State of Profit

[Mickelukas]

Hi all!

Note: I've posted (almost) the same on JGO, I know that most people are on both forums, so this is for the ones hanging out here

I've been around here for a few years now but this is the first time I post in this section. The reason for the delay is that I did what we all advice people not to do, create an mmo as my first game. Not only is it my first java game, it's my first java experience, and first game that took more than 60 hours to write (the old record holder was a simple VB6 game).

So, without further delay, I'm proud to present the first alpha version of State of Profit! Yes, it took me 4 years (next to my full time job and family) and it's still only an alpha version...

It's something like Transport Tycoon having a baby with a random MMO, with any FarmVille kind of game as its Godfather (transportation, mmo, simplicity). I have hundreds of things that I still want to put in (ranging from soundeffects to cartels (clans), research, airplanes and much more), but I finally completed it to a stage that is, almost, bug free and that can be classified as a game.

So, please, try it out and let me know if you run into bugs or quirks or anything else.

Registration is required as it's an mmo but just type whatever for password (no email required, in fact, I don't even store it if you fill it in), all passwords are double md5'ed in the db.

Link: http://stateofprofit.com

Screenshots:






Kind regards,
Mike

[Mickelukas]

And, seeing as this is the LWJGL forum after all:

Someone with a mac tested it and only got a blank screen, it did however work with input (so the display loop did run as that's where the mouse and keyboard is handled). I'm using the following initiation code, did I miss something:
canvas = new OpenGL(); //My opengl class, extending canvas
canvas.setIgnoreRepaint(true);
canvas.setFocusable(true);
canvas.requestFocus();
setLayout(new BorderLayout(), BorderLayout.CENTER);
canvas.setSize(getSize());
myApplet.add(canvas);

And in the OpenGL class:
Display.setParent(this);
Display.create();

Any help is appreciated as I don't have a Mac to test with, did anyone run into something similar?

Mike

[kappa]

Applets are currently problematic on OS X, as of OS X Lion, Apple have moved over to Java plugin2 which breaks all applets that use OpenGL as it uses a new rendering method. The reason this happens is that plugin2 no longer embeds a Window/NSView into the browser, so there is no surface to attach an OpenGL Context to, instead plugin2 applets work by using an Core Animation Layer (essentially drawing to an offscreen image which is then drawn by the browser as part of the web page, as opposed to on top of it, this allows better integration).

LWJGL Applets work fine with Java Plugin1. OS X 10.3, Tiger 10.4 & Leopard 10.5 only run Java Plugin1 so LWJGL Applets work fine there, OS X 10.6 uses Java Plugin1 by default (although Chrome and FF4 use Java Plugin2), while OS X 10.7 Lion uses Java Plugin2 by default.

There is a way to make opengl applets work on mac with plugin2 but it requires adopting a new api provided by Apple which is pretty restrictive and a large task to implement into LWJGL (so may work in future releases of LWJGL). Have a look at the bugs section for a number of posts (including some with Apple Engineers) which explain the problem further.

A workaround which is available atm that allows LWJGL applets to work on plugin2 is to use an external window (i.e. not embedded, Display.setParent(null)), this works as it bypasses the rendering system but isn't ideal as the window floats above the web page.

[Mickelukas]

Right, I had heard about the new way Mac was doing things but seeing as he said that he could play LWJGL 2.7.1 games I thought it was my fault

I saw that you logged in, built a station and some roads but didn't spend your money, was it boring, difficult to understand or just plain stupid?  

Thanks for the clarification on the mac issue

Mike

[kappa]

I saw that you logged in, built a station and some roads but didn't spend your money, was it boring, difficult to understand or just plain stupid?  

oh, I was just having a quick look, I did like it, just didn't have time to play more. I fear playing these sorts of games as they suck up too much time (still remember spending entire nights playing Sim City 2000).

[Mickelukas]

There is still too little to do in the game to be sucked up into it, logging in like 10 min per day is still enough

Thanks for the kind words. 

Mike

[CodeBunny]

This took you 60 hours? Not weeks or days, but hours?

Now I'm jealous... 

[Mickelukas]

Read it again It was more like 1500 or so hours

[CodeBunny]

Ah, gotcha.

Nice work!

[Mickelukas]

Thanks. It's the first time more than 3 people are logged in at the same time though and the first time anyone logs in with a higher ping than 10 so a lot of bugs appeared, I'm trying to squash them down quicker than they appear but sometimes it feels like a losing battle

Mike

[Meanz]

I must say I am impressed, it was really fun to begin with. But after creating a few bus stations I was lost. But I do understand that it is an alpha, and again I am really impressed. And I look forward to the progress of this game. This is a game I will definately follow, since I am also a fan of transport tycoon. Keep up the good work

[Labrasones]

This is pretty cool! Works well too. One thing tho, maybe make the buses able to change end destination? If it doesn't do that already and I just coulent figure it out. Btw, I'm whatever in the game.

[Mickelukas]

Thanks for the kind words guys

I've been having a big discussion about the game on JGO http://www.java-gaming.org/index.php/topic,24569.0.html, where I also keep a change list and so on, you're welcome to join in on the discussion

As you said, the game is very limiting at the moment as it's only an alpha, once most bugs are gone and it seems stable enough to play with lots of people online (almost there!) I'll work on more content

So you don't have to search about the change of end station: it was giving some bugs so I removed it for now, I'll add it in the near future (next week I think).

Thanks,
Mike

[Mickelukas]

Tomorrow (Sunday) at approximately 12.00 CET Alpha version 1.2 will be brought online and the world will reset.

The changes that will be implemented during the restart is:

New:
Farms! You now get to place one free farm with two trucks when you start playing. Farms generate food and by bringing it to cities you will earn money and make the city grow quicker. For a full list of changes refer to this thread.
The area used when deciding how big a share of the passengers in the city should go to your station is now highlighted when building a station
There is now a clock visible with the current time and date of the in game world. At a later stage the clock will be incorporated into the new menu. For a description about game time vs real life time see this thread

Modified:
Upgrading the speed of the buses now increase the maintenance cost with half of what it previously was
Removing stations now come under build/remove station on the statistics page
Tweaked the graphics and sizes of all buildings
You can only invest into research if you have money
Slowed the speed of the vehicles a little bit
Bus stations now has a max number of people waiting of 150 (instead of based upon number of houses in the vicinity), with research you can increase the capacity to 900. Passengers added still uses houses close as a factor
When you build a bus station there are already 50 people waiting to get money a bit quicker
Goods waiting on stations is stored in the database every 30 minutes and read back if the server needs to restart
Cities grow both based upon passengers transported to and from the city instead of only from
Cities always grow even if you don't bring anything (but really, really slowly), transport people or bring food to a city to increase the growth significantly
When the server restarts it continues at the hour where it stopped instead of restarting at the beginning of the day, making the daily statistics better
The statistics page now displays until what hour of today that it is displaying

Bugs:
Fixed a bug where old graphics cards could not always see the grass texture
Fixed a bug where vehicles were displayed as being on a station they weren't
Fixed a bug that could cause several java processes to linger around if the connection was lost
Fixed a bug that caused the vehicle to be sent to the wrong station when there were several windows on top of each other
Fixed a bug that would display your vehicles as "loading" and never leave if you stopped them last time you were logged in

For a full list of recent changes, drop in at http://stateofprofit.com/forum.

Happy playing!

Mike

[Mickelukas]

If you had a look at the game but wonder how to play (or want to see how it looks like without having to log in) the missis made a video. The sound is a bit soft but hopefully it works for you.

http://youtube.com/user/stateofprofit

Kind regards,
Mike