April 2001
It was another lazy day for me
today, which isn't good with all this homework I've been having to do.
Today, there was math, six sections of it, and there weren't many problems
but they were hard. Vectors are really hard for me sometimes, especially
the 3D ones. Maybe I would have a better feel for them if I had more
practice in 3D graphics and architecture applications, like a lot of math-oriented
people do, but my experience has been limited in that area. I always
found myself making a lot of Doom levels but could never really get into
Quake, and Drakan uses mostly 2D for its design elements. I would
make more Unreal Tournament levels besides the few test arenas I've done
that aren't good enough to publish, but I'm kind of preoccupied with Journey
to Azenera now. Now, if only I could find some real time to work
on it without any distractions, I would be all set.
Yes! I managed to sign
up for all the classes I want to take next semester. Actually, it's
two semesters from now - there's a summer session, but I'm not going to
do that. I'm taking the next Japanese class, another environmental
class, computer science, and economics. A lot of those are to satisfy
requirements, but I really should decide on a major pretty soon.
I'll see how my computer science class and environmental classes go, and
then I'll choose something related to one of those for my major.
I'm kind of apprehensive about going into computer science, though, because
I don't really relate to the culture too well, and it seems kind of boring
compared to scientific field work. I think I would like to go out
and look for knowledge in the earth rather than sit behind a computer.
Sitting at the computer is what I do for leisure anyway, and doing that
for a career and for fun would be just too much. I might lose my
motivation to work on projects. But I guess I'll just have to wait
and see.
There aren't any problems with
Azenera level 2 yet, except that the fog is really overbearing in huge
outdoor areas. It was evident in Wartok Canyons, it was evident in
Islands, and so it's also there in Dragon Fields, which is what I'm calling
the second level for now. I keep having the idea that I'm making
a level with a clear sky on a sunny day, but the only way to do that would
be to make everything on a smaller scale. I'm not going to do that,
though, because I want there to be some real dragon action on that second
level, and future levels as well, and huge environments are better for
exploration. Now there's going to be nothing to navigate by while
flying around, but I guess that will work better for the feeling of being
lost in an unfamiliar land. All I really have to do now is change
the idea I had from a sunny sky to a foggy sky. In the final version
of Dragon Fields, there are going to be forests made of big ferns and leafy
plants, but right now, the level looks like this:
This is the area outside the Subterra caverns. As you can see, I put in placeholder textures at first, just so I can see where the polygons are and how they look, and the sky switcher hasn't been put in either so it looks like you're on the surface of a barren moon and the rest of the universe has exploded so there are no stars. Nothing like that happens in Journey to Azenera. The closest thing to that is the part of the story that starts on level 10, where you find out there's another dimension where the world is going to crash into the sun, and the evil forces on the other side are trying to open the rift between this world and the doomed one so the explosion will destroy both worlds. I won't have to worry about making that for a while. The main reason I posted this screenshot is to demonstrate why people often don't want to post screenshots on projects so early in development.
Today, I created the huge outdoor
landscape of Azenera level 2. It's not textured, and the caves aren't
placed around the edges yet, but it's a start. Now all I have to
do is connect the subterra section to the outside world, and then make
the town on the east side of the huge outdoor layer. There's going
to be a lot of dragon combat in this one, at least more than the first
level. That's not saying much, though, because there was only one
blade dragon, some orcs, and some flying bugs to defeat with Arokh.
This level will have more blade dragons to fight, as well as the ice giant.
I've decided to get rid of the
links to the ActionXtreme forums because they no longer exist. That
link just turned into a path to 3D Action Planet instead, and I don't really
visit that site. Also, I'm bringing back version 2 of Dragonmech,
which includes the custom music and dragon textures. The desert wind
sound is still in there, though, so if you don't like that, just go into
the editor and change the sound on the Sand Particle object from that wind
noise to nothing. I managed to finish my geography paper today, but
now I have to worry about registration for next year, so that's going to
take up a big part of my weekend. Then I have final exams to study
for, and after that it's time to go back home to Minnesota! I think
I'll have time to work on my projects then unless I end up working all
day.
I'm not going to do anything
about my e-mail until this geography project is finished. My group
completed my rough draft of the Japanese dialogue, but I have a feeling
this geography project is going to take up most of tomorrow. Now,
I want to get some sleep. I'll be able to talk about Azenera later,
maybe tomorrow if I manage to get finished quickly.
No, I'm not almost done with
level 2 of Azenera. I'll have to hold off on that until Friday, because
I seriously have to finish this paper for geography class. I've found
a bunch of data about soils and vegetation and I'm just trying to get use
out of a lot of it and make it integrate nicely. Then I have to write
the bibliography and make it less redundant if I can, and that's not going
to be fun.
Well, this is a big week for
me here at college because I have a big project due for geography class
on Friday. It's a huge, six-page paper about soils and vegetation
in two towns in Wisconsin. I've chosen the cities of Wausau and Milwaukee,
which have enough similarities and differences to matter. Milwaukee
has clay soil and limestone, and Wausau is on top of alluvial deposits
near the Wisconsin River, so they're both sediment-based places affected
by glacial till. I also have to help my group in Japanese class make
up a skit involving confused tourists or something, and I promised Lightblade
I would put his levels on my server.
Lightblade, another one of the
Golden Guardians, has made a few levels. He's also working on a portal
level with dungeons and other areas to explore. I've tested these
levels and taken some screenshots from them.
Archery Arena
This level consists of a central arena with a bow and arrow powerup
object, and the outside world, where there are crates and mountains.
You get ice arrows, fire arrows, and a lot of normal arrows.
Water Arena
This is a duel level with an arena that has walls made of solid water.
Your weapon is a water-elemental sword that does a heavy amount of damage.
Ruins of Fear
This level is shrouded in darkness, except for buildings which glow
an eerie red or green color. There are two teams on this level, so
choose one and go at it!
Mauls
The nail that sticks up must be hammered down, and in this duel level
you'll get plenty of opportunities to hammer your opponents into oblivion.
Storm Fortress
It is your mission as the siege team to desecrate as many storm crystals
as you can! Or, if you choose to be on the defender team, it is your
mission to use your superior weaponry to stop the siege.
I once had the Drakan level editor
freeze up as it was saving the latest version of Azenera, causing it to
completely erase the level file and leave a version of Azenera 01.lvl that
had no data in it. Fortunately, I had created a backup archive of
all the files recently, so I was able to restore it without any problems.
I've decided to play it safe and keep several of these archives on my hard
drive, making a new version after every day or every major update, and
even put the latest ones on this site in case my hard drive crashes.
I won't post links to it because most of the updates are unplayable levels.
Now that I'm working on a constantly updated project, I know why game companies
can be so slow to release a beta; they're often just not in a stage of
development where the product would be any good at all. Right now,
I'm up to Azenera 02.02, where most of the landscape in the "Subterra"
section of level 2 is done. This includes the ghost cave and force
field hub rooms. The only problem is, with the order I do things,
most of the layers aren't renamed (Surreal didn't do this with their levels),
very few objects are placed, only the base textures are there, and the
layer lighting is still the default near-fullbright setting which, along
with the unfinished texturing, makes it very ugly and bad for discerning
depth in the landscape.
Right now, Journey to Azenera
level 2 is subtitled "The Second Level" because I'm just so creative.
Actually, it's like that because I don't yet know what the primary theme
of the level is going to be. I'm working on a cave that is home to
an ancient ghost spirit, like Tuiri but in death mage form and with an
undisclosed past. This cave is in the middle of a huge underground
complex with force fields everywhere. Then you emerge from underground
into a huge valley, where blade dragons and other monsters await you.
In this valley, there will be a path leading to a cave with another ghost
spirit, which will become your translator for every line of dialogue spoken
to you by most of the characters in the game. The valley will also
contain the new Kavoh city, where you'll be able to go on a few quests,
eventually leading up to one where you are granted passage to a valley
containing an ice giant. This will be the first boss monster you
fight with Arokh. Then you'll go into another valley and maybe some
caves too, fighting enemies and getting to use the ice breath you get from
the giant, until finally you come across another force field (you'll be
getting really tired of these) that you can't get through yet. You'll
have to find an object in the rainforest swamps, which only Rynn can get
to but not Arokh. That's going to be level 3, though, and level 4
will be on the other side of the force field.
I went to the Earth Day event
here at Madison today. There were several groups there representing
a number of causes, such as environmentalism, sexual assault awareness,
and freedom for political prisoners around the world. Several bands
played at the park, many with messages to tell people, many who just wanted
to play. I always feel so ambiguous about the group displays and
petitions they have at these kinds of events. On one hand, I would
feel guilty for not signing a petition because it's most likely a worthy
cause, but then I can't help but feel that maybe some of these petitions
are based on emotional reactions rather than careful consideration.
I usually just sign them anyway just to be nice, and also because I'm a
spineless fool who doesn't want to offend anyone. When I'm not faced
with real situations, I can be the most callous, distant person you've
ever seen. But you'll hardly ever see me like that, because I just
care too much in reality and I seem to forget all about saying something
that might go against the grain. It's only when I really get to know
someone and feel safe around them that I revert back to my mean, sarcastic
self. I guess most people are like that a little.
Today I started making the cave
system at the beginning of Azenera level 2, but that was interrupted when
I went to a house meeting about the recent racist insult. I went
along with about a hundred other people to show my support for the person
who was slighted, and I even took some pictures which I'll have developed
as soon as I get back home. I really need more pictures to send my
parents so they can see what life here at college is like. Now, I'm
really tired again, just like last night, so I'm going to bed.
I'm really going to make an effort
to get the next 13 Azenera levels done faster. I've started on level
2 today, but I've been really tired so I can't write much coherently.
Maybe I'll be able to later. As for what's been happening in my life
lately, besides my recent feelings of sickness and lethargy, there's been
a racist threat here at my dorm. This is the year 2001, for crying
out loud, racism is supposed to have been eliminated by now. I'm
not actually fooling myself like that because I see stuff like that on
the political discussion boards I read. Not racist comments, but
people commenting on them. It usually becomes a free speech issue,
but people who discuss that never take enough time to comment on why some
people feel they need to say offensive things at all. They must think
that if a large number of people change their mind and stop wanting to
see racism all over the place, it's because of liberal Communist tree-hugger
totalitarianism suppressing people's thoughts.
Technically, I finished making
the first level of Azenera a few months ago. Then I got sidetracked
by other projects, mostly multiplayer levels like Auropolis and the five
I just put on this site, but during that time I put a lot of thought into
the Azenera story and decided to add a lot. I also learned a lot
more about how to make things in the editor, like structures made out of
landscape. Now, I have a few basic techniques mastered, and I decided
to partially remake Azenera level 1. I promise I won't take this
long on level 2. If I did, then Drakan 3 would probably be out by
the time I finished. I really wish there were more people playing
Drakan, but as long as at least one person plays it and enjoys it, it'll
be worth it. Even if it's someone who wants to have Indians from
Africa as an enemy in Traveler's Quest.
As you can see from the second picture, the fortress and many other areas are still mostly the same. The third picture is the ridge separating the first and second levels. I was originally going to have a lava pit there or something, but decided a ridge only passable with the dragon would be better. You can get Azenera 1.05 here. The level will be updated constantly, and more will be added, so look for future versions later!
After remaking a few parts of
the first level of Azenera to match the rest of the level series's story,
I almost have it ready to send out. I already made Meridian, which
is just a prototype, and now Azenera level 1 is almost complete too.
Level 2 will take a much shorter time to complete because I already have
most of the level database information done, including that ice giant enemy
and the friendly Kavoh goblins, and I already have the level structure
planned out somewhat. I really have to get started on a few projects
for college, though, like a big 6-page report on soils in Wisconsin, and
that will require going to the library way on the other side of the campus
and doing hundreds of searches on obscure books that may not have ever
even been written, so my work on level 2 will be stalled a bit. But
don't worry - if you missed Meridian, you'll be able to play Azenera level
1 soon enough, the way it was supposed to be played. The damage values
will be lower for special moves but higher for weapons overall, fall damage
will be reduced, some enemies will be tinted by alternate layer lighting,
and best of all, you'll be able to pick up the weapons of all enemies except
the war giant! That includes orc clubs and Wartok weapons, although
they'll have low durability and swing really slowly. I think I'll
either use the Axe of Fire or a modified version of it as the Wartoks'
default axe weapon instead of that double-bladed axe because the latter
looks kind of cheesy to me.
I made a few more test arenas
for Journey to Azenera, but they're not as good as the first one so I'm
not going to have it here to download. I'll just describe what I
did. First, I made an arena with two enemies: an ice giant and a
crystal ice cannon. The giant throws ice swords at you and the cannon
shoots an ice beam, and when you destroy the giant, the cannon explodes.
I'm planning on having an enemy like that as a major foe on the second
level of Azenera, where you get the ice weapon. The other arena had
two war giants, and you only got a small weapon. I set the giants'
Retaliate property to 1.0 so you could get them to start fighting each
other until one died, and all you would have to do is tap the other one
a little until it died as well. I might have two enemies like that
in Azenera as well, or maybe I'll make it so there's a swarm of enemies
that you can get to accidentally hit a big enemy, who then does all your
fighting for you. A bunch of succubi against a war giant, perhaps.
I've decided to add a few things
to the first level of Azenera. First, I have extended the first part
of the level, making it so you start out in a different place and go to
the original starting point later. The new section is really just
somewhere you pass through quickly, but it gives you more time with the
dragon and it helps the storyline. It also makes the first dialogue
lines in the game more relevant, because you begin close to a force field,
facing it. Now, instead of starting with the spiked staff weapon,
you get it after roasting an orc with Arokh's breath. I also plan
to add a few areas to the game where it looks like there's a blocked-off
path, because it'll seem less linear that way and make the world more believable.
The artificial flight ceiling that makes it impossible to fly over mountains
already requires some suspension of disbelief, though, and I'm not really
going for realism in these levels.
If you make levels for Drakan,
and you want to use anything from my Auropolis
level, you can go right ahead. It was originally meant to be the
meeting hall level for my Drakan clan, the Golden Guardians, but it doesn't
work online. It would only be good on a LAN, apparently. I'm
going to make a smaller version to be the meeting hall, using only the
castle and dragon arena, and get rid of most of the objects. You
might want to convert Auropolis to a single player level, because it's
certainly big enough to be one. I'm not going to do that because
I'm already making Azenera.
I made a little single player
battle level, Azenera Arena, based on the
Journey to Azenera databases. It just has a few items and enemies,
but it's a good test of functions like timers and sequences that will be
found in the levels. I also made enemies different colors and added
enemies armed with fireballs and ice bombs.
Great news! I am finally
able to connect to this server through FTP and update my site from college!
Now, let's just hope they meant to let me get through and that this isn't
some accident, but I guess I shouldn't get greedy. After all, I'm
glad to just have my ability to play games returned. The server operators
are a very arbitrary and unpredictable group, and I never know just what
will work on the Internet one day and what will be blocked.
Well, I said I wasn't going to
make any new multiplayer Drakan levels, but in a moment of weakness, I
ended up making five new multiplayer ground levels. I can't help
it, I just get these ideas for little multiplayer arenas that I think would
be cool, and I start the editor and don't stop until the level is done!
If only I could do that with Azenera, it would be done now, but single
player levels take a lot of work and are really daunting. Until I
get finished with the next level of Azenera, one with a lot more air battles
and an underground city, plus the first contact with friendly creatures,
I offer these new levels for you:
Aquazone
This is a ground map with all the standard items. It looks like
it's underwater but plays normally. This one has a bow in the middle.
Rainmarsh
Yet another level in the wetlands, following Swamp of Mystery and Dragonmire
Swamp, Rainmarsh has a weapon that can be powered up six different ways.
You play as the goblin/Rynn hybrid from Auropolis, with custom colors.
Quantum Arena
It's a standard duel arena, like Sky Island, but in this one the background
pulsates and everything leaves behind motion trails. It works best
in 32 bit color.
Ice Islands
Another normal ground map. Jump across a series of ice floes
in the wavy ocean, but don't fall in the water!
Runeless Relic
It's Relic, but with no runes or rings. Those have been replaced
with armor. This level was inspired by an endless argument about
whether using runes in combat is fair or not.
I also made version 0.07 of Auropolis, my huge ambitious level for the Golden Guardians. It has the very annoying problem of not being able to finish loading when you try to play it on a server running anywhere but your own computer. Apparently the object database is too big or something. Oh well, at least there's a lot in there that can be used in other levels, like the goblin skin in Rainmarsh.