Part 2: What we want

Beginner Tutorial Parts

Introduction

Getting set up.

Part 1: What we have

A tour of Evennia and how to use the tools, including an introduction to Python.

Part 2: What we want

Planning our tutorial game and what to think about when planning your own in the future.

Part 3: How we get there

Getting down to the meat of extending Evennia to make our game

Part 4: Using what we created

Building a tech-demo and world content to go with our code

Part 5: Showing the world

Taking our new game online and let players try it out

In Part two of the Beginner Tutorial we’ll take a step back and plan out the kind of tutorial game we want to make. This is a more ‘theoretical’ part where we won’t do any hands-on programming.

In the process we’ll go through the common questions of “where to start” and “what to think about” when creating a multiplayer online text game.

Lessons

• Where do I begin?
• On Planning a Game
• Planning our tutorial game

Table of Contents

• Where do I begin?
  • What is your motivation for doing this?
  • What are your skills?
    • The game engine
    • Asset creation
  • So, where do I begin, then?
  • Conclusions
• On Planning a Game
  • The steps
  • Planning
    • Administration
    • Building
    • Systems
    • Rooms
    • Objects / items
    • Characters
  • Coding and Tech demo
  • World Building
  • Alpha Release
  • Beta Release/Perpetual Beta
  • Congratulate yourself!
  • Planning our tutorial game
• Planning our tutorial game
  • Game concept
  • Administration
    • Should your game rules be enforced by coded systems by human game masters?
    • What is the staff hierarchy in your game? Is vanilla Evennia roles enough or do you need something else?
    • Should players be able to post out-of-characters on channels and via other means like bulletin-boards?
  • Building
    • How will the world be built?
    • Can only privileged Builders create things or should regular players also have limited build-capability?
  • Systems
    • Do you base your game off an existing RPG system or make up your own?
    • What are the game mechanics? How do you decide if an action succeeds or fails?
    • Does the flow of time matter in your game - does night and day change? What about seasons?
    • Do you want changing, global weather or should weather just be set manually in roleplay?
    • Do you want a coded world-economy or just a simple barter system? Or no formal economy at all?
    • Do you have concepts like reputation and influence?
    • Will your characters be known by their name or only by their physical appearance?
  • Rooms
    • Is a simple room description enough or should the description be able to change?
    • Should the room have different statuses?
    • Can objects be hidden in the room? Can a person hide in the room?
  • Objects
    • How numerous are your objects? Do you want large loot-lists or are objects just role playing props?
    • Is each coin a separate object or do you just store a bank account value?
    • Do multiple similar objects form stack and how are those stacks handled in that case?
    • Does an object have weight or volume (so you cannot carry an infinite amount of them)?
    • Can objects be broken? Can they be repaired?
    • Can you fight with a chair or a flower or must you use a special ‘weapon’ kind of thing?
    • Will characters be able to craft new objects?
    • Should mobs/NPCs have some sort of AI?
    • Are NPCs and mobs different entities? How do they differ?
    • _Should there be NPCs giving quests? If so, how do you track Quest status?
  • Characters
    • Can players have more than one Character active at a time or are they allowed to multi-play?
    • How does the character-generation work?
    • How do you implement different “classes” or “races”?
    • If a Character can hide in a room, what skill will decide if they are detected?
    • What does the skill tree look like? Can a Character gain experience to improve? By killing enemies? Solving quests? By roleplaying?
    • May player-characters attack each other (PvP)?
    • What are the penalties of defeat? Permanent death? Quick respawn? Time in prison?
  • Conclusions