[Mandrake]

Heh, well I’ve gotten an idea. Spent this weekend at Origins, which is a convention for table top RPG’s, board games and video games. It primarily focuses on table top RPG’s, but they are getting more and more video game booths there. Anyway, my ideas is why not, once a year, have a virtual convention for RPGDX? Like have a website up with a virtual convention center, people (RPGDX members specifically) can upload “booths” with free swag and hype on what they are doing and etc. We could have a time limit for it, so people can only upload during the convention period, and can only get the free schtuff on those certain dates.

Hmm, what do you guys think?
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"Well, last time I flicked on a lighter, I'm pretty sure I didn't create a black hole."-
Xmark

http://pauljessup.com

[valderman]

I like the idea.
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[janus]

I'm not sure I understand the point. Why not do it all year long? :)

[Bjorn]

If I get it right you propose a website that makes you feel like you're visiting an indie-rpg developers convention by showing people's booths and give you the ability to download their demo's, see screenshots and read about their projects, and then have this website open only at specific times.

I think the problem is that people that are interested in showing their work, are mostly already doing so on their website. The interesting part though is that the virtual convention will give an impression of all things going on at that time. I'd say this could work 4-monthly, when enough people have something to show about what they did in the past 4 months and where they are now.

Another interesting part is figuring out what such a virtual convention website should look like, and how people put together their booths. How much thought have you given this already?

[Mandrake]

Well for one, it wouldn’t be as interesting if it was all year long (and it would just be the same as the current RPGDX, technically speaking). Also- no convention lasts all year long. And-> I plan (like most convention) to have scheduled events (ie: talk to the creator of blahblah on day blah, enter this contest on blah to win blah, etc etc). I think having it all year long would just kind of ruin any uniqueness in the concept.

And- I also think an event like this is something that would get people motivated to do something. I’ve been drawing up some concepts for the site layout. The main idea will be that booths and events will need to be scheduled and uploaded prior to the actual convention dates, then it becomes active. The site will stay up all year round, but the events will only be active in the time they are slotted to become active. That and people during the convention (but not before, or after), can post blogs on there booths, as well as post comments/responses on booths.
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"Well, last time I flicked on a lighter, I'm pretty sure I didn't create a black hole."-
Xmark

http://pauljessup.com

[biggerUniverse]

Hmm... the RPGDX Virtucon. I think it would require drumming up support from many rpg-centric sites. I'm not saying it wouldn't work, I'm just pointing out some of the practicality.[/b]
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[Mandrake]

[white_door]

another possible idea:

if its going to be a virtua con, why not make it a mini-rpg you can download?

You download the single player 'game'.. and run it on your computer... you can then walk around the stalls and 'talk' to sprites from different games. The artwork for each stall could be designed by each developer that wants to submit a stall, they could register for how much space they need (in pixels) and then they would be assigned a basic outline that they could modify (the outline might include where it links up with the rest of the map.. etc..)

All we are talking about is a standard walk around demo with non animated sprites (booth characters) and the ability for the engine to display some pictures (screenshots or whatever) and dialog when you speak to a character. This would allow a simple presentation to be done. I think this is more than with in the realms of doable, and if people don't want to make a full booth maybe there could be a generic one that people could just download and make a few changes to.

anyway just an idea.. it might not be as practical as a website though.

[mandrake_yo]

that's what I was thinking of-> except in PHP with Javascript for the map engine.

[biggerUniverse]

I like the overall idea. Generating it with PHP and Javascript is a neat idea, and leaves it open to be very dynamic. Writing it in and of itself is a complex task. But having it as a downloadable, single player (i.e., no MMOG support) seems kinda too static to be a con.

...

I think we may have stumbled on a very interesting idea: using MMOGs as convention venues. A themic MMOG, say retro-rpg style, that is really an online convention. Very interesting.

(+2 cents.)
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[Mandrake]

complicated, yes, but not within the realms of possibility. If we keep it cut down to basics for the first one (with code we could easily extend in the future), this is not only possible but probable.

To give us a good amount of time to work on it, though, we should set it around September-ish. I was also thinking of player uploaded avatar's, using 16x16 for gfx. That way we get a true old skool feeling. Only thing I can't think of is how to do a pixel*pixel or pixel*tile scrolling engine in PHP/Javascript. All I can come up with is a tile*tile one. Any ideas?
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"Well, last time I flicked on a lighter, I'm pretty sure I didn't create a black hole."-
Xmark

http://pauljessup.com

[biggerUniverse]

For pixel*pixel, you really need full-on DHTML layers that make up the map and a fully animated Javascript engine. Like triglav (sorry, can't find the post just now). I don't believe it's impossible either, but there is complexity above and beyond a simple web page interface, and there is always the spectre of cross-browser compatiblility.

The big hook is making it interactive in realtime between many users. At least that's what I would envision.

If it's cutdown, and event-driven (non-RT) to begin with, no problem.
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[mandrake_woot]

well I've studied a few real tiem PHP ,ulti user apps (mostly chat rooms), and they seem to be fairly simplistic. Although there is a slight .053 of a second lag.

Was playing Triglav last night. Damn good game. Hmmm. This is seeming like a nifty idea.

[Adam]

I have a half arsed MMOG engine. The first M is for minimally. It built with VB and asp. The real big issue with it is the vb winsock usage. Adds like 30 seconds to any connection made. Im looking into a C++ build. It's also built like FFTactics so you have to wait your turn to move.

http://220.245.54.178/crcserver/crcclient.rar

Youll have to go into the VB system folder and change the first line to one of the below:

Tripix
Sabuto
Mexican
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[Bjorn]

A MMORPG in JavaScript and PHP? This is becoming much too weird for me, sorry. Feel free to work on it though, you'd have my support, just not my participation. :-)