Hello everyone! I'm in the process of creating a new project for my personal website Zeniea.com called ZEN3MP. Some of you have already seen it but in this thread I'll be detailing updates with the website as they come and also taking feature requests and feedback. I also may use this to ask for help on any questions I have as I am relearning a lot of web development stuff.
The main goal of the site is to operate as a lightweight social network with an emphasis on RPG Questing and an in-game economy. It is developed using PHP, MySQL, Bootstrapv4 and uses bits of jQuery. I'm using it primarily as a passion project but also a portfolio piece eventually when I try to look for work. I will write up the site rules soon but just try not to be ignorant on it until I make a private profile function please. And don't intentionally exploit things. I'm like 99% sure everything is good right now, and I will end up posting source code eventually too so it can be peer reviewed but I just wanna clean things up first.
Once fully realized it will contain elements similar to zQuest in the sense that quests you embark on will use a variety of animated images and HTML5 canvas to portray the experience as to make it compatible for mobile users. It will use your characters stats to interact with world objects and you will earn items for your inventory. You will have a variety of typical RPG combat options to select from as well as an NPC conversation system (hopefully) I plan to build a pretty in depth Quest system using PHP classes and then building an admin panel to allow for high ranking members to build their own rudimentary quests.
I also plan on having item collection be a very important part of the site, where many items accrue rarity over time and are earned through quests while meeting special conditions and then allowing users to start up shops and barter their items among each other. More progression in the questing and economic aspect of the site will provide the user with more flair they can use for their social aspects like badges, ranks, icons, access to new quests, etc etc. Also the RPG system is loosely based on Morrowind as of rn, without the Major and Minor skills and with some slight balances. I expect the nature of the battle engine to change as new classes are added and the "meta" develops.
So I will probably update this thread in tandem wth the Site News section. I won't like directly copy paste but I wouldn't doubt to see some overlay there. As of right now you can register, create your character, login, post, private message, search for users, add and remove friends, get notifications, like posts, all the bare minimum. Also there is a darksky theme.
Any questions?
The main goal of the site is to operate as a lightweight social network with an emphasis on RPG Questing and an in-game economy. It is developed using PHP, MySQL, Bootstrapv4 and uses bits of jQuery. I'm using it primarily as a passion project but also a portfolio piece eventually when I try to look for work. I will write up the site rules soon but just try not to be ignorant on it until I make a private profile function please. And don't intentionally exploit things. I'm like 99% sure everything is good right now, and I will end up posting source code eventually too so it can be peer reviewed but I just wanna clean things up first.
Once fully realized it will contain elements similar to zQuest in the sense that quests you embark on will use a variety of animated images and HTML5 canvas to portray the experience as to make it compatible for mobile users. It will use your characters stats to interact with world objects and you will earn items for your inventory. You will have a variety of typical RPG combat options to select from as well as an NPC conversation system (hopefully) I plan to build a pretty in depth Quest system using PHP classes and then building an admin panel to allow for high ranking members to build their own rudimentary quests.
I also plan on having item collection be a very important part of the site, where many items accrue rarity over time and are earned through quests while meeting special conditions and then allowing users to start up shops and barter their items among each other. More progression in the questing and economic aspect of the site will provide the user with more flair they can use for their social aspects like badges, ranks, icons, access to new quests, etc etc. Also the RPG system is loosely based on Morrowind as of rn, without the Major and Minor skills and with some slight balances. I expect the nature of the battle engine to change as new classes are added and the "meta" develops.
So I will probably update this thread in tandem wth the Site News section. I won't like directly copy paste but I wouldn't doubt to see some overlay there. As of right now you can register, create your character, login, post, private message, search for users, add and remove friends, get notifications, like posts, all the bare minimum. Also there is a darksky theme.
Any questions?
It's def gonna take some time to really get the quest system where I'd like it to be though. I'm not sure how I plan on designing it so that the users stats are injected into the HTML5 canvas games but I was thinking about hidden input forms. Might be a bit hacky. It's not a huge priority rn as I'm trying to complete my character class and leveling features first, but I'd like to start planning database structure and features now so it's easy to adapt and built onto in the future.
I need to interface with more javascript frameworks as well, I think a lot of functionality could be done with the right tools I just don't know them yet.
I need to interface with more javascript frameworks as well, I think a lot of functionality could be done with the right tools I just don't know them yet.
So after nine months in development I am here to give a status update on what I've done since then.
Organization wise I've gotten rid of mysqli functions almost entirely for PDO and I've shifted away from the HTML output inside my classes and have been using twig for templating. This has made developing new features a lot easier but took awhile to convert over and there's still some stragglers leftover that I've been too lazy or unaware of to change. Getting rid of the last of those dirty code habits and removing mysqli setup from the config will feel good whenever I get around to it.
Quests (aka webcomics) are currently available in a linear form. I have not began writing or developing any actual quests but I have set up the basis of the database layout and the ability for me to manage them. The logs and the saving/loading feature are not complete but in terms of just navigating the quests it's good to go. I've got a friend working on the quests with me this time around and here is some of the character concept art so far.
Item Shop is also in a similar functional but incomplete state. If you currently have a character made you can purchase items from the shop and they will appear in your profile inventory. Outside of showing you there names and the quantity you own there's no use for them. This will become important in quests and later in character customization.
The verification process and creating a character have been separated. So new signups can now go to the Quest page or their profile to start the New Character creation process.
Rewards for posting have been added. As of right now on the main timeline if you post with text you get a reward of gold based on your stats and some other factors. It's still also very early on as I'd like to add experience and the opportunity for items to be rewarded as well but I'm fleshing that out with the quests as they will have lots of rewards in them.
I've also began working on a small message board for the site to discuss more long form topics and keep it from spilling too heavily into the lightweight blogging style posts. I'm still not exactly sure the form I'd like it to take whether itll be more like an imageboard or like a topic forum but it's something I'm working on which will probably also have rewards built into it, much like acmlm.
Additionally a lot of some QOL changes have been made cleaning up some things. I think the forum will be good especially for like errors and feedback on the site so I can fix things. There's so much to be done with the code that certain pages don't get attention while I'm developing other features and at this time it's all pretty volatile.
TL;DR Quests, Shops, and rewards are in a beta form while the rest of the site has been fixed up a lot.
Organization wise I've gotten rid of mysqli functions almost entirely for PDO and I've shifted away from the HTML output inside my classes and have been using twig for templating. This has made developing new features a lot easier but took awhile to convert over and there's still some stragglers leftover that I've been too lazy or unaware of to change. Getting rid of the last of those dirty code habits and removing mysqli setup from the config will feel good whenever I get around to it.
Quests (aka webcomics) are currently available in a linear form. I have not began writing or developing any actual quests but I have set up the basis of the database layout and the ability for me to manage them. The logs and the saving/loading feature are not complete but in terms of just navigating the quests it's good to go. I've got a friend working on the quests with me this time around and here is some of the character concept art so far.
Item Shop is also in a similar functional but incomplete state. If you currently have a character made you can purchase items from the shop and they will appear in your profile inventory. Outside of showing you there names and the quantity you own there's no use for them. This will become important in quests and later in character customization.
The verification process and creating a character have been separated. So new signups can now go to the Quest page or their profile to start the New Character creation process.
Rewards for posting have been added. As of right now on the main timeline if you post with text you get a reward of gold based on your stats and some other factors. It's still also very early on as I'd like to add experience and the opportunity for items to be rewarded as well but I'm fleshing that out with the quests as they will have lots of rewards in them.
I've also began working on a small message board for the site to discuss more long form topics and keep it from spilling too heavily into the lightweight blogging style posts. I'm still not exactly sure the form I'd like it to take whether itll be more like an imageboard or like a topic forum but it's something I'm working on which will probably also have rewards built into it, much like acmlm.
Additionally a lot of some QOL changes have been made cleaning up some things. I think the forum will be good especially for like errors and feedback on the site so I can fix things. There's so much to be done with the code that certain pages don't get attention while I'm developing other features and at this time it's all pretty volatile.
TL;DR Quests, Shops, and rewards are in a beta form while the rest of the site has been fixed up a lot.