https://worldforge.org/ Recent content in Worldforge on Worldforge - the Free MMORPG project Hugo en-us https://worldforge.org/about/news/2024-10-27/ Sun, 27 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2024-10-27/ One of the latest additions to the tools used by the Worldforge project is the Squall library. This small library aims to provide a one-stop solution to Worldforge for any kind of assets synchronization. We had a couple of different use cases that we wanted to support. Our clients should be able to provide a base set of assets. But each server should then be able to update the assets used. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2023-11-07/ Tue, 07 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2023-11-07/ The Worldforge project contains a large selection of different libraries, server, client and tools. For quite some while these have all been spread out into separate repositories. One of our initial thoughts was to release these components separately so that various third party projects could use them. However, as time went by it became apparent that this vision never materialized. None of our libraries have seen use outside Worldforge. Thus is was only natural to combine the components that are in active use into one monorepo, which can be found here. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2023-01-10/ Tue, 10 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2023-01-10/ The Cyphesis server is mainly written in C++ and provides scripting though Python. All the rules that make the world tick are written in Python. However, so far there hasn’t been a good way to provide good documentation for the bindings. Any Python develop would have had to either look at previous code, or look up the actual bindings themselves. With a recent change we now provide automated Python “stubs”, which helps a lot. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2022-12-13/ Tue, 13 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2022-12-13/ We’ve updated the main site. It’s now the same as the old, but instead of using a CMS (Concrete5) we’ve opted for a simpler approach using the Hugo static site generator. Everything should look pretty much the same as before. We’ve now also removed the ability to comment on posts and pages, as this only served as a magnet for spambots. The source code for the site can now be found at Github. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2020-06-17/ Wed, 17 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2020-06-17/ A while ago I was asked about an example of how the Worldforge rules work. The focus was especially on how a series of simple rules allows for more complex game mechanics. Since I wrote down an example of how consumption works I thought I might as well post it here, since it provides a good example of how we think about game rules. One example could be the “bread” entity type. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2020-06-14/ Sun, 14 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2020-06-14/ Worldforge _finally_ got “movement constraints” implemented. This feature basically allows world creators to declare rules for which entities the players are allowed to move. Previously there were no constraints, so any random player could pick up any random other entity (such as a house, or another player). As with so many other things the main reason why such a seemingly basic feature took such a long time to implement is that we want to make the rules generic and dynamic enough to allow for many different kinds of games. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2019-12-30/ Mon, 30 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2019-12-30/ We’ve extended our infrastructure for building installable packages and now provide a wider variety. Since before we have used the Open Build Service to automatically build packages for a wide selection of Linux distros. This setup can be viewed here. This setup has now been expanded with both TravisCI, AppVeyor and Snapcraft. On TravisCI we have a setup where we build packages for both Linux and OSX, using both GCC and Clang. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2019-09-23/ Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2019-09-23/ Recently I’ve performed a major refactoring of how entity interaction happens in the Worldforge system. The basis of it is the new “usages” property which declares the actions that are available for each entity. As an example of how this can be used I’ve implemented a simple “fishing” task. When fishing you need a “fishing rod”, and you need worms (or “annelids” as they are called in the system). You get these by digging in the ground with a shovel and then sifting through the resulting piles of earth with a sieve. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2018-05-21/ Mon, 21 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2018-05-21/ I’ve done some work in Cyphesis to allow for much more powerful features for live editing of the world, mainly editing rules and scripts. Cyphesis have since long before had support for live editing of rules. It has been possible to send Atlas operations from clients for editing or installing new rules. However, this is not really the workflow you would want, since any rule change would be detached from the source code. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2018-05-20/ Sun, 20 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2018-05-20/ Our main server, Cyphesis, now uses SQLite instead of PostgreSQL by default. The main reason for this change is to make the system less complex and to make setup easier. For a long time we’ve used PostgreSQL as backend for all persisted data. Our persistence needs are however very modest. We only store accounts (created once) and entity state. As such we don’t really need a complex database system; it’s good enough with a simpler system. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2018-04-20/ Fri, 20 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2018-04-20/ The Worldforge Blender Addon has been seen a large update, adding some cool features and fixing some long standing issues. In this post I’ll describe what’s changed. But first, What is the Worldforge Blender Addon? Blender is the designated tool used by the Worldforge project to create 3d assets (“meshes”). It’s a fully featured, professional and totally free 3d creation tool. Since all of our assets are provided as Free Software it’s important that the source material is in a format which allows anyone to access it. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2018-03-13/ Tue, 13 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2018-03-13/ The Open Build Service is a pretty awesome service which allow for (fairly) easy setup of automatic builds of packages on most major Linux distributions. We’re currently using it to automate builds of all Worldforge components on OpenSuSE, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu. Our own little space can be found here. Check out the current status of the builds here. Apart from creating RPM and DEB packages there’s also support for AppImage, which is an executable format for Linux. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2017-11-26/ Sun, 26 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2017-11-26/ There’s been a couple of changes to Ember lately. I’ll try to summarize them here * The biggest one is that we now use OpenGL 3 and later. Previously we used OpenGL 2. The main reason is that OpenGL 3 has a couple of features that we really benefit from, especially when it comes to instancing techniques. Support for this version should also be solid, with all modern GPUs providing compatible drivers. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2017-11-25/ Sat, 25 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2017-11-25/ Worldforge has for quite some time used IRC for official chat. However, since a couple of years the usefulness have been steadily declined. One of the main disadvantages or the IRC system is that there’s no easy way to keep offline conversations going. If you’re not logged in you will simply miss out on questions asked and answers given. Given the global nature of the Worldforge project, with users in different time zones, this makes most conversations fruitless. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2017-07-23/ Sun, 23 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2017-07-23/ Atlas-C++ version 0.6.4 has been released and is now available from the WorldForge download site. Atlas-C++ is the standard implementation of the WorldForge Atlas protocol. This release is primarily aimed at developers and users who want to build the WorldForge system for themselves. Major changes in this version: Removal of deprecated C++ “throws” feature which broke build on GCC 7 Addition of a debug output Atlas bridge Source code can be downloaded from the following locations: https://worldforge.org/about/news/2015-09-28/ Mon, 28 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2015-09-28/ Recently I’ve done some work on adding proper path finding to Cyphesis. This is something we (surprisingly enough one might think) have been lacking for so many years. The work isn’t done yet, but here’s a short demonstration of the work in progress. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2015-09-19/ Sat, 19 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2015-09-19/ I’ve just pushed some changes to the Ember client which makes it conform to the XDG Basedir spec. The main difference is that the ~/.ember directory isn’t used anymore. Instead configuration files are put in ~/.config/ember while data files are put in ~/.local/share/ember. During startup the contents of ~/.ember will be migrated, and a backup will be made in ~/.emberlegacy. Many thanks to Olek Wojnar for making the bulk of the changes. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2015-05-27/ Wed, 27 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2015-05-27/ I just pushed a rather large changeset to the Cyphesis server which redesigns the mind code so that all AI code now is handled by one or many processes separate from the server. This is a big change to how the Cyphesis server works. Previously all world simulation and mind code was handled by the one Cyphesis executable, in one single threaded process. Now the server instead only focuses on world simulation and various house keeping tasks, while separate processes handle all AI code. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2015-05-23/ Sat, 23 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2015-05-23/ We’ve now merged the work Yaroslav Taben did last summer on a new entity filtering system. For a lack of better name we’re calling it the Entity Query Language. Why is this needed? A lot of the AI code in Cyphesis deals with selecting and acting on entities. Consider a “Flee” goal for example. This should be used by weak creatures to flee from dangerous creatures. As soon as a dangerous creature comes within range the creature to which the goal belongs to should turn tail and elope. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-08-24/ Sun, 24 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-08-24/ During the summer three students have worked on Worldforge as part of Google Summer of Code. With this year’s program now coming to a close we would like to highlight these three students and the work they’ve done. Céline Noël, Smartbody integration in Ember Céline has been working on integrating the Smartbody system into Ember. Smartbody is a comprehensive system for simulating human behaviour, with all of the subtle body movements that natural motion entails. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-08-17/ Sun, 17 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-08-17/ The new Worldforge site is now finally online! As you probably can see, since you’re reading this post, we now have a shiny new web site. The old one was creaking at the seams, and had been for a couple of years. The new one runs on Concrete5, a very competent CMS system. We’ll try to keep the amount of pages down, as not to incur a maintenance debt. We’ll probably also be updating the site the nearest couple of days. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-06-15/ Sun, 15 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-06-15/ I’ve recently done some work on adding proper pathfinding to Worldforge. For this I’ve chosen the Recast/Detourlibrary. While this approach, using voxel rendering to create navmeshes from arbitrary geometry, is both complex and resource expensive, I’m convinced it’s absolutely required to allow us to properly support the dynamic and changing worlds in Worldforge. I’ve done the initial implementation in Ember, mainly because it’s easier to visually debug. But the main benefit will come from integrating this work into Cyphesis, so that it can control AI movement. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-04-09/ Wed, 09 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-04-09/ Here’s a short preview of the work I’ve been doing the last couple of days. I’m using Recast/Detour to implement proper navigation in Worldforge, first in Ember and then in Cyphesis. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-04-07/ Mon, 07 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-04-07/ We now have binaries for Linux and Windows available for Ember 0.7.2. They can be downloaded from here: Linux (64 bit) Linux (32 bit) Windows https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-02-24/ Mon, 24 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-02-24/ Once again Worldforge has had the good fortune to be selected as a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code 2014! This is an awesome opportunity for students to both get more involved in the project as well as get a sweet gig for the summer. If you’re a student reading this, waste no time getting over to the GSoC site and read up on how all of this works. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-02-17/ Mon, 17 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-02-17/ The Worldforge 3d client Ember version 0.7.2 has been released and is now available from the WorldForge download site. Ember is a client for the WorldForge project. It allows you to both play in and edit virtual worlds.This release includes a totally revamped terrain engine as well as various improvements to both game play and authoring. Revamped and improved terrain engine. High level detail terrain materials. Improvements to authoring. Various bug fixes. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-02-16/ Mon, 17 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2014-02-16/ Eris version 1.3.23 has been released and is now available from the WorldForge download site. Eris is the WorldForge client-side session layer. This release is a minor release which primarily fixes some bugs and adds support for the new entity reference Atlas format, which is vital for proper import and export support. Support for the new entity reference Atlas format. Various bug fixes. Source code can be downloaded from the following locations: https://worldforge.org/about/news/2013-11-10/ Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2013-11-10/ Just a quick update that we’re now providing binary packages of Ember 0.7.1. We’re currently providing these for 64-bit Linux, 32-bit Linux and Windows. To run the Linux packages you must first make sure that the file is executable. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2013-10-26/ Sat, 26 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2013-10-26/ The Worldforge 3d client Ember version 0.7.1 has been released and is now available from the WorldForge download site. Ember is a client for the WorldForge project. It allows you to both play in and edit virtual worlds. This release focus on improving the editing capabilities, allowing for much easier world creation. Export and import of entities and worlds. Much improved entity editor. Ability to edit and debug entity minds. https://worldforge.org/about/news/2013-10-25/ Fri, 25 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/about/news/2013-10-25/ Cyphesis version 0.6.2 has been released and is now available from the WorldForge download site. Cyphesis is a small to medium scale server for WorldForge games, with builtin AI. This version includes the demo game Mason which is currently in development. This release is intended for server administrators wishing to run a Mason server and World developers developing new worlds or game systems. It is primarily a bugfix release which fixes a serious crash issue. https://worldforge.org/community/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/community/ WorldForge uses a number of infrastructure services for communicating and coordinating all the various aspects of the project. Below you will find a short description along with links to visit those services. Collaborative Wiki The WorldForge collaborative wiki is a great way for community members to document and collaborate on new ideas and implementations. The information and topics found there should be considered a work in progress. In the case of contradictory information being found there you should consider this website to be the official word on the subject except for the archived historical sections. https://worldforge.org/create/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/create/ One thing that sets Worldforge apart from most other online worlds is our focus on making sure that anyone can build and host their own world. Since everything we do is Free Software you’re free to use all of our code and assets for whatever world you envision. Only your imagination sets the limit. Whether you want a traditional MMORPG, with a medieval setting and monsters to fight, or a world filled with puzzles, or just a world where you can hang out with your friends, Worldforge provides the tools that you need. https://worldforge.org/downloads/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://worldforge.org/downloads/ We provide prebuilt binaries for Linux and Windows. These are automatically built using the latest sources. Ember client For Linux, as AppImage For Linux, as Snap For Windows Cyphesis server As a Snap package