[Verious]

Hajo, it sounds like you have a solid plan for the player driven shops and NPC shops.

Keep up the good work!

[Hajo]

Thanks, I'll try my best :)

After a break, shops got some more attention of mine, and I think the basics are done now. What is left to do it to tear down shops which are no longer needed, and to actually receive the accumulated cash from shop sales.

I'm trying not to work on any new features, but fix bugs and complete the existing features, so that I can release a new version within the next weeks.

[Hajo]

Still trying to set up a new release, maybe I will publish a pre-release for testing even if the shops are not 100% complete yet - and for some reason I cannot find the "Sonnheim Homesteads" map anymore that I had started a while ago.

While working on the maps, I decided to try to assemble kind of a "Sonnheim world map", with thumbnail images for each of the maps - in the isometric rotation "north" is top-right, while the thumbnail table puts north at top. I hope it's not too confusing:

http://sonnheim.wiki.sourceforge.net/Sonnheim+World+Map

Original posting: http://www.simugraph.com/smf/index.php?topic=32.msg101#msg101

[Verious]

The "Sonnheim Village" map looks great, I really like how the village feels like it was built around a water source.

The "Southern forest" map looks very organic with the exception of a clump of trees near the top of the map that appear to be planted in unnaturally straight rows.

The other two maps look a bit sparse.

[Hajo]

All of the maps need more work, indeed. The village map is just the oldest, and got the most care so far since most of the important facilities are there.

The regularly planted trees in the southern forest are a timber plantation. The owner sells wood to the players. In the grassy plains there will be a shepherd who sells wool.

[Verious]

[Hajo]

A while ago I had compiled a new version and put it online for testing:

http://www.simugraph.com/smf/index.php?topic=63.0

I was then away for holidays and very seldom online, after that ill for a while. The next few weeks work seems to become very busy, so again, little time for hobby projects.

But the worst problem is, I currently miss ideas and with the lack of ideas also motivation to work on the project. After recovering I've picked up some minor work, made a few fixes to the code, cleanups, and added some images, but there hasn't been any substantial progress.

So this message wants to say, "Project is not dead, but waiting for ideas"

Mostly I'm trying to find ideas that are fairly easy to implement (within a day or two) and still are interesting for players.

[Hajo]

I've added some more images, and reworked many of the maps. The grassy plains got the biggest update.

Giant screenshot of the grassy plains.

Click for large view

The full view has a lot more details than the thumbnail, but be warned this is huge and about 500kb to download.

-> If the link above does not work, you can find the screenshot in the Sonnheim gallery as well: http://sonnheim.gotdns.org/sonnheim/gallery/?cat=0&page=2

Other news: The general store now got a tools trader, and was reworked a bit, too, to look more friendly.

Original posting: http://www.simugraph.com/smf/index.php?topic=32.msg169#msg169

[Verious]

Hajo the screenshot of the grassy plains looks great!

[Hajo]

Thanks a lot :) I'm glad that you like it.

[Jinroh]

O_O Yeah that is really awesome! Is that all just Isometric 2D?

If so...Dang.
_________________
Mao Mao Games
The wolf and his mate howl, taking solace in the silver moon. Pressing ever foreward to see what the future holds.

[Hajo]

Sometimes isometric graphics allow more than 3D models, sometimes they way more awkward. That map has 4 layers, the floor, 2 decoration layers and an item layer on top of that. Combining them with good tile images allows a variety of nice effects.

At least it seems that the project in on a good way, graphics-ways. Thank you for the feedback :)

And it seems I could solve some of the questions around running a game server. Also I've now got contact with someone who successfully has a server running since four years, will be interesting to listen to his experiences and advice. At least there is hope that Sonnheim will have an official server in not too far future, too.

[Jinroh]

Oh, I see. ^_^ That's really awesome.

A dedicated server would be really cool. Then we could all link up and join in games of Sonnheim and enjoy the fruits of your labor. ^_^
_________________
Mao Mao Games
The wolf and his mate howl, taking solace in the silver moon. Pressing ever foreward to see what the future holds.

[Hajo]

At the moment Sonnheim is just a glorified chat room, but I'm trying to add more "game" content. Unfortunately I'm that much of a game designer, more of a programmer type. But it's growing, and there is hope :)

Some news:

Work on the shops has stalled with a peculiar interface issue: shop owners cannot see the income of the shop (yet) and cannot access the accumulated money.

While trying to solve this, I was also looking for more ways to entertain the players. I've picked up an old idea: Let players modify maps online.

The idea is, to let players create things, be it houses, parks, farms ... and hopefully more that I cannot imagine now.

The online editing will be done in a semi-realistic style, to keep it interesting. One needs the right materials to build certain things, like crushed stones to build a gravel road.

Open questions is where players should be allowed to build. While I think the Sonnheim village territory should remain fixed, I'm equally sure that out in the wild no one really would care if a player starts building. So somewhere in between there should be a borderline where the rules change. Must see if I can work out something that will work well. A bit of a question is also, how many inhabitants the Sonnheim world can take, and if everyone starts to build rather spacey things the space on the maps will soon be exhausted. But this seems to be solvable by adding more maps, which will come sooner or later anyways.

I'm currently working on getting the triad of tools, materials and user interface to a state where I can offer a demo version.

http://www.simugraph.com/smf/index.php?topic=32.msg170#msg170

[Hajo]

Continuing the idea of construction works, I noticed that some tasks need sand. Well, the Sonnheim world has a desert already, but more of the rock/earth kind than the sandy one. But now, towards the north-west of the desert, there is an area with sand, where players can dig sand hills for the particularly fine sand that is so much sought after.

Sandy part of the desert.

Click for large view