Development Diary 2

These past few weeks have consisted of re-writing the client to make it more stable and efficient. Upgrading to Ogre 1.7 has been a long haul, but it was absolutely worth the effort. It meant we could add some important features to the background loading system.

Background loading is where resources are loaded seamlessly as you play. The client connects to a HTTP server where the resources are located and downloads them to an offline cache. When you exit, the next time you play the client will use the resources from the cache unless they have changed on the server. Most MMOs use patching to update game resources – this means long waiting times before the game even loads. We will still need some form of patching for binary files and major updates, but it will take considerably less time.

We have put our game engine and distributed server architecture aside for now and have decided instead to create a standard Client-Server system. This consists of a Login Server and a World Server. Each World Server will hold an instance of the game and support a maximum of 2000 players. This is a far more realistic approach for the short term, and will give us more time to focus on gameplay and art.

Thanks to Ogre 3D and a new landscape system the graphics are looking better than ever. All it needs now is some good 3D art, made easy with our editor which I will discuss in another post.

For your viewing pleasure: