News Submit for Shores of Hazeron State of the Game Update

Jalaris

Hi there! I would just like to submit a post for, hopefully, an MMORPG.com admin to pick up on. From http://www.hazeron.com/update.html , also forum posts is here: http://hazeron.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5621

Shores of Hazeron, sci-fi, supersandbox, mmo developed by one sole man as of now, Haxus, has just released the first State of the Game Update (i've ever seen) and I'd like to let it get known that this game is going somewhere and the potential is great.

What is Haxus working on?
That question gets asked a lot, especially when I haven't posted an update for a while. Here is a list of my general priorities, not a comprehensive list. Treat it somewhat like the weather; the farther down you go, the less reliable the forecast.

Updated June 11, 2013
Bugs/Unfinished Stuff
This one might as well stay at the top of the list. I write a lot of code; some of it has to wait in a barely functional state until I can return to it or perhaps finish something else first. Bugs just go with the territory. Bugs and unfinshed stuff get their own level of priority attention based on the following:
Data Loss or Corruption - When data is being lost or corrupted, whether it is on the client or server, the problem must be fixed immediately.
Server Crash - These bugs affect everyone so they get immediate attention. They are usually easy to fix once I determine the cause.
Client Crash - These bugs affect some or all players and interrupt the game experience. They tend to be the easiest to fix if I can reproduce them.
Player Annoyance - These are almost as bad as crashes. Though not always a bug, annoying things must be changed.
The Rest - Beyond those categories, the remaining bugs and unfinished stuff get attacked as I feel like it.
Buildings
Buildings got me started on revamping the planets. I just couldn't stand to work with those old 3D defense base models any longer. Alas, buildings will end up being the last thing to get working properly. There are still a few details remaining:
Consoles and Turrets
AI Pathing
Damage and Destruction
Weapon and Shield Effects
Harsh Environment Enclosures
Stairs
Stairs were added to accomodate buildings. AI pathing code needs to be updated to use stairs in building and ship designs.
Ringworlds
Ringworld terrain must be rewritten to use Perlin noise, like the new globe worlds. Ringworlds will be switched over to GLSL shaders in the process. The reduction in network bandwidth consumed by ringworlds will be huge.
GLSL Shaders
The rewrite of worlds was part of the work on transitioning from nVidia Cg to OpenGL Shader Language (GLSL). Worlds use a lot of different shaders. All recent and new rendering code has been developed using GLSL. Remaining Cg objects include:
Spacecraft
Creatures
Vehicles
Items
Misc. Effects
Mac Port
SoH builds and runs on my Mac Pro. The only known problem is the failure to compile the Cg shaders at runtime. Elimination of Cg appears to be the only remaining roadblock to distributing a Mac version of SoH.
Spacecraft
Spacecraft design and modeling will undergo a considerable facelift when changing over to GLSL. Don't be surprised if you see evolutionary changes similar to what happened to planets.
Galactic Core
Needs completion.
Blackhole
Intergalactic Wormholes
Character Development
Character factors suitable for role playing will be fleshed out and applied to the game universe where they make sense. This is essential to the final phase of the game.
Storylines/Quests
Story engine will be expanded to handle a broad variety of story/quest situations. This will form the platform for game content creation/submission. The ultimate goal of SoH is to provide science fiction adventure set in a realistic backdrop; that setting is created by the empire-building space-war game SoH presents today. This final step culminates phase 2 of SoH and addresses the largest roadblock faced by new non-emperor players, what to do.

6/11/2013