Defender of Kingdoms

[Octet]

Hello,

I would just like to share the project I am going to be working on for the next couple of months (ignore the one I posted in my 'Introduction', that idea was dead in the water before it even started). The game is called, 'Defender of Kingdoms' and is your classic style Fantasy RPG Persistent Browser Based Game set in the medieval era (so nothing new), written in HTML, CSS and PHP with a MySQL database on the side.

The game focuses on the Kingdom of Foraoise Glas, which is a rough translation of 'The Kingdom of the Green Forest' into Irish because Irish words seem to sound more mystical. The story line is as follows (see if you can recognise which play by William Shakespeare the general idea is set on), the kingdom is seperated by an ever raging war between two brothers who are constantly attempting to better each other and be the 'man of the house' after their father was killed in a war. The brothers are called 'Brother Saibhir Ceann' (translated as The Wealthy One) and 'Brother Cliste Ceann' (translated as The Intelligent One).

When the player enters the game, they are placed into one of these sides and all members of that side work together to build a stronger Kingdom.

The player shall have the ability to design and build their 9X9 plot of land with defenses to defend against enemy players (people on the other brothers side). That player can then also attack people on the other side to gain additional gold, silver and points which can be used to further develop their kingdom.

The attack shall be automated, but is as follows:

-The victim can always attack the attacker until such defenses have been destroyed.

-The attacker shall always begin to attack the outer wall.

-The level of the victims defenses shall depend on which order they are attacked in (level 1 shall be attacked after the wall, level 2 defenses mean that the attacker goes to the next lowest building prior to the defenses (giving them twice as long to try and destroy the attacker), level 3 is the same but giving the victim three times as long and so on...)

The attack is taken in turns, and simply minuses the damage points away from the structures health until either side is destroyed. If the attacker wins then they receive 50% of what it cost to build the items they destroyed of which 10% goes to the brother (you shall see why soon). If the victim wins then they receive 50% of what the attacking army cost to build of which 0% goes to the brother.

A player may not attack an enemy base if their health is less than 50% to which they must buy food from a community tavern on either brothers side to recharge (develops a more social aspect to the game).

Each day, the player receives a fixed amount of money from the brother depending on how many attack points they have, and they must be logged in to receive this (hopefully shall keep players returning and gives an incentive to attack other players).

 

That is pretty much it, rather long post so I don't blame you if you didn't bother to read through it all (and I congratulate you if you managed to understand how it works, I admit my explanation is rather poor and confusing).

If you would be able to give me any tips, suggestions or advice I would be most appreciative and I shall post some screen shots soon.

[Octet]

Ok,

In case anyone is following this thread or is interested, I have finalised the story line, modified the names a bit and worked out how I shall do the game play.

I have also managed to get onto Photoshop and so I have been able to do my design for the index page, the graphics aren't the best as I'm not an artist but hopefully you can see what it is supposed to be. More shall come, and I shall keep this thread updated for anyone interested.

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[Unreal]

Seeing the google translate is weird..

But it looks good.. Better than what I could do

[Octet]

Seeing the google translate is weird..

But it looks good.. Better than what I could do

Thanks,

If I'm not mistaken, I think new legislation by the UK government state that you are now required to make websites more accessible, with providing translation options being one of them?

[a_bertrand]

Come on, how can you expect an amateur / hobby site provide translations. And in which languages? All? Sure sure... Go forward and don't worry too much about those things yet. Also, just as info, there is some odd problems about knowing which law must apply to a website, the hosting country law, the owner country law or the visitor country law. Sadly, here again it's not 100% clear as in some cases all 3 applies!

By looking around, for UK that's what I found:

http://www.designspring.co.uk/articles/uk-legal-website.htm

http://thedistance.co.uk/journal/2011-07/legal-requirements-of-a-uk-ecommerce-website

1) From what I can tell, it seems it applies to companies / business, so for hobby stuff you should not need anything, yet, of course, if you gain money from your site, it's hardly an hobby anymore.

2) You may need some data protection regulation / privacy info page etc...

3) Users should be informed about cookies used by your website (opt in / opt out) what about PHP sessions?

4) translation is not a requirement but disabilities user access seems to be a must.

5) copyright laws apply.

[Octet]

Come on, how can you expect an amateur / hobby site provide translations. And in which languages? All? Sure sure... Go forward and don't worry too much about those things yet. Also, just as info, there is some odd problems about knowing which law must apply to a website, the hosting country law, the owner country law or the visitor country law. Sadly, here again it's not 100% clear as in some cases all 3 applies!

By looking around, for UK that's what I found:

http://www.designspring.co.uk/articles/uk-legal-website.htm

http://thedistance.co.uk/journal/2011-07/legal-requirements-of-a-uk-ecommerce-website

1) From what I can tell, it seems it applies to companies / business, so for hobby stuff you should not need anything, yet, of course, if you gain money from your site, it's hardly an hobby anymore.

2) You may need some data protection regulation / privacy info page etc...

3) Users should be informed about cookies used by your website (opt in / opt out) what about PHP sessions?

4) translation is not a requirement but disabilities user access seems to be a must.

5) copyright laws apply.

Thanks for those links, they are helpful.

Website and internet laws always annoy me, they never seem to be clear and there seems to be no international standard. I am not going to be accepting Personally Identifiable Information so I don't need to be a registered data controller, copyright and user generated content is going to be my biggest problem but I've spoken to a lawyer and they said that the most suitable thing to do considering the wide variety of laws is to just make sure you can be contacted and that way if someone wants something taken off the site you can.

I think the best way to go is just to stick to common sense and follow as best as you can (such as not collecting PII, and making sure you provide contact information), from what I gather there has been no court case where a small website has gone to court over such matters.

[Djkanna]

[snip]

3) Users should be informed about cookies used by your website (opt in / opt out) what about PHP sessions?

[snip]

For UK: (and the other stupid EU members that are implementing it)

Have a bucket load of fun, getting your head around this one.

May be able to explain it a little bit more clear and concise.

[Octet]

For UK: (and the other stupid EU members that are implementing it)

Have a bucket load of fun, getting your head around this one.

May be able to explain it a little bit more clear and concise.

Thanks,

So it looks like SESSION Cookies are ok, which is a rather large relief...

[sniko]

Thanks,

So it looks like SESSION Cookies are ok, which is a rather large relief...

I second that.

Also, good luck with your project :) I hope all goes well with it!

May I ask, is it using the McCodes engine, or another one?

[Octet]

Also, good luck with your project :) I hope all goes well with it!

May I ask, is it using the McCodes engine, or another one?

Thanks, and no.

I'm going to be creating my own, well... that is the plan. I am going to start by creating it specifically for Defender of Kingdoms and then I shall extract and refine it so I can 'universally' re-use it.

[sniko]

Thanks, and no.

I'm going to be creating my own, well... that is the plan. I am going to start by creating it specifically for Defender of Kingdoms and then I shall extract and refine it so I can 'universally' re-use it.

Good plan!

Again, I hope all goes well with it :)

[Djkanna]

Thanks,

So it looks like SESSION Cookies are ok, which is a rather large relief...

Not exactly.

Depends on what context you use the SESSION cookie in.

[Octet]

Not exactly.

Depends on what context you use the SESSION cookie in.

Oh why, oh why do they make it so complicated :(

[Djkanna]

Oh why, oh why do they make it so complicated :(

Because they're asses.

More to the point the law is attempting to catch up with the net, so it'll take a little time for it to become clear.

Right now, we're stuck with trying to work out the best approaches to accommodate the law.

[Octet]

Ok,

I've been ill for the past week so I haven't been able to do any work on my project, but I've just finished a new design for the site which is a lot cleaner and is flexible. You shall need to ignore the slightly... derpy look of the medieval pageboy ... my drawing skills aren't the best.

The pageboy image shall change to in game screen shots once I have that done, but until then I shall just leave him and his lack of hair on the page.

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[sniko]

@Octet

I think it would be cool, and this is only a suggestion, if you had some sort of 'scene' in there? Familiarize the player with their surroundings before they play the game. The colours are great, but I think it would look 'better' or more .... enticing if you had a 'scene' to represent a 'Defender of the Kingdom'. Remember, only a suggestion ;)

[Octet]

@Octet

I think it would be cool, and this is only a suggestion, if you had some sort of 'scene' in there? Familiarize the player with their surroundings before they play the game. The colours are great, but I think it would look 'better' or more .... enticing if you had a 'scene' to represent a 'Defender of the Kingdom'. Remember, only a suggestion ;)

No, I agree.

What I might do is add a subtle background to it, almost like a border going along the bottom of the page which represents scenes from the game. One example could be a high street of one of the medieval villages.

[sniko]

No, I agree.

What I might do is add a subtle background to it, almost like a border going along the bottom of the page which represents scenes from the game. One example could be a high street of one of the medieval villages.

That'll be cool, I'm imagining it now :P

[Octet]

The site is done (except the new background graphic) and now I am moving onto the actual game. I probably shall do the inventory system, player control panel e.t.c. first and then move onto the black market trading system.