Note: if you started downloading it before this message existed then you will need to grab it again.  There was a major bug that slipped through my testing and required a hasty update.  I'm finishing the upload as I type this.

Download here: http://mythruna.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Engine_Test_Build
Change log here: http://mythruna.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=20110922_Release_Notes

So the big feature of this build is the new property system.  It's about 80% complete at this point and I'm sure we're all bound to find lots of bugs with it.  (In fact, I already found one in testing after release... but not serious enough to delay for now.)

Every player starts with one stronghold that they can place where they like.  The maximum area is 1024 square meters... or about 32x32.

Right clicking on any of the markers will bring up a radial menu that lets you do stuff with it.

'p' brings up the property tab and you can see your holdings though this interface is only mildly helpful for strongholds right now.  It will tell you what the current area size is.

Big note: I do reserve the right at this early stage to remove and/or move property borders as we work out the kinks of the system... and/or if people snag property that I know who already built something there.

Also: I've grabbed all of Spawntown which makes some of your buildings uneditable until I implement the ability to give out plots.  Please be patient while I get that feature implemented but in the mean time I have a lot less griefing to fix now.

Some limitations:
-the property system is essentially 2D.  A town or a stronghold claims an area on the map... so you can't stack properties.
-currently corners must be placed "on the surface" which will make defining things like underwater cities kind of tough.  In fact, water isn't considered a surface when placing corners but will interfere with dragging them.  Atlantis with its glass ceilings may be immune from this issue, actually.
-the bug I mentioned above is that the code used to find the elevation for the corner markers ignores non-natural materials... which is kind of lame.  I will fix it with the next release but I then have to put in some other checking.  But it's what may allow the glass ceilinged cities to work.


Missing features:
-when dragging a property's corners, there is no way to see how much of your maximum area is used yet.
-there is currently no way to give town plots to other players.
-the only way to get a town is to be granted one by an admin (me)... but that will be true for a long time.
-the property panel mini-map is not yet implemented.
-the world map does not show property borders.
-the world map does not allow you to turn off the labels for strongholds or cities/towns.
-you cannot give other player badges to allow them edit rights in your town for shared building... in fact, the whole badges system is missing from this release and is the bulk of the rest of the "property system".
-there are no useful actions that can be performed from the property UI.  Eventually there will be property-specific actions as well as actions you can perform on your property's badges and sub-plots.  (For example, currently the only way to rename a property is to go to it and right click on one of its markers.... that's lame but you will eventually be able to do it through the property UI.  You will also eventually be able to randomly layout town plots from here.)
-for those of you who get granted towns, the town/cities section of your property ledger does not allow paging and so after 10 or so plots will leak out of the bottom.  The town view panel has a working scroll bar, though.


But... there were pretty sizable infrastructure changes to make all of this happen and they will make other things much easier.  The scripting system advanced quite a bit with this release as nearly 100% of the property handling code is in the scripting layer.

Lots of tweaking but I think the feature is getting there.


When I have the other 20% implemented (and maybe partially before that) I will put up some detailed wiki pages on how to use the property system.  I will also post a tutorial video if GameToker doesn't beat me to it... though he may need a tutorial video to learn enough to make the tutorial video.

Thanks for reading!  Hopefully your exploration and mass land-grab goes well.

I dont get it that ppl have fun spamming around the server or here or whatever. Waste of time.

Your physics video was not as bad as you pretend
Of course there were some bugs but movement of objects etc. looked really well. So I'm curious to watch some videos 

Fair enough.   I still find chairs and things in random places on my test world.

When I get some minor kinks worked out, I may at least enable it for object to world collisions.  It's the object to object collisions where things get really unstable but it would be good to start finalizing some of the other parts.

I also need to spend some good time rethinking object attachments... specifically I need to think about the larger object -> player and the player -> hand-held object attachments.  There are a few dozen things that rely on those aspects pretty critically and it's something I can't cheat on.  (For example, door hinges can be cheated if real physics attachments turn out to be too unstable.)

Tru dat, Whats the priority of physics, Like RIGHT NOW... THIS SECOND?!

Heheh.  Something like that.  Even after this "property system" release (probably tonight or tomorrow) then I will have some more property stuff to finish but on the side I will start easing physics back into my coding efforts.  I will definitely post more videos if I make headway.

The way things are scaled, it's not really easily possible to overlap unless you have two undersized areas near each other (ie: the property was placed but not expanded to its full size).  Also, the owner can move the label and rotate it within the plot.  So I guess if you move it really far to one edge you might overlap someone else right up next to you.

It will be possible to have pins like the spawn flag but I don't  know when I will do it.  As much as possible, I wanted it to look like a hand-drawn map with the places written on it... which is why I give the owner of a property the option to move and rotate the label as needed.

The town sub-plots will almost certainly be done this way, though... those plots are really quite tiny in comparison.  But I may also see about rendering the text if you are in maximum zoom.

See... the issue... and it was going to be a surprise... is that on the side I'm working on a live mini-map that you can leave open while walking around.  So map pins don't work so well for that.  The more info I can lay right on the map the better.

Since I posted them to Facebook I shall post them here as well.

Slightly different version of the one before without the town/city plots open.


And how far I've gotten with displaying properties on the map before calling it a night:


Note: the little dots on the map was where I placed water blocks when I was determining what the size of the property areas was when I was initializing figuring out what their max sizes should be.

For example, I just snapped this "work in progress" screen.  Some parts are undone or still in test mode but hopefully it makes a little more sense:



To get that view, I expanded the "Towns" part of the tree and selected "Spawn Overlook" to get it to appear on the right.  Then I expanded my "Town/City Plots"... it just happens to be that all of my plots come from Spawn Overlook right now so the lists are similar.

Not that kind of plot... a "plot of land".

People who have cities or towns can give out small plots of land to allow people to build in their town.  It's the only way anyone else can build in a city/town.  This will also be how you get NPCs to move in and start businesses... by offering up plots for certain types of buildings.

That part of the tree lists the plots that you own in various towns and cities (including your own).

I hope that makes things clearer.

Eventually all of that stuff will be there.  You won't be able to change blocks farther away than x meters from your location and you won't be able to move faster than x m/sec.  The first is pointless without the second and the second gets implemented with real physics.

Yeah, it was just one of those things... glancing at the server and seeing the logs fly by... "Whoah!"

It pointed out two things this client was exploiting that I plan to clamp down in the future... so at least there is that.

Note: if you made block changes after 1:00 AM or so (I think) then they will have been reverted as that's when the snapshot was last marked.

I apologize if that happened to anyone but the damage was too widespread and random to spot clean.  If you lost a lot of work then I can spot restore it for you.

Just had a sort of Denial of Service style attack on the public server.  Random blocks placed everywhere...



The server is offline for a minute while I back up the world and then restore the snapshot.  I could just restore the snapshot but I wanted to do a full backup first.

I have this much working for real in game now:





The groups in the tree on the left expand/collapse as they are selected.  So far, the panel on the right I just have the graphics setup but it's important to note that it's already built so that it can animate rolling up and rolling down.  Still at least two more nights of UI work but I think it will be worth it in the long run to have this feature nearly 100% complete.

You can place property claims anywhere.  A "player stronghold" is default 32x32 area but can be dragged to any size as long as the area does not exceed 1024.  They protect an area from bedrock to sky.

A town is 128x128 by default and can also be stretched as above, obviously with a larger max area.  Cities are the same but larger, I don't remember the number of the top of my head.

The plots that are given out in a town or a city vary in size.  They also limit min/max elevation... and the size and heights are different for cities (smaller and taller).

The plan is to draw stronghold, town, and city names on the big map as well as borders if that layer is toggled on.  Both of those layers can be turned off.  When you are in a town/city, then the sub-plot borders will be drawn.  I haven't decided if there will be a way to turn them on all the time.

In the town view in that pictures, those drawn borders are the sub-plots for the town.  At some point, I hope that selection in the list at the bottom is reflected in that small map, and vice versa.  I don't know if I will have that done for this release.

Thanks!  I have the left part of the screen working already and it looks exactly like in that picture... with a few other things (like I added the number of properties to the group name... Strongholds (2) or whatever.)

Tonight I hope to work on the right side of it... but cranking along so far.