation which allows him to teleport to the destination point after some time. After all fast movement is a privilege of rich people ;) Advantage of this solution would be also that you wouldn't have to implement an "interaction routine" when player is wandering from the point A to the point B and might encounter monsters and other players.

Regards,

Wodzu

[Taqyon]

What I mean with auto-routing, is implementing the A* alogrythm to find the shortest route between two points negotiating past obstacles, so the movement is realistic. Sometimes there is a single route through the mountains and a huge creature can hang around there. With auto-attack, it will kill everybody taking coaches, leaving me with a player revolt =)

As for worm holes and other magic, I need to decide what theme I'll use for it, will it be magic, technology, what kind of magic, where does it come from, etc.