Sanctimonia Updates: Many, Many Updates

It has been several months since I last reported on the progress Kevin Fishburne has been making with his Ultima/Ultima Online-inspired open source MMORPG, Sanctimonia. However, he has been busily working away on the game, and has made a substantial number of improvements and fixes in the last three months.

Graphically, the game has seen the addition of player “guts” in combat animations:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dzc3uUSX4FY&w=560&h=315]

Combat improvements!

Player avatars now have an initial “faux 3D” skin — with shadows! — as well, which Kevin has worked on extensively to ensure that it is free from sudden, rapid texture changes:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyJA1QJwcO8&w=560&h=315]

Anti-twitch.

Other graphical improvements include animation structures, improvements to the sub-layer textures in terrain, the addition of a vegetation sub-layer structure, vertical offset in object definitions, and the addition of “unconscious” and “deceased” frames to player avatars.

Gameplay has likewise seen numerous improvements, not the least of which is the implementation of “Zelda-style” play control, detaching the client orientation from camera orientation:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTWNJA4-aqk&w=560&h=315]

Zelda stylings, yo.

Collision detection and player healing have been implemented, as has a rudimentary NPC AI:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxrBsb-Ijaw&w=560&h=315]

They think for themselves...sort of.

Vegetation tile maintenance is also in the works:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiobnZ9Um2s&w=560&h=315]

Trimming the hedges!

The game’s networking functions, meanwhile, have seen substantial improvement in transaction handling. Player cell traversal has been tweaked, player elevations are now tracked by the game server(s), and excavations that the player has performed are now persistent.

All very technical, of course, but it all points toward one simple fact: Sanctimonia is very much alive and well, is actively being worked on, and is looking pretty awesome.

Also: I have set up a project entry for Sanctimonia at the Inspired Works subdomain.

2 Responses

  1. MicroMagic says:

    Wow, you must’ve been eating your Wheaties! I never noticed the trees grew before. Nicely done.

  2. Sanctimonia says:

    Haha. Not exactly Wheaties, but whatever works, right? The trees have grown for a while now. They still don’t die or reproduce yet, but it’s in the works.

    The reports have more detail than most care to know, but something WtF didn’t mention is that player unconsciousness works now. You can give someone a beat down and knock them out cold. If you let them be, they’ll continue healing slowly and eventually wake up (depends on how bad the beat down was). On the other hand, if you keep attacking them they’ll be perma-wasted when their health gets below -1000. No looting yet, but I’m working on gear management which is the same interface that will be used for it.