Hey, anyone remember one of the first MMORPG\'s called The Realm?  Well, that has a turn-based combat system, and they implemented dungeons in a way that made it possible to have massive numbers of players and small world-space.  They simply spawned a new instance of each dungeon (small dungeons compared to newer games) for each player or group that entered.  I\'m not sure how that was implemented to be optimal, but I suspect that if they did it, the devs for this game could try something similar.  

This would make it possible to have the spawning setup to be such that if the above ground monster spawns were all suppressed by player proximity, the players would still be able to go into caves that would have monsters in them.  This is also slightly exploitable in that players can exit and re-enter the cave over and over.  I don\'t know if that would be bad though.

The one that pops behind you silently... I always hated that.. you can only make that immersive by assuming that all mobs can hide in the shadows and jump out at just the right time... yeah right!

The ideas on monster spawning graphics are certainly an improvement.  You rarely see that in modern games so I guess it\'s another thing that is taken out for optomization.

I like what Venge was saying though, about non-static spawns.  If the critters wander from their spawn point and they don\'t spawn with players nearby, then it should be almost impossible to have monsters spawn right on top of you.

Hello,

I heard from a developer today that the CVS version might come out next week, this got me curious.  I don\'t really know anything about stages beyond Molecular Blue other than the Crystal Blue which is months away and will be a playable demo. So I decided to see what I could find on the forums before asking.

I did a search on CVS and from what I can find it looks like it is a archive containing all the source necessary to build a PS client on virtually any supported system.  Most of the posts seem to be related to linux users.  I also see that aCraig has said that we should use it to build a Molecular Blue version.  

Since us windows users are currently running a Molecular Blue version, does CVS have anything new for us?  

I think windows users probably owe the developers a hearty thank you for making it very easy for us to get this game running.  All I had to do was download 5 files, concatenate them together and run an installer.. voila! working MB.  It sounds like many linux users had a nightmarish job of getting all the right files into the right places, building a working makefile, then having to compile the code themselves.

I\'d also like to know if anyone can give a list of known releases planned to come and what they entail.. I suspect such information is not written in stone yet, so I don\'t expect a lot ;)

Thanks,
Jamiro

I agree that the developers should not put in time-sinks to keep subscribers paying.. but then since the players won\'t be paying why would they?.. well I think it is worthwhile to bring it up just to keep our devs thinking about this.. though I suspect they have.  

I do think that although a player should not have to perform overly tedious jobs to level, if it\'s too easy the game will get boring too fast.  Instead I think players should have the option of doing long tedious jobs if they produce a result that is desirable to them but not necessarily a NEED.  i.e. player made guild armour.. or a way to make cash outside of gathering/hunting.

I\'m not against having to work hard at leveling up since that makes the levels mean something.  Diablo style play is just hack and slash and level fast, but you are bored of it in a week.  EQ was long and slow leveling but it held my attention for two years, if I never had to pay I\'d still be playing...

Just my two cents,
Jamiro

Well, I don\'t mean to sound offensive, I believe the idea is a good one.  However, I suggest a different approach.  Rather than having the devs spend their time to create a teaching forum which would take a lot of their time.. I think it would be possible to have the kind of help you want if you drive it yourself.  

Basically, just get the source code, and post questions about the parts of the code you don\'t understand.  People with coding experience (not necessarily the devs) could answer your questions.

I think this would work because this is an opensource project, so you would not be discouraged by the devs.  

I would suggest that if you have hundreds of questions just post them one at a time about pieces of code that aren\'t too big.

This might not seem immediately what you want, but if other people get involved they will probably contribute to asking questions that will result in all the answers you need.