TyR

Hi, I'm working on a MMO engine and I've just started adding the GFX etc (the main engine is about done)

I've decided to use sprites like this:

only a little taller. and wider
The grid I'm using in the game is 24px wide.

Seems pretty simple, but I want to be able to change the characters outfit without creating a whole new sprite.

So what I need is a naked man (xD) walking in 4 directions. (3 steps in every dir)
also, the man should be holding 2 swords.

and possebly a sample outfit. (boots, pants etc)

If you don't have time to colour it, just post it here, and I'll try to do it myself.

I'd make this sprite myself, but I need it to be perfect since I'm going to use it to create alot more.

If you could do this, I'll even link to your site / game (if you have one) on some of my websites.

+ you'll get credits + bonuses in the game.


Best regards,
Thomas "TyR" Pedersen

Hi,
I've been working on a MMO game engine for a while now and I've kinda got the online part sorted out now.

Now, I'm looking for people that can help with ideas, gfx, music? and design.
You will also be able to play the closed beta releases.

I've put up a community for the game where you can register and help.
www.spiritofwar.org

I will be holding on to the main Server and Client code, but the rest will be made public.

Also, if the project fails for some reason, I will make all the files Open Source.

Everyone who contributes will get advantages in the final release =)

Also, we dont have to worry about hosting. I've got that covered

You can find out more about the game at the website.




Best regards,
Thomas "TyR" Pedersen

Hi, I, like many other people are working on a mmorpg game. But I haven't really decided what view I want to use.
(Top down, platform, standard rpg view or whatever)

And I want the players gear to be visible on the character sprite. (Helmet, pants etc)

They all seem to have their own advantages.


Top Down:

Sprites like these don't take long to make, since you only have to draw it in one direction and rotate it in GM. It'd be fast too, if the movement is in 4 directions only. But if it's 360 degree movement, It can be hard to make it fast + smooth. Also, you wont be able to make the gear visible on the character.

Standard RPG view:
(dont really remember what this view is called)

This is the view I thought about first, but now I'm starting to have my doubts. It's alot of work to create animated sprites like these, because you have to draw it in 3 different directions.

Isometric:

This is IMO the best view, but probably the hardest one to sprite... 8 directions.

Platform:
image...
This looks OK, and is really quick and easy to draw. But it can be a bit too limited for a mmorpg IMO. Even though there's a few good platform mmo's created in GM.



So, what do you think would be the best option?
Also, It would be really nice if you provided a sample sprite of what you think is best. (A nude one with different attachable pants, helmets, shirts would be REALLY nice)


(btw, before you ***** me out about making a MMO game:
the engine is working fine atm. yes, online. And I think it's time to start thinking about the gfx, or at least the view. I know the engine is the first priority.)

Trying to sell your games can be hard. I mean, how many would actually pay to play a bad mario clone or whatever?
Even if the game is pretty good, there's hard to make some decent cash.

But there are other ways to generate profit if you have some web development knowledge.

What you can do is to make a website with all your games. And don't only target other GM users. Target gamers!
I mean, dont fill your site with GM lingo or other stuff that non-programmers will be confused by.
I've seen alot of GM websites that could easily be monetized if that's why they are making games

Also, you should get a decent host, without any ads and you should get a top level domain.
.com is the best choice for "regular-people" audience

You have probably seen some of the so called "Flash Arcade" websites out there, I own one myself, and many of them gets massive traffic. Im talking XXXX visits / day. And they can make alot of cash from displaying ads. I remember a while ago, I was making up to $7 a day from my arcade and it was only getting like 400-500 visits / day from google and other search engines. (half of them were people coming back again. prolly because the liked the site or whatever) + i put no effort in advertising the site.

Anyways, if you made a site like that, but with your downloadable Game Maker games that could drive a fair amount of visitors to your site.
But if you want to get even more hits, add a link to your site in your games and give other arcade sites permission to put your games on their site. If your games are good enough, the really high-traffic sites may add your game, and it will get alot of downloads. And some of the players will click the link you put in the game and visit your site for more games like that.
The sites may also link to your site along with the download link. Which will drive even more people to your site.
So just give people the permission to distribute the game freely.

What i mean by adding a link in your game:
http://www.arcade42....-tree-jump.html <--- In the menu there's a button that say "Play More Games" that links to the creators site, bubblebox.com.
that particular game is probably hosted on over 100 other websites.
(bubblebox.com also have downloadable games!)

When you have your website up and running, and you've started to get a fair amount of hits you can start thinking about making cash from the visitors. How?
I'm only using 2 methods:

1 - Pay Per Click Serivces:
I use google adsense which is imo the best option. Maybe Yahoos program pays more, but I haven't been able to try that yet. (only open to the US atm ) As I said before, I made about 7 bucks a day with only 400 visitors. That's all from google adsense.
Everytime a visitor clicks the adsense banners on your site, you get paid. How much you get varies alot. I've made  like $0.02 - $2 per click.
You may think that nobody is stupid enough to click them, and that can be true, depending on what audience you're targeting. I get like 10x more clicks at my Gaming site than I get on my Programming site. I'm not saying that gamers are stupid, but they tend to click the ads much more after my experience.

2 - Selling text links
Another way to make some quick bucks is to sell text links to other people.
Register at a webmaster forum like namepros.com or webmaster-talk.com and sell links. I used to sell text links on my programming site when it had about 1000-2000 hits a day, and I only sold em for $2-3/per month, so it was no problem to get buyers. I remember I made almost $50 the first week when I started selling them. ( had to wait until next month before I could make that much again, because I didn't want to flood my site with ads)

And 1 more
I've never tried this, but you could make a few bucks by getting someone to sponsor your game. Like, a Gaming site may pay you to put a splash screen in the beginning of the game with their website address etc.
Could find advertisers like this in other webmaster forums. I guess you could get around $25-30 for this... Not much, but hell, why not?
Could also try to get sponsored by miniclip.com and such.




heh, long post...

I guess I've made $xxxx the last 3 years using these methods.
We'll, i haven't really made any games myself, but if I did, it would be even more.
I've probably made around $150 from my GM tutorials and examples though.

Anyways,
You wont get rich by doing this, but you can get some decent pocket money. Probably more then you will make if you try to sell your games (with a few exceptions)


There's probaly alot of typos and a fair amout of mess in this post, but I'm too tired to go through all that right now.

Hope this helps anyone =)

Hi I'm trying to write a fuction like explode() in PHP that splits a string into an array.
This is what I have atm:

       str = "hello§world§how§are§you?§"; 
        show_message(str);
              
        for (i=0; i<=string_count("§", str)+1; i+=1) {
        
            arr[i] = string_copy(str, 1, string_pos("§", str));
            str = string_delete(str, 1, string_pos("§", str));
            show_message(string_replace("arr[" + string(i) + "] = " + string(arr[i]), "§", ""));
              
        }

(the show messages etc is just for debugging)
anyways, no matter what I do, it doesn't add teh last part ("you?").

Can anyone see what I'm doing wrong here?

thanks,
TyR