I know they can be set to lower. That's why I mentioned resolution in the first place.

Maplestory's original control scheme cramped your hand on the corner of the keyboard (ctrl=attack, alt=jump, z=pick-up items, x=sit down, shift=sit in chair or skills or pots) to allow for the rest of the keys to be shortcuts to inventory, equipment, etc. It wasn't changeable, so all original players got used to it. As soon as it became more commercial, it allowed for changing the controls. New players almost always change the controls.

Any MMO - indeed, any large game - should have changeable controls. Ours should, for sure.

Also, physics puzzles like the one you described would be cool. But not anything too physics-based, I think.

We should definitely not have stupid near-impossible mini-games. Like the pollen mini-game in M&L: Bowser's Inside Story...

Fine, we'll have stupid barely-not near-impossible mini-games.

Changeable controls will be done, but not at start. I'm still focused on physics, but I NEED to know what the player dimensions will be. I'm stuck without them...

no mini-games. i don't like them, and they won't fit in with the game. there's no point in them.

I mean minigames as in small quests that require odd movements or physics-puzzles. Same gameplay all the way, though.

oh. i thought you meant the other kind.

@Red re/ Portal resolution: I wasn't talking to you. In fact, I never saw your post, since I was posting at the same time. Yah, I know you know Portal resolution can be changed.

@Red re/ player dimensions: Depends on how it's set up, really. If you have a scaleable viewport and zoom, any dimension of any artwork will do. I personally prefer a character around 60-70 pixels tall on screen, but it depends on the game.

Also, physics should be configurable enough that changing the size of a sprite should be as simple as changing the image. Or am I not understanding you correctly? You should be able to just work with placeholder images or simple boxes for now.

Also, minigames = cool.

I'm thinking of just using masks for collisions. They would work well with SDL_collide, using transparency to separate collide-able pixels from non-collide-able ones. That really seems quite small. Even in 800x600, that would be ridiculously tiny on the screen. I think the player should be emphasized more. Maybe at least 100 or 140 tall.

Well, since we've related this so much to Maplestory, it wouldn't hurt to make the player about the same dimensions. But maybe slightly bigger, since as an MMO Maplestory has a lot of players on the screen. Here we only have the player and NPCs.

Maybe the same width, but taller perhaps? Maplestory's player image is the perfect size, honestly, but I doubt we're going to do the short-with-big-head thing.

If you've watched my Youtube videos of Chef Bereft, the screen is about 800x600 (not really; but fairly close) in Chef Bereft 3, and Chef is 75 pixels tall. He seems a good size to me, but anywhere between 60-100 pixels should be fine for a simple test. I honestly don't understand why this is such a big deal. If your physics engine depends so much on the size of the player, maybe you're not designing the engine correctly. You should be able to place any size of test cube in (within reason, of course), and have it work fine. You shouldn't even have to use preprocessor macros. SDL_image lets you read the width and height of a loaded image, so you can determine at runtime what size the player sprite should be from the size of the image. Just keep changing the size of the image until you get a size that looks right, and works right in-game.

Well, we might want to change the size of the collision mesh from the image. But other than that, I agree with MOM. How are you doing the physics?

Physics are going to be done with plain ol' mathematical formulas. Player has constant vspeed (gravity). Can be overwritten with an equal opposite force (ground). Jumping will add to that opposite force (timing decides for how long, slowing down, speeding up, etc.). Basically, everything is done with vspeed and hspeed. I'll try to make certain adjustments that are affected by the type of collision (falling on, or walking into).

That reminds me, what do you guys think of knock-back?

Good.

But why can't you code that without the final dimensions?

I just want the final dimensions for a test image. The code is mostly there, I just need to designate some objects. The player was a great suitor.

For test purposes, the image is 80x160. It takes up a large part of the screen, yes. I'll minimize it to something like 60x120 later.

Knock-back is OK, but it can get really annoying. So only make it happen with moderately large attacks, like punches (i.e. not scratches).

Also, off topic: I just checked out your website Red. Didn't think it could get lamer than it was

Knock-back is extremely annoying in Maplestory and Terraria. Just standing still and colliding will cause you to jump several feet. We can make some things knock-back but not all things.

I agree with puggsoy. Knockback should only be used when big, powerful enemies attack. Tiny bats shouldn't be able to knock you off a platform to fall hundreds of feet to your death like in Terraria. Just no fun.

level one enemie uses poke. you fly 10 feet away down to your doom.

Like Worms!

We should make some of the players' attacks use knockback, for strategic purposes, but be hard to aim or something. Some sort of powerful magic missile, for example.

Weapon: rocket launcher. Has 50% chance of knock-back. 1% chance of double effectiveness. Equipped.
Weapon: common sword. 0% chance of knock-back. not equipped.

Or something like that.

Yeah, something like that.

When when AP said a magic missile, I visualized the projectile to be like that of the Cow Mangler 3000 from TF2.

When the player attacks with big strength, like a giant laser, he should be bumped backward from the beam.

whats goin on

Skim the last few pages. To explain it all would be tiresome for anyone, even MOM4Evr.

We are deciding on what we should knock-back or not.

To decide on what we should use knock back on a weapon, think of it in real life. If some one hit you with a bomb, would you be knocked back? If someone did a medium punch on you, would you be knock-back?

Well, in real life, you'd fall over from a bomb (if you don't die). Nobody ever actually gets "knocked back", i.e. you never slide back a few metres on your feet.

And falling over all the time just gets annoying.

Maybe we can have a moment or two where the player is inactive after getting hurt, so there would be more of a consequence for getting hurt. Getting knocked-back shouldn't happen regularly: maybe just during epic parts in boss battles, or very large enemies.

what are we talking about here?