Sometimes the freeware arena can really come up with stuff. Roguelikes, with Nethack currently carrying the weight, reprents IMHO the real grist of the RPGs. Most current games contain identical gameplay, but with a slightly improved interface.

Progress Quest takes it even further. I have never seen such a streamlined gaming interface. You can download it from here:
http://www.progressquest.com/

Happy times playing! :)

Wow! This is the best game I've played all day! Since the progress bar is a line, I'd say the game is one-dimensional. But through a clever programming trick, there are multiple progress bars, so it's like 1.5 dimensional.


Yestereday, I reorganized my code so that you can't actually see what's going on. Stuff still happens, but it has no visual representation. Inspired by progress quest, I may leave it this way if I can only get your ship to fire back at your enemies by itself...

Ok, I have a serious problem with this game (I'm playing it as I type). How is it possible that I have already found the "One True Bandolier", exterminated the Lebrechauns, AND exterminated the "Sprites" (although I didn't see any, so they must be transparent sprites), yet I'm still only a level 1 character? That's just unrealistic. A character this weak should not be able to accomplish such tasks (I've got a garbage can lid for a shield, for crying out loud). The game is just too easy. It doesn't really even seem like I have to try at all.

.... And who would pay that much gold for ghast vomit and an ape ass? :)

... I'm a lvl 5 Voodoo Princess Will'o'Wisp since you asked. :)

hahahahahaha

This is great stuff.

The scary thing is that this game is addictive. When I first found it I left it running for days building up an impressive character.

Of course it's a great time saving device.

They need to license this technology to Verant. Then all the EverCrack addicts won't have to worry about the repetitive combat. They can just put it on autoquest and get to chatting with other players like they do during combat now.

I cringe as I watch my brother-in-law play EQ...walk up to a monster, hit the auto-attack button and just sit there for 2 or 3 minutes chatting with his "friends", then take 15 seconds to walk up to another monster and start all over. Hello....ICQ! AIM! MSN Messenger! You don't have to pay $10 (?) a month to IM people. :rolleyes:

I cringe as I watch my brother-in-law play EQ...walk up to a monster, hit the auto-attack button and just sit there for 2 or 3 minutes chatting with his "friends", then take 15 seconds to walk up to another monster and start all over.
LOL I played EQ for 3 years, and left him basically for this.
I remember the old times when there were few players, and the world seemed so big and scary... and you were only a lvl 15 char who could get easily killed... but then they went on powerleveling and ruined everything. (the original team left Verant though).
Seems they'll be much more careful with EQ2. Personally I can't wait to try it :p

(ok I am going too much off-topic so I'll stop here!)

by LordKronos
The game is just too easy. It doesn't really even seem like I have to try at all.


What are you talking about? It took me an hour to reach level two. This is hard, I need to look around and see if I can find some cheat codes to make it a bit easier.

Maybe learning some of the combination attacks would help.

Wheh, my Talking Pony Mu-Fu Monk just executed 4 sick Bacon Elementals and is soon level 32! This game is just too good. Luckily I can leave my desktop on 24/7.. :)

That's hilarious - and, in some strange way, intriguing!
On a slightly more serious note has anyone ever tried this real free MMORPG??

Planeshift (http://www.planeshift.it)

It makes me a bit sad that I had this exact same idea some time ago, except with slight possibilities for interaction and some other more advanced features.

Maybe seeing this is a hint to me that such a game is indeed marketable. On the other hand, I really don't know who would pay for such a game. But it could always be used as a crowd-catcher.

Oh well, good ideas are plentiful :)

I don't think the game is marketable. It's a joke.

It's a parody of Blizzard's recent games.

click, click, click. How many of these little imps do I have to kill before I can afford that armor upgrade? click, click, click.

They've just taken out all of that annoying clicking, and comparing apple armor to the orange helm to figure out which will suit you better. Oh, and the graphics.

And you only get the joke if you've wasted hours and hours on many of those hack and slash to the next quest "RPG"s.


I don't think anyone will buy this type of game, that's why it's freeware. Maybe if it had the look of a modern kill-the-beasties-in-the-dungeon game, it would make a great screensaver.

As a screensaver, it might be marketable.

This game is frighteningly addictive...I found myself running it in the background and just staring at the little increases...

Woohoo!! A +2 holey shield!! I rock!!

Oh wait, it's not divine, it just has holes in it. Doh! :(



JC3D
On a slightly more serious note has anyone ever tried this real free MMORPG??


Those screenshots look awesome! I'll download it when I get home.

Hahaha. This game concept is simply brilliant because it has such a simple and compelling marketing hook that will get virtually anyone's attention. Judging from the volume of posts on their message boards, I'd say it's quite popular. Of course, the fact that it's free is a great incentive.

I've played planeshift a some months ago, it didn't have much to offer then. Seemed like only a few people were ever on, it was buggy, if I'm remembering correctly a good chunk of the character creation system is either missing or inbalanced... Ickily bulky feeling interface...
It looked nice at least, and had a lot of promise, should they get it completed. I'm sure it's better now... Maybe I'll try it agian sometime.

- Oh, and as for progress quest.. I've tried it myself. Not my kind of thing, since you have what.. Nil controll? :p I think what makes it so addictive, is how silly it is. Fun to watch for a while just to see what kind of oddities you'll get next.

If they have any intention of following through with an actual game (anything at all...it doesn't have to be related to PQ in any way), then this game is a brilliant marketing tool and will bring them loads of publicity.

On the other hand, if they have no plans for a real game, I'm sure at the very least they'll make a pretty penny from their merchandise (http://www.cafeshops.com/pqm) simply as novelty items.

And all for what...probably a day coding and a day typing in the quests and items? If this catches on, I wonder if anyone else will try to copy it :)

http://hamumu.com/gamelets.html

For those who find Progress Quest just slightly (SLIGHTLY) less interactive than they like, I created NPC Quest during the last 48-hour contest. Honestly, I didn't have PQ in mind at all when I made it, and not even when I titled it! I think NPC Quest is pretty fun. Lets you play the fun parts of an RPG without all that messy "gameplay" getting in the way.

I think it is really interesting psychologically. It has all the same qualities as television, you do nothing and something "progresses". In medieval times people spoke of the "magic mirror", a mirror that kept the onlookers staring at it for hours. I don't even think the lack of graphics really makes a difference. I used to play MUDs in my teens and this is essentially a mud without the difficult and unneccessary social interaction...

BTW. My Talking Pony is already level 37 (soon 38) and she's got the spell Grognor's Big Day Off at level 2 already! :)

Yeah, I was just thinking about that same "television" connection last night. Someone commented not too long ago (not sure if it was here, or slashdot, or somewhere else) that it is socially acceptable to waste away hours staring mindlessly at the TV, yet there is stigma placed on playing video games even though they engage your mind. Where does something like this fall in that backwards social-acceptability scale?

As for my character, my Trans-Kobold Robot Monk named Grumdrig (okay...I used the default name) is only level 30. However, I do have a level 13 Sadness spell. My Panda Man Tickle-Mimic at home got up to level 6 last night after going on a quest to exterminate the Kobolds... and apparently to collect their penises in the process :confused: Extermination by giving all the male Kobolds free sex changes? And is this how Grumdrig became a Trans-Kobold?.

I just figured out you can play online and upload your character stats to their server (you have to choose the Spoltog realm though), so I'm starting a new character. He's a Battle-Finch Birdrider named "Double Pecker". Did anyone else notice this game consumes almost no CPU time AND it allows you to run multiple instances? :) You could play dozens of games simultaneously. How many other games besides Bingo let you do that! Innovative, I tell you!

The "progress" aspect of this game is interesting. It hooks into people's psychological need for growth. It reminds me of when as a teenager I was addicted to old NES/Genesis games like Dragon Quest, Zelda, Crystalis, Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star, etc. Each new item or level up acts as a reward, and since the rewards are so close together, you always feel like the next reward is just a few minutes away, so it's hard to stop. It also reminds me of Seti@home, where participants feel they're accomplishing something whenever their computer finishes processing a chunk of data.

It would be interesting to add a character growth component to a puzzle game like Dweep, Fitznik, Rocknor's, etc... where your character gains experience and improves in some way (faster movement, larger inventory, etc). That could make the games far more addicting, especially if you could gain experience just by exploring levels, so you'd be rewarded even when you didn't solve a whole level. If you got stuck on a level and couldn't pass it, the level would become easier if you came back with a higher level character. Of course, this could involve some tricky nonlinear level design.

That's part of what made the MegaMan series so great, each time you beat a boss you "acquired" his weapon. Each boss had his own location/setting and you could play each location in any order. Depending on the order you chose some bosses were easier or harder to defeat, depending on if you had acquired the weapon that they were weak against.

The comments on download.com are pretty funny. Most get the joke and play along, but the ones who don't make for some entertaining reading. :)

Yeah, I should get back to work.

Yeah...progress quest is great. I was going to look at Planeshift, but frankly, segmented downloads make Baby Jesus cry. ;)

Originally posted by Dexterity
It would be interesting to add a character growth component to a puzzle game like Dweep, Fitznik, Rocknor's, etc... where your character gains experience and improves in some way (faster movement, larger inventory, etc). That could make the games far more addicting, especially if you could gain experience just by exploring levels, so you'd be rewarded even when you didn't solve a whole level.That is exactly the kind of thing I have tried to incorporate into any new game ideas we have worked on.

There are more than just character leveling to creating the addictive sense of progress development. You can add elements to the game which are almost seemingly unrelated and they'll still work pretty well. For example, you could have it so as you play through a game, you gain some sort of corrency which enables you to purchase goofy crap-- maybe as lame as different menu themes and stuff; ie, thigs not even related to the gameplay.

A game that does just that is Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast (and also Sonic Adventure 2 Battle for the Gamecube). In those, you have a little creature called a Chao, and by giving him items you power him up. You can do other things with him too, such as compete him against other Chaos online and stuff.

Actually its a whole lot like the Creatures from Black and White, but in B&W the creature is an integral part of the gameplay and the leveling up is actually too non-descript; not enough actual numbers and statistics to really hook players, and not enough direct control over how the creature develops.

- Air

Wow, great games! Mike and this Eric guy owe me a lot of wasted time!

However, NPCQuest was too hard for me and less automated than Progress Quest. Of course before reading the extensive manual! :)

So I took the time, downloaded the source and modified to my taste. I named this mod to One True NPC, which features auto dungeon entering, defaulting to fast movement, no food and heal consumption if you have one, no deleting chars, etc. I made this mod to my level 18 doctor to powerleveling him up, now he is 26.

All I have to do is the sweet job of distributing the attribute points. So that is why it is less than an angband borg.

If you would like to try this mod out, download it here: www.bkgames.com/NPCQuestOneTrue.zip extract it to the NPCQuest's directory and run NPCQuest.exe.

The other reason to recompile the source was that Mike used a freakingly buggy version of Allegro that constantly crashed on my otherwise rock stable system!

So, enjoy! :)

I hope not... I think I'm still using the same version in Supreme With Cheese!

Mike, I think you should immediately switch back to stable 4.0.3 version of allegro.

It has serious bugs in it I don't like, that's why I upgraded. I believe I'm up to the version past the one in NPC quest, which fixes some of the serious bugs in THAT version (though it's still called alleg41, because it's a very minor version change). You're actually the only person I know who's had a problem with any of these games, and when I used the 'stable' version, there were very obvious problems (really bad alt-tab stuff, I believe? I don't remember exactly). What did NPC Quest do to you?

Thank you for asking! It had overwritten parts of my windoze partition. So I have been reinstalling and recovering from the disaster since then.

Fortunately I use a debian server to backup my stuffs and I use a linux desktop for almost everything except for a few obvioius things.

God, I hate windoze!

I really doubt it had anything to do with NPC Quest... the buggiest graphics library in the world isn't going to overwrite your partition!

You should check out what else you got installed around then (I have read bad things about windows updates trashing partitions) - it could even be a virus. It's also theoretically possible that it was the NPCQ installer (that's at least something that could overwrite things), but I doubt it - it's just innosetup using completely basic values. It could also be a partitioning or double-boot related problem.

I just can't take responsibility for this one... I'm sorry it happened, but I really don't think it's my doing, or Allegro's!

Mike, wait a minute I did not say a word about you. NPCQuest is brilliant from code line 1 to the end. It is just plain brilliant. It was a joy to modify it. The greatest hack in years. :)

It is allegro who is the bad guy here. I really think you should switch back to a stable version of it or completely migrate the code into sdl. I know your time is limited, so I don't complain.

Actually only vc6, msdn, dx sdks and mozilla are on this win2k partition. With painstaking care I try to keep this little wierdo tidy. So, no unknown updates, no drivers and no other craps.

I guess when allegro crashed, it overwrote something in the registry. Then a pagefault. Restart. No locale or language settings. Insert install disk. Type, type.... Restart. Whoops, there flies windoze. And that's all folks! God bless Mr. Bill Gates.

So, again Mike, I don't hold anything against you. NPCQuest is brilliant piece of code. Congrats!

Allegro doesn't access the registry.

Originally posted by RatZiggurat
Allegro doesn't access the registry.

K, I would share my thoughts on this if you would answer me this question. Have you ever developed software on windoze with C or asm? I mean a more sophisticated than you average "Hello, World!" program. :)

Thank You,

Originally posted by Siebharinn
The comments on download.com are pretty funny. Most get the joke and play along, but the ones who don't make for some entertaining reading. :)

Yeah, I should get back to work.
My favorite:

"When I first got it and I saw everything moving, I thought that it was loading. I figured out pretty soon that that was it!"

Lol :D

Jak

K, I would share my thoughts on this if you would answer me this question. Have you ever developed software on windoze with C or asm? I mean a more sophisticated than you average "Hello, World!" program.

What does my programming background have to do with Allegro accessing the registry? :) I've been using Allegro since version 3.0 (DOS/DJGPP), and I'm pretty sure it didn't use the registry back then either. ;)

Ok, then. A few keywords we all know about: stack overflow, buffer overrun, dangling pointers, null pointers, segmentation faults, just to name a few that could trigger miriads of problems.

Originally posted by bernie
Ok, then. A few keywords we all know about: stack overflow, buffer overrun, dangling pointers, null pointers, segmentation faults, just to name a few that could trigger miriads of problems. And not a one of those should have any affect on your registry under Windows 2000. Yes I know you might think Windows is some swiss cheese kernel just waiting to be destroyed by a singular errant instruction, but I've been doing Win32 software development in Win98 and Win2k for 8+ years now (and most of it spent doing relatively low-level drivers and such) with nothing ever coming close to hacking up my system that badly.

Especially in Win2k, almost anything is caught and closed without any harm to the rest of the system. Most of the 'famed instability' of Win2k comes from questional moves Microsoft made to improve performance over WinNT 3.51 when they moved some services and drivers into the lower rings of execution. Its possible for buggy video drivers to pretty much destroy your 2k install instantly-- but I doubt allegro installs its own video drivers and there is no other way to go low-level hacking that stuff. It's just like Linux, if you access what is not meant to be accessed, your program is terminated.

For the record, I've managed to destroy a large portion of my registry and system files repeatedly in both 98 and 2k (bad RAM corrupting everything) but it never resulted in the loss of anything beyond the registry or system files. And I've never done irrepriable harm to my system via my own software ever, even when I was accidentally corrupting DirectX by overwriting locked memory buffers (caused anything DirectX-related to die instantly until I rebooted). But even DirectX doesn't have access to those secure rings of the kernel, as it has to do everything it does through the video drivers... this is especially true of 2000, where there are no DirectX-incorprated extras into the system kernel like there are in XP.

Besides, if you lost your partition then clearly something ate your boot record or FAT anyways, not your registry.

Jake, I really don't like to bash windows on public forums. I just share my experinece with others and I let them learn the lessons from it. Beside that my primary income is on this platform!

I have been developing for windows since the beginning, from v2.0. As soon as Ibm PC came down from the cocom list I have migrated to this platform. And belive me this microsoft thing is the worst thing that could happened to the pc. Every other platform was more stable, more secure, etc.. I am eagerly waiting for the moment when linux become commercialy viable platform.

So, I speak from experince. This was the fault of the unstable win2k and its drivers and the buggy WIP version of allegro. I have seen such things about windoze you would not believe.

Heh well I'm steering clear of the 'my dick's bigger than your's' debate above, but just wanted to say that I love the simplicity of PQ.

I find it highly amusing to watch my level 29 Half-Halfling Lowling execute a dead t-rex, and how he always manages to sell any 'purple worm dung' for 12 gold to some unsuspecting customer at the trading post.

I was quite upset early on when I lost a load of gold 'upgrading' my +4 Blunderbus to a simple poleax, but now that I have my trusty +20 Steely Serrated Longsword, those days are almost completely forgotten. Act III - bring it on!

The only interaction that has been required so far is to click and close the occasional 'range check error' msgbox.

-Z-

Wow Z, you really just sweat it. Mine runs fine without any trouble.

My Mu-Fu Talking Pony just gained level 50, and Act VIII is almost halfway. I love this game. :)

I've heard alot of talk about the game so i thought i'd check it out.

I went to the site, which looks crap and the only links that appear to work are info and links.

Theres no screenshots or anything. So i thought i'd check out the links section since the info page didnt explain much.

I read lots of great reviews from magazines, went to fan sites which praise the game and see some 3d screen shots, quite bad, but thats ok its not about graphics.

I download the game 300k or there about and it turns out to be 2d text based, no surprise from the dl size.

The game runs by itself with no needed imput from me, infact i can't interact with game in any way past character creation.

I don't get it, is this a joke? Maybe a take on how peaple will play these mmorpgs where you spend your time hitting a monster getting a skill increase and repeate the process time infinity?

Originally posted by Batley
I don't get it, is this a joke? Maybe a take on how peaple will play these mmorpgs where you spend your time hitting a monster getting a skill increase and repeate the process time infinity?

I've always taken it that way. Just a program you leave running in the background.

Techniquely it's not a game if theres no user interaction.

I still fail to see the point. Maybe thats the point.

Any way uninstalled.

well, yes, if the joke isn't funny to you there's no point in having it. :)

it helps if you've ever wasted time leveling up a character in an RPG... and you KNOW it's stupid and pointless... and yet you do it anyway... :)

Originally posted by papillon
it helps if you've ever wasted time leveling up a character in an RPG... and you KNOW it's stupid and pointless... and yet you do it anyway... :)

No doubt. Especially if you've ever used a script to get characters in an RPG (or especially a MUD) up to an insanely high level. I've known scripters who never actually sat to play a game, they just got a script and had it go to town, and this was before people would sell characters. Scary stuff.

Anyway, Progress Quest is right up there with PC uptime contests as far as I'm concerned. For most people it's lame, for some it's an interesting distraction, and for others it's a scary obsession.

What a hilarious game! :D It's definitely the most loser-friendly RPG I've ever played. So far my favourite quest was "Deliver this Trowel" and I can hardly wait to see how much gold I will get when I sell my "Ostentatious Gammel of Awe".

Somewhat off-topic, has anyone tried Star Wars galaxies?

Indeed an excellent mmorpg, dare I say, the most complete and complex mmorpg to date. If you are tired of hacking and slashing in other games, this is a fresh perspective.

Just wanted to drop the word ;)

Alex

To continue the off-topic, please try out Star Wars Galaxies. The visibility code (that effectively prevents cheating in the game) was made by fellow developers here in Helsinki.. :)

I have read some bad review of Star Wars Galaxies, like this one:
http://www.gamesdomain.co.uk/gdreview/zones/reviews/pc/jun03/star_wars_gal.html

but never tried it personally.

I have yet to see the MMORPG that can interest me enough to even bother borrowing someone else's account to playtest. :) This isn't just my hatred of 3d speaking, they just all sound intrinsically boring to me.

Well, Anarchy Online was at least worth looking over the shoulder of my other half while he played, because there were some *weird* visuals to experience. I'm an explorer-type on the gaming personality test, so "Look! A meat grinder!" and "Look! Dangling dinosaur breasts!" (Er, if you haven't played, take my word for it.) does perk me up for a moment. But content is hard, and visual content is hard and slow to add, and wandering around the game just looking at stuff that I can't do much with is boring.

Compare with a MOO (I was an active LambdaMOOer for years - I still have an account but I'm not around much anymore) where anyone can build new areas and objects and program new toys that actually *do* things. I think my very first project was developing a bucket of soapy water and wet sponges to throw at people...

Wasn't there an MMORPG in development that was supposed to actually allow player-built content? I remember seeing a webpage for it once but I don't think I've heard anything since. Of course, since most commercial mmogs are so heavily into trying to crack down on cheating and nerfing powerful techniques/tactics, I'm not sure how they can really have the trust necessary to let players *play*. Shrug.

I used to play MUSHes a lot back in the early nineties. I played my occasional dust of MUD:s but Progress Quest is really a much improved LPMud. But MUSHes (and MOO) were really likeable because you could build stuff. I loved coding on them, it was so easy to get something done and have it stunningly beautiful, you just wrote stunningly beautiful .. :)

One of my first MUSH project was a small "sauna" tent for a summer carnival. Really cozy and nice, and quite hot too. You could even 'throw water' to really get into the mood. The only thing lacking was a lake to go swimming in.

Jack,

That review really wasn't "bad" per say. The only flaws they mentioned were no vehicles/spacecrafts and lack of Star Wars locations.
Vehicles are going to be a free update in the coming months and the Space Travel expansion is going to be released in about 5-6 months. As for the lack of locations, I sure hope they dont have that many Star Wars locations! We arent playing the movie here, we are just playing the SW universe...So I want to only see a few things like Jabba the Hut, etc.

I used to play MUDs all the time and hated new MMORPGs. Ultima Online was flawed and boring. Meridian59 was just too earily in 3d. Ashron's Call had nothing more to do but hack and slash. Same with Everquest.

Thats when I laid my fingers on SWG. Seriously, this is like playing a graphical MUD and it actually turning out right (unlike all other mmorpgs). The player-run economy is amazing and everything fits together perfectly.

You all should really try it out if you have been fed up with other games!

Unfortunatelly, it is starting to take away from my development time hehe.

Alex

Thats when I laid my fingers on SWG. Seriously, this is like playing a graphical MUD and it actually turning out right (unlike all other mmorpgs). The player-run economy is amazing and everything fits together perfectly.
Wow that's look interesting...!!!

Unfortunatelly, it is starting to take away from my development time hehe.
Hmmm better wait after I release my first game then!! :)

Papillon,
You might be thinking of this game, Second Life. I happened by it the other day.


http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/secondlife/index.html

"Papillon,
You might be thinking of this game, Second Life. I happened by it the other day. "

Since you mention Second Life, I thought I mention

www.there.com

It also allows players to create content, such as textures and 3d models. What sucks is you have to pay for the content to be included.

John

>>Since you mention Second Life, I thought I mention www.there.com

A friend told me that There has a development budget of over 300 million! That game is going to be HUGE! And I'll bet it's going to be REALLY popular too.

Someone finally had the idea to make a massive multiplayer game for the casual gamer market. $$ Kaching! $$

____________
Damon Du Bois
www.wizardslab.com

Originally posted by damon
Someone finally had the idea to make a massive multiplayer game for the casual gamer market. $$ Kaching! $$
I thought that's what Sims Online was supposed to be. From what I heard, their "Kaching!" hasn't had as many dollar signs as they had hoped.

Personally, There doesn't look all too interesting (at least not from an entertainment point of view), so don't count on finding me There. :)

Originally posted by damon
Someone finally had the idea to make a massive multiplayer game for the casual gamer market. $$ Kaching! $$


It's called "The Sims Online," hehe. Anyway, I've played it about 6 hours total over the past few days. It's ok I guess, especially if you're just interested in goofing around. Driving the buggies and hoverboards is a lot of fun for a while too.

The main problem with the game is also one of its greatest strengths I think. Everything in the world has a real life monetary value to it. If you want to buy clothes, a pet (which are cool), a vehicle, decorations for your pad and so on you need to either buy it in the store or get it at an auction. The in-game shopping system is awesome because all they did was have it open a little in-game web browser of sorts, so it's all very familiar right away. But, some of the items can be pretty expensive, so the target audience (which I figure is 14-21) may not have the ability to feed their in-game shopping due to lack of credit cards. I'm sure they're coming up with ways around this, I'm sure it will be a problem. I question whether the people who are old enough to have access to their own credit cards will really enjoy a game that is pretty much about chatting.

Who knows, it's been fun to goof around with for now, I'm just waiting for the gameplay element that will give me the desire to stay.