LEGO Universe Avant Gardens gameplay part 2 - lcdr & humanoid's server project

[lcdr]

 

We're continuing where we left off, with the main questline after having completed survival. Featured in this video are mostly free-to-play missions, which have the additional complication that their scripts have been removed from the client, so replicating the behavior is more difficult than usual.

As mentioned last time, Movement AI is not implemented, as it's too complex to justify a prioritization over other features. Other than that the implementation is moving along pretty well, with functionality almost indistinguishable from the original server.

[lol username]

Geez, AG sure got grindy after the F2P update. It's good to know people are able to re-live that grind all these years later though.  

[Baffish]

Do you think you will have open testing before DLU?

When will you think it will be?

And why do all projects work separately instead of together?

Sorry for all the questions, I just found out about your project.

Hope you continue to do amazing work,

 

Baffish.

[lcdr]

1 hour ago, Baffish said:

Do you think you will have open testing before DLU?

 

That depends on whether DLU prefers to implement features fully or to rush to be the first to open testing. From what I've seen of them they still have a way to go before having a smoothly playable implementation.

Our project aims at providing a playable and sustaining experience, with more content than just the basic questline which can be finished in a day. We'll continue to release videos so you'll be able to see our progress yourself. Once there's enough content in the videos that we consider suitable for sustained playing, we'll open a public but closed testing instance, with the aim of eventually hosting a fully public server.

Implementing all this will take a while though, and we're only doing this in our spare time, so it's hard to give any estimates. At the least it will still be several months before reaching a suitable level of progress.

 

1 hour ago, Baffish said:

And why do all projects work separately instead of together?

 

I would in fact like a more closely working together community, which is why I'm available in chat for questions and why I've published the information we've found on packets and file structures. This documentation is what has made it possible for other server projects to persist, and some server projects have shared their contributions back, which I am grateful for. However DLU so far hasn't shared any of their findings, which I find disappointing given that they seem to be the second most advanced server project. Fragmentation was what caused the collapse of the original LUNI server project back in 2014, so I hope that the community as a whole won't experience the same fate.

 

On a lighter note, we're almost due for our next video in the series, where we'll progress to the monument, which requires some server physics I'm excited to show in action. Stay tuned!

[Baffish]

4 hours ago, lcdr said:

 

On a lighter note, we're almost due for our next video in the series, where we'll progress to the monument, which requires some server physics I'm excited to show in action. Stay tuned!

Will do!

Thanks for clearing things up for me,

I will follow this project closely from now on,

 

Baffish. :-)

[PandaBOX]

Hey, I was wondering if you guys have a Twitter, or any social media I could follow the server's progress on? If not, do you ever plan to get one up and running?

 

[lcdr]

On 26.4.2017 at 9:09 PM, PandaBOX said:

Hey, I was wondering if you guys have a Twitter, or any social media I could follow the server's progress on? If not, do you ever plan to get one up and running?

 

 

We do now: https://twitter.com/lcdr_Universe

[tomfyhr]

Just wondering, isn´t it possible to release the game in it´s non-complete form while more progress is made? That way, there is at least something to play. When the game is finished, you can simply replace the links. 

[lcdr]

LU is a massive multiplayer online game, a lot of the experience relies on an active multiplayer community. Therefore releasing the game as a singleplayer game makes little sense, and will only confuse players who expect to join a community. There's also parts in LU that rely on multiplayer to work, such as racing, and you'd get stuck at these parts in singleplayer. Also, in my personal experience, the player interaction was the most fun part of LU, and releasing without it wouldn't make it live up to the original.

So the game needs to operate with a central server, where many players can connect and play. In theory, we could simply release the source and have others host it, but that wouldn't be acceptable to us for a variety of reasons. We had experience with this back in 2014, when humanoid released the very first server prototype and I modified it to make it load worlds. We uploaded the source to the original LU server forum, and even though the server didn't have any features, people took the code and hosted it themselves, without asking for permission or giving credit. Obviously that's not what we want to happen, but if we release the source we'll have no control over it. Also, with a server hosted by others, there's essentially a new layer of people, with contact between the developers and the players broken. The hosters could be incompetent or abusing their powers, and people would associate it with our project. We want to make sure the player experience is as good as possible, so this is also not an option.

 

So what remains is hosting the server ourselves. We could host a test instance right now with an incomplete version of the server, but that's also going to cause problems. Since the server is incomplete, players are bound to run into bugs that will affect their experience, and they might get stuck somewhere and quit the server in frustration. Also, since the server is still in ongoing development, we might still make breaking changes, which is no problem at the moment, but with active players in the worst case it could mean that their playing data is lost.

Therefore the logical plan of action is to improve the server to a point where it's smoothly playable, and then open a beta test, and eventually a public instance. (You'll still see what's implemented in our videos, and you can keep up with progress through our twitter updates, so you're not missing out on info.)

These are by the way the same reasons that DLU hasn't published their source and is working relatively isolated. It simply doesn't make sense to release source at this point for an MMOG.

[tomfyhr]

Is it known what DLU has created in terms of progress for the server? 

[Cirevam]

Would the operating costs of your server be low or do you have plans to accept donations to keep it running? I imagine a good many people would donate just because of the work you've done so far.

[lcdr]

Actually, I haven't really looked into hosting yet, and I'm not sure which hosting solution would be best, and how high the costs would be. But it's probably not going to be free, so donations would certainly be useful. I don't want to set up donations before there's actually something to give back though, so it's probably going to wait until the first open testing.

[Baffish]

Will you do a small alpha test of 10-30 people to see how the servers hold up with a larger amount of people in each world?

 

Can't wait to see some more footage, 

 

Baffish.

 

 

Edited May 6, 2017 by Terrev
Snipped out the massive quote block

[lcdr]

That's planned, but don't get your hopes up just yet: There's a lot more to implement before we get to the testing stage.

[Baffish]

2 minutes ago, lcdr said:

That's planned, but don't get your hopes up just yet: There's a lot more to implement before we get to the testing stage.

 

Of course, It is just so I could get a better idea of how the future testing will go.

 

Thanks for explaining, 

 

Baffish.

[tomfyhr]

Does anyone know if it is currently possible to access the properties that won prizes, like the  Bazil Batlord one, using LUNI server or any other way?