Novul
- Thread starter Kyttias
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This seems cool! Will definitely join when it opens! (Following this post so I can get in there)
It'll be a while. ^^;
I found the Mysidia script in January 2014, and by the end of January, I created my first theme and shared it with the community. In February sketched out a few creatures. But life happened, I moved cross country, and it wasn't until June that I had a consistent set of line widths and shading practices for the art. Consistency is super important moving forward, y'know! In July I sat down and made a world map and thought up some deeper concepts (plot-wise, the goal is to have people 'curing' the world and putting an end to nightmares).
August happened, and I moved into a new house. I made up a temporary theme just for me and since scrapped it for another one. In September, I decided I wanted humanoid shopkeepers. In October I made a template for my item icons and now it's November and I've totally redone how I display items in shops. I've read a half dozen books on PHP, and I'm comfortable editing the files manually now.
I want to change how many pages are rendered by default, so December will be a month of modifying defaults and the start of programming some personal touches. Some of which will be released to the community, such as site-wide bonuses based on how active your site's community has been. Other features will be my personal secrets~
For example, the next thing on my mind is the chance for pets to get afflicted with a 'sickness' after they've been ignored for too many days. To fit the dream world theme of my site, these Novu will become 'nightmare' versions of themselves - frozen, unable to be levelled up by normal means, and unable to have that feature restored until they are 'cured' with an item. The item won't be at all expensive, however. In fact, I may even provide a means for users to do this to their pets intentionally. But it's more than cosmetic - frozen pets also won't be able to do story missions, or earn experience in any way.
Perhaps some interesting things might happen with certain NPCs if you have nightmare afflicted pets... forbidden from some shops altogether if you have more than five pets afflicted, but suddenly welcomed by dark strangers you didn't even know had shops... Having just one nightmare pet will open up new opportunities to you - and hey, some nightmare pets are nightmare by default, and won't suffer any 'frozen' penalty. In fact, if you have enough nightmare pets, and enough currency to part with, perhaps some NPC might just be able to help you unfreeze your pets but let them keep their nightmare status.
The overarching 'story' to my site has the user venturing into nightmare areas of each zone and, in each, confronting a basic fear. But it's never said you had to help the good guys cleanse these zones. While this may be a simple collectible adopts site on the surface, deep down, there's RPG functionality I'm dying to implement - where user choice matters and can influence everything from flavor text and additional dialogue to what shops and areas you have access to. I'm keeping these more intense features in mind, but they won't go into development until the core of the site is already complete.
This means more items, more Novu, more shopkeepers, mini-games, special skins/patterns, and, if luck has it, equippable items that show on the pets themselves. My girlfriend even expressed desire to outline a more complex breeding system.
Obviously I don't want to pay for hosting until I know what I've gotten myself into, but a semi-public alpha test version on free hosting could appear as early as late spring of 2015. (Right now my site is actually being built locally but my router doesn't have full NAT support sooo... public IP says no.)
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Previews Today
updated shop preview
introducing: the villain
Meet Nox.
Many miserable children's only escape is through the solace of dreams. But, what if they need not suffer anymore? What if they need not feel anything? What if they need not even... exist? In the deepest, darkest parts of the Novul lurks a being that desires no child to be sad, no pain to latch to their soul. While joy is desirable, it's so fleeting and temporary. It'd be far easier, far more effective for them to simply cease existence. In the emptiness, they will find peace. This being is quite efficient in his craft, fully convinced that to cease suffering he must release the souls of lost children. Nox just wants them to be happy, after all... why should they ever have to wake up?
(Nox will be introduced early on as a someone who seems very good. Always friendly and helpful on the exterior, his motives are out of sight until it's far too late.)
Nox and his creatures cause something of a domino effect; as they absorb the miserable, they make those around them more miserable. So the closer a visiting child gets to these creatures, they too begin to have nightmares. They become tainted by their fears. This negativity leads to them being captured or influenced by Nox and his nightmarish creatures; and their misery and fears pass on nightmares to more potential victims. This cycle repeats without end in sight, and Nox is growing in power with every victim... but to what inevitable end?
(Nox will be introduced early on as a someone who seems very good. Always friendly and helpful on the exterior, his motives are out of sight until it's far too late.)
Nox and his creatures cause something of a domino effect; as they absorb the miserable, they make those around them more miserable. So the closer a visiting child gets to these creatures, they too begin to have nightmares. They become tainted by their fears. This negativity leads to them being captured or influenced by Nox and his nightmarish creatures; and their misery and fears pass on nightmares to more potential victims. This cycle repeats without end in sight, and Nox is growing in power with every victim... but to what inevitable end?
inventory preview
Well this has taken a lot of work! And it's not done quite done yet. Currently, items that have a use can be used from the modal pop up, but I'd like to be able to choose the adoptable it's going to be used on from the pop-up, to save another page to go through. Not sure how to go about this yet...
updated shop preview
I've redone my shops a little bit, as I was inspired by my efforts on my inventory page. ^^ Soon I'd like to implement a 'shop loyalty' system, where you slowly befriend the NPC based on how much you've spent at their shop, total. Higher friendship with the shopkeeper means more items will be available, discounts, and a few other interesting things!
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Shop Loyalty & Exchange Pavillion
shop loyalty
Shopkeepers enjoy seeing you around! They remember just how much you've spent on their wares. Now, they want to repay the favor. You'll be able to check your loyalty level with participating stores in the upper left hand corner, each level represented as a star.
A new player starts at level 0 - no benefits. Spend a little bit there and unlock level 1 loyalty with a shop to immediately unlock new items that weren't available before! At level 2 you'll gain a 5% discount off all items in their shop, plus gain access to even more items. At level 3 you'll get to enjoy a whole 10% discount. Even more benefits are to come - including opportunities to begin quests and fuse items. All you have to do is continue being such a great customer. The more you spend, the closer you'll get to the next level.
A new player starts at level 0 - no benefits. Spend a little bit there and unlock level 1 loyalty with a shop to immediately unlock new items that weren't available before! At level 2 you'll gain a 5% discount off all items in their shop, plus gain access to even more items. At level 3 you'll get to enjoy a whole 10% discount. Even more benefits are to come - including opportunities to begin quests and fuse items. All you have to do is continue being such a great customer. The more you spend, the closer you'll get to the next level.
exchange pavillion
At the Exchange Pavillion, you'll meet Aubrey. She's part 'Fauxxit' and so long as you bring her supplies, she can fuse and enhance items for you. Eventually I want all shopkeepers to be able to do item fusion, and at that point, Aubrey will be operating a bit more like Crimm on Flight Rising, asking for a random item (below a certain rarity threshold) and offering to buy it from you for a tiny bit more than its ordinary worth. Until she teaches her ways to the other shopkeepers, she is in charge of all item fusion.
concept art
Oh, and I created a thread where I'll post some unfinished and in progress art. So go check that out, if you like!
profile revamp
I've been working on revamping my user's profile pages. The comment/messages tab isn't as finished as the others, and I want to rearrange the order of the tabs but I'm having some trouble doing so (if anyone knows, let me know?). It also goes without saying that the edit buttons only appear if the user visiting the page is the same as the owner of the page.
PHP:
if ($mysidia->user->username == $mysidia->input->get("user"))
for sale
Over on DeviantART I've got Novu up to 'adopt' for $5, but they get no rights to the species. However, for $10, you guys here on the forums can buy the species from me, full rights, and use them on your own site. The catch? You have to get to them before someone else buys them. Paypal preferred (but DA points would be accepted). Just these two for now (there is a third, but I have my heart set on keeping it).
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Your site really is looking amazing. It inspires me to make mine better.
Your site is purple based, I really like that. Purple is a lucky colour
Ours (my sister and I) is blue, because it's the world is based on an ocean which is a theme park.
I will create a thread for it when she's worked on some art and stuff ^^
I'd love to join your site. When do you plan/hope to launch?
Your site is purple based, I really like that. Purple is a lucky colour
Ours (my sister and I) is blue, because it's the world is based on an ocean which is a theme park.
I will create a thread for it when she's worked on some art and stuff ^^
I'd love to join your site. When do you plan/hope to launch?
@MikiHeart - Alpha testing for friends and devs on the Mysidia forums (such as yourself) should begin late this spring/just before summer. Official beta testing might open in the fall or next spring - it'll depend on how much art I have done and the cost of bumping from free to paid hosting. I also want to check in with my ISP to see if there's a chance I can host directly through them - I'd prefer to have control over my servers, afterall.
@IntoRain - <3 I'm definitely glad to hear that! So here's another update for you~
Nox now has a profile page!
The details aren't final (probably going to sans the 'Biography' header from his about tab) and add a quest to his friends page.
He's NOT an actual user, and that's the most interesting part. He replaces the default SYSTEM user in some ways, but not in others. SYSTEM 'owns' the adopts in the pound, and, they'll even show on the pet tab on SYSTEM's profile. Ordinarily, the SYSTEM profile is quite buggy (given that it's not a real user) and pulls data from the admin to fill out certain fields. I've prevented this default behavior and made his page quite flashy.
Because random pets appear in the stats, its possible to see a pet owned by the pound. Or in this case, Nox. Therefore, I wanted to be sure his page looked nice to visitors. Consider it an Easter egg. ^^;
That reminds me... For anyone who HASN'T read this IMPORTANT security glitch regarding the SYSTEM user, please do so now, and patch your site immediately!
What was I saying again...? Oh, right.
Nox probably will not be the final owner of pound pets, though he is right now. This is because, eventually, pets will need to be removed from the system if they exist in excess. My eventual plan is to have pets exist in the pound only for two weeks while waiting to be adopted, and after that, they'll be transferred to Nox, and they'll gain a 'skin' or 'painted' effect like on other pet sites - and basically become nightmare pets. Nox will then let users adopt them from him, but... it might be in exchange for some interesting favors. Pets that exist with Nox for more than another two weeks are at risk of being permanently deleted.
@IntoRain - <3 I'm definitely glad to hear that! So here's another update for you~
Nox now has a profile page!
The details aren't final (probably going to sans the 'Biography' header from his about tab) and add a quest to his friends page.
He's NOT an actual user, and that's the most interesting part. He replaces the default SYSTEM user in some ways, but not in others. SYSTEM 'owns' the adopts in the pound, and, they'll even show on the pet tab on SYSTEM's profile. Ordinarily, the SYSTEM profile is quite buggy (given that it's not a real user) and pulls data from the admin to fill out certain fields. I've prevented this default behavior and made his page quite flashy.
Because random pets appear in the stats, its possible to see a pet owned by the pound. Or in this case, Nox. Therefore, I wanted to be sure his page looked nice to visitors. Consider it an Easter egg. ^^;
That reminds me... For anyone who HASN'T read this IMPORTANT security glitch regarding the SYSTEM user, please do so now, and patch your site immediately!
What was I saying again...? Oh, right.
Nox probably will not be the final owner of pound pets, though he is right now. This is because, eventually, pets will need to be removed from the system if they exist in excess. My eventual plan is to have pets exist in the pound only for two weeks while waiting to be adopted, and after that, they'll be transferred to Nox, and they'll gain a 'skin' or 'painted' effect like on other pet sites - and basically become nightmare pets. Nox will then let users adopt them from him, but... it might be in exchange for some interesting favors. Pets that exist with Nox for more than another two weeks are at risk of being permanently deleted.
If you want control of the server, you'll want a VPS or a DPS. I have a VPS for all my websites. I was lucky to get it in 2013 in a Black Friday sale. It was 50% off for life. So instead of paying $50 dollars a month, I only pay $25. But new customers have to apy $50 dollars.
official color wheel
I've finally come to a decision on the official color palette for the site. There will still be 'skins'/'brushes' like on other sites (and also 'accent' skins - transparent ones that do not cover your entire pet), but by default, there will be standard 'primary' and 'secondary' colors.
While skins/accents won't be genetic, these standard colors will be. My girl Savvy is helping me make a unique breeding system, where offspring can be any color in a range between the two parents. There can be any combination of primary/secondary colors.
For breeding purposes, the lighter shade of a color is recessive, while the darker shade is dominant. If both colors are recessive, however, there is a 50-50 chance the offspring may become a dominant, darker, shade instead. There is also going to be a tiny chance of melanism, albinism, and, for lack of a better word, 'monoism' (one of two shades of gray). Not having these is a dominate, default occurrence. But, for example, if you were to breed two melanistic pets together, all the offspring would also be melanistic. However, these traits will only effect the primary or secondary gene. So you can have 'albino' primary and 'melanistic' secondary, or, normal primary and 'albino' secondary, etc.
While skins/accents won't be genetic, these standard colors will be. My girl Savvy is helping me make a unique breeding system, where offspring can be any color in a range between the two parents. There can be any combination of primary/secondary colors.
For breeding purposes, the lighter shade of a color is recessive, while the darker shade is dominant. If both colors are recessive, however, there is a 50-50 chance the offspring may become a dominant, darker, shade instead. There is also going to be a tiny chance of melanism, albinism, and, for lack of a better word, 'monoism' (one of two shades of gray). Not having these is a dominate, default occurrence. But, for example, if you were to breed two melanistic pets together, all the offspring would also be melanistic. However, these traits will only effect the primary or secondary gene. So you can have 'albino' primary and 'melanistic' secondary, or, normal primary and 'albino' secondary, etc.
site statistics
Thanks to questions I posed on this thread, I was also able to recently make some additions to my /stats page. Check out the thread for hints on how to do so for yours, too!
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Update to my last post: check this out!
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Hey guys! It's been a while since I've given any progress updates. I've been caught up in some things. ^^;
Today I'm here to show off a prototype I constructed using Javascript for what I meant in my original list of wants by a 'daily stamp card'.
[ link ]
I used stock images because this is just an example test and I need to create my own images (which should inevitably be symbols, such as runes, that make sense for my site).
Anyway, the concept is this: once a day, from the home page, you'll be prompted to stamp your card. You can emulate this by pressing the stamp button on the prototype I linked. Notice that here you can stamp as many times as you like, but it will be once per day - one stamp per day, and you'll return to the same card day after day until it is finished.
So what's happening? Well it's going to pick a random symbol from those you have remaining and stamp out every instance of it. Your goal is to make a row as if you were playing Bingo - five over, down, or diagonally. (Keep clicking in the prototype to count how many days this takes!) Right now, nothing happens. When you finish your card, it refills it in a random order (you can also see this randomosity by refreshing the page!).
Example cards:
Or for an (incomplete) visual:
Each day a random symbol is chosen and every instance of that symbol is stamped. You will obtain 50 Aurum and 1 Gacha Token for each stamp made a day. There are three peaches on your card and peach was today's stamp? Then you collect 150 Aurum and 3 Gacha Tokens. These tokens will be used in the 'free' Gacha machine which needs 3 tokens to operate.
When a complete line (row across) the card is made, you get an additional prize (as of yet undetermined, possibly more Aurum). Once three lines are made the card is completed. A completed card will get you 1 Rues Gacha Token. The only other way to obtain Rues Gacha Tokens will be through paid currency. These tokens are used in the 'luxury' Gacha machine, which also requires 3 tokens to operate.
Today I'm here to show off a prototype I constructed using Javascript for what I meant in my original list of wants by a 'daily stamp card'.
[ link ]
I used stock images because this is just an example test and I need to create my own images (which should inevitably be symbols, such as runes, that make sense for my site).
Anyway, the concept is this: once a day, from the home page, you'll be prompted to stamp your card. You can emulate this by pressing the stamp button on the prototype I linked. Notice that here you can stamp as many times as you like, but it will be once per day - one stamp per day, and you'll return to the same card day after day until it is finished.
So what's happening? Well it's going to pick a random symbol from those you have remaining and stamp out every instance of it. Your goal is to make a row as if you were playing Bingo - five over, down, or diagonally. (Keep clicking in the prototype to count how many days this takes!) Right now, nothing happens. When you finish your card, it refills it in a random order (you can also see this randomosity by refreshing the page!).
Example cards:
- 7 days to the first row reward, on 8th day two more rows were obtained at once! card expires
- on 7th day all three rows are obtained at once! card expires.
- 8 days to the first row reward, on 10th day the second row is stamped, on the 11th day two more rows are stamped and the card is complete, with one bonus row!! card expires.
Or for an (incomplete) visual:
Each day a random symbol is chosen and every instance of that symbol is stamped. You will obtain 50 Aurum and 1 Gacha Token for each stamp made a day. There are three peaches on your card and peach was today's stamp? Then you collect 150 Aurum and 3 Gacha Tokens. These tokens will be used in the 'free' Gacha machine which needs 3 tokens to operate.
When a complete line (row across) the card is made, you get an additional prize (as of yet undetermined, possibly more Aurum). Once three lines are made the card is completed. A completed card will get you 1 Rues Gacha Token. The only other way to obtain Rues Gacha Tokens will be through paid currency. These tokens are used in the 'luxury' Gacha machine, which also requires 3 tokens to operate.
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I'm finally starting in on my final theme for my site. It's got a way to go still (the logo is quite plain up there, currently.) I guess I'm just posting to show that I'm not totally dead in the water. ^^;
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Alright, similar to Lioden and Flight Rising I want to have breedable genetics (both marking patterns and features such as wings) and colors (primary and secondary).
On Flight Rising images are created in PHP with a library like GD or ImageMagick, merged down, and then saved with the pet's id number in deeply nested organized files. I can only imagine how much this weighs on the server. On the plus side, these are real images and can be saved to your computer.
On Lioden each layer is its own image and they're merely stacked on top of one another in a div. (I'm super surprised they're not even using HTML5 Canvas.) On the downside? These are all separate images and cannot be easily saved -- you'd have to take a screencap to show your friends. On the plus side? These individual layered images will be cached by the browser -- making revisits to the site quite speedy. And there isn't intensive load on the sever because there isn't an image saved for each and every lion.
I'm going to try and do something in between the two of these methods with HTML5 Canvas -- and the end result should be savable, even though it isn't stored server side. It won't be directly linkable, same as Lionden, however. On the upside, Canvas will allow for layer clipping with 'masks' if you're familiar with the term.
The jist of it is that wherever a pet image is called with the GUI, it'll display a canvas and render layers instead. Because these individual layers never need to be changed they'll be set to be cached by the browser - once a person has a seen a layer before it'll instantly load in the future, making it much faster after the initial visit. I can have pets look very beautiful, and, don't have to save an image for every single pet.
I can already access species, gender and age from the owned adoptables table, but I also need to store: primary color, secondary color, primary gene pattern, secondary gene pattern, if they have a face expression other than the default set, if the pet has a nightmare infliction, if they have a designer skin equipped, and then if they have any body shop mods such as wings, extra tails, additional fluff, etc.
Later I should be able to extend this into item equipping, but that's a whole additional process, and it probably would be best in its own table.
...
edit: I'm just going to go with the Lioden approach until I'm more comfortable with Canvas, aha.
On Flight Rising images are created in PHP with a library like GD or ImageMagick, merged down, and then saved with the pet's id number in deeply nested organized files. I can only imagine how much this weighs on the server. On the plus side, these are real images and can be saved to your computer.
On Lioden each layer is its own image and they're merely stacked on top of one another in a div. (I'm super surprised they're not even using HTML5 Canvas.) On the downside? These are all separate images and cannot be easily saved -- you'd have to take a screencap to show your friends. On the plus side? These individual layered images will be cached by the browser -- making revisits to the site quite speedy. And there isn't intensive load on the sever because there isn't an image saved for each and every lion.
I'm going to try and do something in between the two of these methods with HTML5 Canvas -- and the end result should be savable, even though it isn't stored server side. It won't be directly linkable, same as Lionden, however. On the upside, Canvas will allow for layer clipping with 'masks' if you're familiar with the term.
The jist of it is that wherever a pet image is called with the GUI, it'll display a canvas and render layers instead. Because these individual layers never need to be changed they'll be set to be cached by the browser - once a person has a seen a layer before it'll instantly load in the future, making it much faster after the initial visit. I can have pets look very beautiful, and, don't have to save an image for every single pet.
I can already access species, gender and age from the owned adoptables table, but I also need to store: primary color, secondary color, primary gene pattern, secondary gene pattern, if they have a face expression other than the default set, if the pet has a nightmare infliction, if they have a designer skin equipped, and then if they have any body shop mods such as wings, extra tails, additional fluff, etc.
Later I should be able to extend this into item equipping, but that's a whole additional process, and it probably would be best in its own table.
...
edit: I'm just going to go with the Lioden approach until I'm more comfortable with Canvas, aha.
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Art preview today, before I get into explaining genetics in more detail (I'll wait until my breeding system is fully implemented first).
The following attributes of a pet are genetic and can be passed onto offspring:
Here's a Jenx with:
While here's a Jenx with:
Finalized art for my alpha testing phase:
The following attributes of a pet are genetic and can be passed onto offspring:
- body color
- accent color
- accent pattern
- accent opacity
- wings or not
- various types of tails
- species specific traits (extra fluff, horn size, fangs, etc)
Here's a Jenx with:
- a violet body
- a light pink accent
- striped pattern
- at 100% opacity
- with wings
- a luxurious tail
- and extra fluff
While here's a Jenx with:
- a violet body
- a light pink accent
- no pattern
- - - -
- no wings
- an ordinary tail
- - - -
Finalized art for my alpha testing phase:
Jenx: 100% DONE April 4, 2015
Dezh: 21% IN-PROGRESS April 4, 2015
Dezh: 21% IN-PROGRESS April 4, 2015
Stage 1 - 75%
Patterns: Stripes(33%), Filigree(33%), Stardust(33%)
Body Modifications: Wings(100%), Species Specific(100%), Ordinary Tail(100%), Alternate Tail(100%), Luxury Tail(100%)
Body Modifications: Wings(100%), Species Specific(100%), Ordinary Tail(100%), Alternate Tail(100%), Luxury Tail(100%)
Stage 2 - 0%
Stage 3 - 0%
Lythine: 0%
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