This is the faq
=== 1. General Questions===
What is the overall goal of the project?
There are two goals. The primary goal is to make a fun online game that appeals to casual players who aren't interested in the niches that are already available. It would be nice to appeal to s many people as possible, and it does somewhat straddle the line between the casual and the hardcore, but the casual market is where we are aiming. The secondary goal is to be able to earn an income from subscribers.
How much do you charge to play?
For the forseeable future, the game costs nothing to play. As it gets further along in development, a subscriber mode will be implemented which will let you experience more of the game than you would if you play for free. Final pricing details are still undecided, but this dual-mode is the general plan. The actual cost hasn't been decided, but it will most definately be cheaper than the current top games on the market.
What will I get as a subscriber?
This is not fully known as of this writing, as the subscription service is still many months away. It will be possible to play for free up to a point, but eventually you will either tire of the game and not be interested in subscribing, or you will enjoy the game enough to want to continue. Because the world is dynamic, there will be limits on how many items free users can carry, how much property they have to work with, etc. There may also be subscription-only features or areas that are only open if you have a subscription. The subscription system will be worked in as a gameplay feature and not just tacked on limits.
How long has CDO been in development?
If you count the single player version, we have been working on a version of Crescent Dawn for over 3 years. However, the multiplayer iteration, which is mostly seperate from the previous project, began in November 2005, so it hasn't been quite a year yet.
Whatever did happen to the single player Crescent Dawn?
The project, like many overly ambitious games being built by inexperienced teams, ran out of steam. It had been quite stagnant for a very long time. The goals were undefined, the code had spiraled out of control, it just wasn't really going anywhere. It may be something we pick up again in the future, but it's hard to say at this point. If we do, it will likely be on a different engine.
Why did you change it to a multi-player game?
We had wanted to do multi-player for a long time. In face, before Crescent Dawn, Patrick had been working on some multiplayer test code. At the end of 2005, Patrick tried again with multiplayer and had success. Ron and Patrick worked on the multiplayer test for a while, and the excitement built to a point where neither party was interested in working on Crescent Dawn Single any longer. But we didn't want to through away the ideas, world, scenario, and many of our goals from the previous project. So the multiplayer test became Crescent Dawn Online.
=== 2. Gameplay Questions ===
Will there be combat?
As far as specific gameplay details, I don't want to give too much out at this point - not because I want everyone to be in the dark, but because I don't want to say something will be available and then later go back on my word. The design is in motion at this point. Combat may fit into the design, but it may not.
So we wont be able to level up?
There will be improvements you make to your character, through skills or items, but it won't be using a points system. Every skill will have certain things you have to do specific to the skill in order to level them up. It will be non mathmatical, and instead focus on the story or world. It is geared to make progress in the game fun and non-repetative. Really, the main progress that will happen in the game, isn't character based at all, instead you will see a lot of change and improvements on a community level.
What sort of tradeskills will be available?
Most of the skills will be interrelated to actions you do in the game, most complex obstacles, quests, projects, will require the combination of several skills. There will be skills to cover various types of actions, we are still planning what skills to actually include. There will be physical-oriented skills, such as climbing, swimming, leaping across chasms. There will be mechanical skills, such as pounding (used for hammering nails or beating a piece of wood in place). And there will be more intellectual skills such as understanding languages (needed to decipher the mysteries written on an excavated relic).
=== 3. Technical questions ===
Why did you choose Blender3D as your engine?
Mostly due to experience. Both of us had already used Blender for our previous projects, and had many years of experience with it. It's lacking in many areas. The game has since outgrown the engine and moved on to greener pastures.
Why don't you use a better graphics engine?
We have. We've switched development over from the Blender Game Engine, to Ogre3d. I tried to develop the game independently of the graphics engine, and because of this, it only took about a month to port.
Why did you program the network code in python?
Experience was a big factor here, and historically, when CDO was built with the Blender engine, python was the only choice. What it really boils down to though, is that python is fun to program in, and a capable language for most tasks. I see some areas where my code is inefficient, but there aren't very many cases where programming the game logic in a faster language would speed up the game. Most of the speed sensitive code is called from c-based libraries anyhow.
How come I can't walk in a straight line?
When you walk or turn, it tells the server what you are up to. But your local direction and speed aren't updated until the server sends back a response. So it takes time when you press a key before your character actually does it. This lag can make it feel more like your character is "driving" than "walking". Until lag goes away (or until I hide it better by predicting the character's movement) this behavior will remain.
posted at 2:41 pm on Sep 10, 2006
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