Shilla History


Shilla has had a long and spirited history, going through many changes throughout the thirteen+ years of its existence. It's history has always been a passion of mine and as I have the time I'll piece together the notes I have made from many and varied sources.

Old Shilla

Old Shilla, as I have now begun calling it, was basically divided into to time periods. The first was from the date of it's inception to what was known as the "Big Reset". I have also heard this time period revered to as "The Glory Days". It was a time when the game had a large and active community, game play was simpler, and clans were more predominate. I stumbled onto the game during this time, but after wandering around lost, mapping some of it, dying about 10 times, and having no clue what I was doing, I moved on.

The Big Reset

Then the "Big Reset" occurred. To read a detailed description of this event written by Steve/Alphablast click HERE.

After the Reset

Shilla enjoyed a year or two of a steady community before the "old guard" began to disappear one by one. Real life will do that sometimes. Hestas became all but non-existent, I cannot remember "seeing" him in chat at all during the years that I played, and Melkor/Lumberjak was the only Admin left standing.

The Big Update

In November of 2006 Melkor overhauled Shilla. Weapons began having stat requirements. This was balanced by a decrease in creature attack power, as access to the higher level weapons became restricted. Other minor updates continued, as well as the introduction of a new area courtesy of the last admin appointed to Old Shilla, VooDoo. Unfortunately the small community continued to dwindle until seeing no one on was not uncommon. I use to fill chat with all kind of nonsense at 2 in the morning while I trained.

Death

It started with minor problems with the server. Shilla would be unaccessible for a few hours, errors would occur, and this continued for a few months. These problems grew in frequency until in early September, 2008, Shilla went offline for the last time. A band of loyal individuals mourned it's passing and Bp created a guestbook for those who went in search of Shilla to post their shout-outs. Go to the Old Shilla Guestbook to see who has returned and add your thoughts to theirs.

A Summary of the Shilla's History

I have included this section of Shillatime because I appreciate Alpha for adding it to his farewell message. I had pretty much pieced most of it together from various sources, but it was nice to see it all laid out. Like T. S. Eliot once said “good writers borrow, great writers steal.”

Written by Steve/Alphablast, of Shillatime

"Some history facts: Shilla as we know it was created by Blackhawk in June 1997. Tim bought Shilla from Blackhawk, after which Hestas eventually took over. Hestas was no one other than Bluehawk (Yes, he was his own best man on his shilla-wedding), an other admin at that time. Thinkso was also an admin appointed under Hestas. During the BIG reset (end 2002), a shilla player called Ashaint was promoted to admin as Radagast. A little later, due to admin inactivity, Lumberjak was promoted as the admin Melkor. Recently, Nappavas was also granted an admin account (VooDoo). Shilla also had many testers. To name a few, Bonzo, Adira, Lumberjak, Mikey64. There also used to be a tester forum which was supposed to be a secret - but everyone behind the scenes knew about it. Testers often could go into areas that weren't available yet to other players. Testers were also given information regarding mechanics of Shilla, most of which was thankfully used in this helpsite to help other people (Most games give this crucial information out themselves, so players can play the game appropriately)."

Life after Death

Hope began with the thought of a new game, Shilla: The Victorian Age, but those plans bogged down and Lumberjak/Melkor disappeared… literally.

And in February, 2010, an unknown person posted a screenshot of a new Shilla game…
…and was never heard from again.

Then in April someone with the know-how and desire said…

"Whoa someone else is trying to resurrect Shilla? Huh.

Well, I've been doing the same recently. Had the urge to play it, saw it was gone, and figured I'd recreate it. I'm still getting everything up and running, but… "

Many of us were skeptical, it had been over a year, after all, and we had moved on.

but Mediathrall continued to post update after update.

So we stood at the new beginning, the beginning of what has been named Shilla: Redemption.

Plato said, “The beginning is the most important part of the work.”, and while my part is small I am pleased to be involved in next chapter of the great history of Shilla.

Shilla: Redemption

As the new game progresses through its many changes I will note those that are noteworthy. Some of these have been copied and pasted from the new home of Shilla: Redemption, while others are those I have seen myself and written about. I'll continue to chronicle the changes to Redemption as long as there are changes to chronicle.

++June 1, 2011 - and end and a new beginning

While Bp and I have gone for many months, another has taken up the mantle of wikimaster. Welcome, Cthulu! May you have as much fun as I did creating a place for people to find information about Shilla.

February 1, 2011 - Growing Pains

8 days in and the dust has begun to setting in some places. Shilla: Redemption is coming together, as is it's small community of ragged adventurers.

Mages are a viable playing option, more so then they were in Old Shilla. Spells are purchasable and their power can be increased after reaching wisdom levels. Several Mage accessories and weapons have already been added. They are well aligned with the weapons available for fighters, which have also being changed.

Quests have been added everywhere. Some are restrictive, other are for laughs.

Gold availability has been decreased and prices throughout Redemption reflect this. The design team is in the process of balancing gold drops throughout the game. Convicts have already lost 1 gold per drop.

All in all the game is showing signs of being great, certainly up to the standards of Old Shilla.

January 31, 2011

(As written by HardCZ, Administrator)
So things have come quite a ways since the early launch.

I'm hoping everyone is enjoying the content. Bilbo has mainly focusing on bringing out new content, such as the new area's and some new creatures. We've discussed these things, along with the quests that both of us have made. There are currently two area's past the mountain with more to come soon.

Also I've been working on balancing the money issue. The weapons, creature drops, and food, should all be complete for now. I need to go through and redo the armor pricing, and possibly adjust drop rates for weapons/armor, so you can farm for gold. I've yet to create something uniform for the jewelery and gems.

Along with balancing, you'll notice your weapons have different/similar stats. I've went through and updated all the weapons in the game currently and some beyond, so that they will scale with the progression of area's that you enter.

I'm sure there are other things we've done too, just a lot of excel work for me, and data entry for Bilbo, with a side of brainstorming for both of us.

January 25, 2011

(As written by HardCZ, Administrator)

Since the last update, Bilbo and I have completed a few more quests, created more weapons, and rewards.

Keep an eye out for special events, daily/weekly quests that are repeatable.

You may notice that gold drops have been reduced. This is in effort to make gold actually usable in the game. I'm sure there will be a point where it isn't any longer, though who knows.

Also keep giving us feedback. We're trying to walk a fine line of making the game challenging, while keeping it fun. And unfortunately the game will have an end, though for myself, I'd like it to take as long as possible to get to that point, to enjoy the plot and time advancements.

You'll notice a few area's that were previously restricted are opened up now, and some quests that were stricter with requirements are now a bit looser.

Also I heard some old guy with a hat discussing a new sword… I wonder what that's about.

January 23, 2011

(As written by HardCZ, Administrator)
So the game is now live.

The team has completed just about everything up through the castle.

Please pardon our dust as we tweak things, as a lot of this has only been tested by the staff. If you find any issues please post them and we'll remedy quickly.

January 20, 2011

(As written by HardCZ, Lead Designer)
So the game is down so we can finish some things up.

Please be patient for us to finish. Plan is to have it back up Sunday afternoon. I look forward to welcoming you all to the next version of Shilla and hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoy making it.

Thanks everyone for all your help, those playing and behind the scenes.

January 18, 2011

(As written by MT, Administrator)
My Retirement, and some scheduled down time!
This is the last week that I'll be working on this game! I've got a new job at Bioware, and it will require the majority of my time and concentration. Additionally, continuing to work on this project is now considered a conflict of interest for me due to this job, so I'm handing over Administration to CZ. Although he won't have code access, he'll still be able to manage the day-to-day operations of the game, promote people to staff-level, etc…

This means that the reset is probably going to be coming up a lot sooner. It also means that once the week is over, this game will be considered feature-complete. Designers will still be able to add new content to it, expanding the game, but no new features will be added after I'm done.

So, I'm working hard to add as much stuff as I can during this next week to give the designers all the tools they'll need to keep the game fun and interesting. These changes include overhauls to the quest system, spell system, magic and combat.

Because of the rush for these things to get done, I've forced the designers' hands a bit about the reset, and they may not be able to get everything prepped in time. After the reset, there may be some missing content that they'll still be working on. This is my fault, not theirs :)

In order for us to test out all these new changes, and prep the game for "gold" status (the end of Beta), I'll be taking the game offline starting on Saturday. The outage may continue through Sunday as we work to get everything in place for you guys.

Finally, I'd like to thank all of you for participating in the Beta, and helping to rebuild the community! The interest in this game far surpassed my original expectations, and has continually pushed me to make the game become far more than I had originally intended.

January 15, 2011

(As written by HardCZ, Lead Designer)
Spoke to Bilbo today and I have some exciting news.

Along with everything you know from the previous update, we will be putting in some serious man hours to overhaul some area's that you've grown to know, and possibly avoid in your travels through this land.

I'm going to put a floating day of March 1st for release of the game. This doesn't mean everything will be complete, though by that time we hope to have all area's through the mountain complete along with the questing and new quest system. Also by this time there should be a few new area's, and revamped area's to enjoy.

The spell system is being looked at with a viable way to create magic users for playing.

There will be a character reset. Characters who have participated in the beta will be given a gift to help them progress quicker to help your fingers have less issues with your arthritis.

With the reset being confirmed there are some fun things that will be popping up through the game just so you can mess around before the world as you know it is changed.

January 14, 2011

(As written by HardCZ, Lead Designer)
So with the holidays wrapping up, everyone getting back to their lives, we've begun working.

Bilbo has been creating questing content. We plan on having quests in nearly every area.

New area's, along with changing the content on some existing is in the works.

Working on an outline, you can expect some 20+ area's with a storyline, hopefully keeping you coming back to find out what happens next.

New forge combo's, balancing current weapons/combo's.

Revamping the spell system to become a viable solution for battles.

January 4, 2011

(As written by HardCZ, Lead Designer)
Status of the game
With the new year, we have a new staff, and things are starting to get underway.

What things you may be asking? I'm glad you may have done that, because I have an answer.

New quests are being written and completed for existing area's, to help you, and to guide you through the storyline that has been laid out for this next step in Shilla history. With the new storyline you'll see new area's, new creatures, new abilities, and new dangers.

Most of these new features will be hidden to you until beta testing is over. I hope that the wait will be worth it, and I look forward to working with the rest of the staff to bring you something great. I'll keep you all posted with our progress, being as vague as possible :lol:

Christmas Day, 2010

MT has completed numerous minor updates to the game. These included adding tools for the design team, adding an option to turn off the "All Out Attack" button, and allowing menu options to be remain over time.

More importantly the staff for Redemption has been finalized. Below you will find those that have stepped up to the challenge of making the game into what it should be.

Position Name
Administrator MediaThrall
Lead Design HardCZ
Designer Kbok
Designer Bilbo
Artist Moonstorm
Moderator Raghn

December 11, 2010

Some minor updates occurred, including fixing a bug in seeing other characters "wandering through.".Thee Wall of Flames now only shows the top 100.

December 1, 2010

Staff reshuffling
I (MediaThrall) am looking to reorganize the staff here a bit. Things have been fairly inactive lately and it's been causing some… unrest.

First, a precursor:

In a perfect world, there'd be a lot of players and a significantly-sized staff with enough time and resources to continually produce new and entertaining content at frequent intervals. Unfortunately, this just isn't the case. The game has a very small player base, and of those players, only a few are interested in the goings-on behind the scenes. Of those, even fewer actually have the time and are willing to dedicate it to learning how things work and advancing the game's development.

As it stands now, the game has hundreds of hours of playtime before the content runs out, and that more than satisfies the goals I set forth for its development. Expanding upon that goal is something I leave to the more dedicated and interested among you. The original purpose has been accomplished - resurrect the old game and provide a place for the community to gather. As an old player of shilla, my idea of the "old game" extends back to when the Hydra was the most powerful foe in the land (so this goal was definitely surpassed). All of the new content that was added required the help of many individuals with excellent memories and the helpsites that still remain online.

My work being done, I leave this game's future in your hands! Whose hands those are remains to be seen. Don't worry - I'll continue to keep the lights on. The server will continue to run and I'll continue to check in from time to time.

HELP WANTED


Lead Designer
Job Description

* Responsible for maintaining the "singular vision" of what the game should become.
* Develops and maintains the overall story-arc and works to keep the game consistent and entertaining.
* Directs the efforts of the other designers and participates in discussions and development of new content.
* Has final say in content development. Can settle disagreements between developers.
* Performs all of the duties also listed in the Designer/Developer section

Experience Required
None! But a passion for the game is a MUST, and the ability to communicate well with others and motivate them is highly desirable. If you have any programming experience, it'd be helpful, but it's not required.

Pay
The appreciation of your peers, and the ability to say you have game development experience! Also, your name in bold in chat or something. The ability to mold the world and play experience to your vision!


Designers & Developers
Job Description

* Collaborates with other designers to flesh out and create new areas, creatures, items and other game content
* Is an active part of the community, keeping it up to date with upcoming changes and helping new players
* Uses the provided tools to fix content-related bugs as they're identified
* Participates in the testing of new areas and encounters before their public release
* Helps to keep player progression moving forward, but maintaining the game's experience and economic balance
* Can dedicate time frequently to the development of the game

Experience Required
None!

Pay
The appreciation of your peers, and the ability to say you have game development experience! Also, your name in bold in chat or something. =P


Scripters
Job Description

* Creates and maintains scripts to create new dynamic content the designers can use to extend the game's features.
* Fixes bugs as they're identified with game scripts
* Is the gatekeeper for all things Quests! Creates new quests based on designers' input.

Experience Required
Some programming experience required. Scripts are written in ASP.NET. Scripters need to know this language or be able to learn enough of it to create new scripts and maintain the existing scripts.

Pay
The appreciation of your peers, and the ability to say you have game development experience! Also, your name in bold in chat or something. Designers may also bribe you with sweets and kind words when they need new features.

Scripters need to be adept at logic, and need to be able to problem-solve when issues arise.

Be warned, applicants! I say this in all fairness: Being behind the scenes and having access to the testing controls (cheats) and developer controls tends to make people lose interest in playing the game itself.

Interested candidates can post right here in this forum!

If there are no applicants, then so be it, the community has spoken :) Either way, the game and community will live on.

October 24, 2010

The 1st completely new area for Shilla was released today by Chrome: Mt. Olympus. In the last two months the forge has been re-released with both weapons and armor combos. Player involvement has dwindled. Hopefully the new area and training opportunity will bring back some folks. After a long absences MT returned and handed the designers some of the tools they needed to work independently. I believe we will see a more steady progress of updates.

Month 1

August 13, 2010
Areas were added, up to Deep Dark Forest, but then real life intruded on MT's time and updates came to a halt. Attempt at a Forge being added resulted in "I've rolled back the database to before the update. There was an issue with a database field not correctly being set, causing dynamic room content to not be displayed. I don't have the time to fix this right now. Expect no future updates until the Sims game is done. I just don't have the time." A couple of players have reached the point of "no where to go". Need I remind them that this also occurred in Old Shilla as well?

Day 2

July 10, 2010

Lots of bug fixes!
The game has been very stable throughout its first few days in Beta, with only one server-hiccup. Yay!
Thanks to all the beta players who have submitted bugs. Keep 'em coming!

I've added a new quest, but that's all the new content I've had time for. I'm afraid you guys are climbing the wall faster than I can make the content right now. Hopefully I can catch up, but my work schedule makes that unlikely

The player turn-out has been overwhelming so far - much greater than I expected. It's awesome to see everyone playing again!

SHILLA: REDEMPTION LIVES!!!

July 8, 2010

BETA PLAYERS! Welcome! Please read this before playing, so you know what you're getting yourself into!

* Beta is open to everyone, and has no scheduled end date right now.
* There will inevitably be bugs! It is your responsibility to report them when you find them. Bugs can range from simple text problems like misspellings all the way up to game-breaking bugs. Regardless of their type, please report them. If the bug you find is sensitive in nature (compromises the game's stability, integrity, or is manipulatable as a cheat), you can choose to email me about the bug instead of posting about it.
* I've set up a forum thread specifically for public bug reporting. Testers will investigate the issues once reported, and keep the thread up to date with progress regarding the bug's fix status.
* The game is not done! In the time I've had, we've been able to build a town and many areas which will allow you to progress characters up past the 1k Wall Score range, and explore through the Mountain and Ogre Cave areas. There is currently no content beyond this point.
* Several things are missing that were in the old version of Shilla. Some of these are sitting in the "to do" pile and some of these have been deprecated. Please be patient as we bring items in the "to do" pile online. Some of them will take a while to complete.
* The game will always inform you if it is about to be brought down for maintenance. You will have at least a fifteen minute warning if this occurs while you are playing. This is for politeness more than anything else. No matter when the game goes down, and what actions you were performing when it occurred, your progress and state will be preserved.
* The game is free to play (of course) and will always remain free to play, as long as it's up.
* Unless there's a very good reason to do so, I will not be resetting characters when Beta ends. It's my intention to allow your progress to continue on past then (or what's the point, right?) There's always a slight possibility that an extremely large and unwieldy change will make this necessary, but I'll be avoiding it if at all possible.
* You'll see people on the wall of flames with much higher scores than you when you first start playing. Don't freak out. These scores were earned by testers during Alpha. They will remain visible during Beta so they can continue to test ranking progress and such. When Beta ends, all tester characters will no longer appear on the wall of flames - only legitimate characters will appear.

Hopefully we've completed enough of the game to provide the old community with some entertainment and a common place to gather and reminisce. With that said, I must give fair warning that I cannot promise timely future updates. My life and job have become a lot more complicated lately, and I'm now working overtime every day, six days a week. This leaves very little time for life, let alone hobby projects like this game. I will make updates when I can, but life and health comes first :)

There are a few people I'd like to thank for assisting me in getting the game this far:

Hardcz - keeping me motivated and encouraging the project's production, and testing. (STAFF)
Blink - Testing and information regarding how the old Shilla game worked. (STAFF)
Napp - Testing and information regarding how the old Shilla game worked.
Apollue - Testing.

Nancy O. - Her hard work on our new logo. I'll link to her professional gallery if she ever puts one up.

The kind folks over at ShillaTime.org and ShillaHelpSite.WikiDot.Com, for keeping their sites online and meticulously documenting the details of Shilla. Without these information sources, this game never would have been completable, and without the forum at ShillaHelpSite.WikiDot.Com, I would have had a thousand questions and no answers!

And finally, the Shilla community! Your excitement over being able to play the game encouraged me to finally get this thing ready for the public, and not just hog it all to myself :)

Beta Announcement

June 19, 2010
Shilla will be opening for public beta on July 9th, in the evening, if all goes well. I'd like to open it sooner, but I'll be gone the week before that. So I'm scrambling to implement the last few things I want to get in, and the testers are doing a great job making sure the game will be ready for release.

* In other news, some updates: WallScores are now updated automatically whenever your stats change. This removes some confusion about when it updated and why.
* I've added a new game mode - Hardcore! When you create a new character, you can choose to make it Hardcore, which means that if you die, it's permanent! Hardcore characters are for the experienced veterans, and have their own dedicated Wall for high scores. Will you risk it all and take a shot at being #1 amongst the elites, or play it safe? Your choice!
* New quest added.
* New creature added.
* New food added.
* Game now records and displays how many heroes each creature has killed, so you can see who to watch out for!
* Cleaned up grammar and added more detail to the starting quest to help new players.

Glub

June 17, 2010
Creature Kill Tracking was added, along with a new lake area. More food options were added for purchase from the store, and I've started work on some new quests.
A Brave New World
June 16, 2010
Break out your graph paper and pen!

As part of the content push for this week, the world map has been completed redesigned to be more user-friendly, more open and interesting, and bigger! The world map is now 560 rooms, and now features:

* A revamped sewer area
* A new town layout, with some new surprise locations
* Redesigned outskirts area
* A revamped castle
* Revamped cemetery, vast valley, druid valley
* New mountain area
* New ogre caves area

More content to come, all this week!

That tingling at your fingertips

June 13, 2010
Is Magic! I've got the spell system working. You can now buy scrolls and train them. Hard part is done. Easy part is next - making the spells do stuff! It's basically just tying my existing cheats to buttons anyway.

* Added Spell Training center.
* Continue fixing bugs reported by testers.
* The starting areas are going to be shuffled around a bit this next week, to make the linear progression clearer.

There's going to be a big content push this week. I don't foresee having to work a lot of overtime, so I'd like to get the rest of the areas in that we'll be keeping from the old shilla.
Apparently there's also a facebook group about shilla I didn't even know existed. You can find that group here:
Shilla on Facebook.

Shilla Forum

June 10th, 2010

Shilla Forums are live!

I've now added a forum to the site, accessible from the main page, or with the direct link http://www.thedarktraveler.com/phpbb3/

There's a general chat section, but it's main purpose right now is for my testers to assist in bug logging and tracking. Check it out, Yos.

Accounts in the forum are separate from the game. This is mostly out of laziness on my part =P In the future I may tie the two together into one account, but it's a fair bit of work to make two separate technologies play nice together.

Castle

June 8, 2010

* Added the Castle area. Quest data is still pending.
* Fixed shop bug displaying the wrong message.
* Added Log Out button to Menus.
* Added another tester to our growing ranks!

Rebalancing

June 6, 2010
Lots of updates today:

* Town Mayor's first quest is finished.
* I changed the original Shilla armor algorithm to make armor worthwhile now.
* Removed Kobold race and added Imp race.
* Added spell shop in prep for spell work (not currently open).
* Added guard at Beach Entrance that will give new players food to use when starting off.
* Defense granted from armor is now displayed in the Status pane.
* Pricing algorithm for shops was reworked, and item prices were rebalanced.
* Added GameAction system that allows the player to perform engine non-specific game actions (like asking for food from guards, etc).
* Fixed bugs:
o Weapon damage calculation was slightly off.
o Fatigue was not being properly subtracted if you killed a creature in one blow in one attack.

BUFF system up and running!

June 4, 2010
I've finally gotten around to finishing the buff system. This is the system that gives races all their abilities, and grants you stat bonuses when you equip jewelry and weapons and such. It's also required for the spell system.
A few other updates:

* I've updated all shops so you can specify the number of items you want to buy or sell.
* Added Kreen Kabobs
* Added a Status page to the menu where you can view all your current temporary and permanent buffs.
* Score page now also displays stat bonuses.
* Currently, stat bonuses do not get applied to your wallscore. I'm not sure if I like it that way or not…

First Update! Welcome back, Shillians!

June 2, 2010
I've completed enough of the game to start admitting testers. The site needs some serious aesthetic work, but I'm focusing on getting everything functional before I start polishing anything.
As far as updates go…

* I've restricted the ability to create new accounts to those that have the Alpha password.
* Added support for Verbose or Brief attack displays.
* Added a new error logging/handling system to detect and clean up errors and email administrators about any bad errors that could not be auto-corrected.
* The above system also detects basic cheating attempts and reports them!
* Added foundation support for a new game mode: Hardcore.
* Cleaned up item drop code, and made it clearer to players which items were already in the room, and which items have just dropped from a kill.

A Look and Shilla: Redemption has a home

June 2nd, 2010

A few new screenshots, and an announcement:

Screenshot:
http://yfrog.com/11screenie3bj
http://yfrog.com/b5screenie2dj
http://yfrog.com/5cscreenie1dj

Announcement:
Where will the new Shilla be hosted? Why, right on over at www.thedarktraveler.com! So head on over and check it out. It's very, very basic, but it gets the job done for now.

I'll be posting my updates there from here on out, but I'll keep an eye on these forums, of course.

I've locked out the ability to create new accounts unless you have the Alpha password (testers only), which is why I feel it's ok to tell everyone where the game is being hosted now.

Big Update

June 1st, 2010

* I've changed the item drop system. Items will only be seen by the player that caused them to drop as long as they remain in the room. Once they leave the room, they become viewable to everyone. Special items can still remain viewable only to the player.
* I've capped the number of items that can appear in a stack in a room to 10. Any more than that, and the items are discarded.
* I've significantly reduced item drop rates compared to the original shilla. Testers and I were observing that our little killing sprees were creating lots of enormous piles of food, shimmering cloaks, etc. Drop rates are still high in the beginning areas, but lower as you move on. This means you may not be able to heal up on long journeys with food you pick up alone. You'll have to spend some cash at the food shop to get extra food (which is good, because we need more reasons for the player to spend all that cash).
* Added Food Shop
* Added Jewelry Shop
* Shimmering Cloaks, Warrior Throwing Knives and Food now have non-zero price values.
* Fixed bug with 0-refresh rate chat causing firefox to freak out.
* Added option for Testers to disable their debug diagnostic displays (under "Options")
* Finished Quest support.
* The Town Mayor's first quest is mostly complete, but not quite. Should be easy in the future to add lots of new quests, as soon as they're designed.
* Reworked some movement code in prep for supporting the Teleporting spell.

I've got a master list of stuff I want to finish before I open the game up. I've settled on the idea that I should have the game polished up to about the 1000WS level before opening it. I will need another tester this weekend, though, if anyone is interested. Take Note, Potential Testers - being a tester runs the risk of potentially ruining the regular gameplay experience for you!!! You may not really want to see the game from the view of anyone but a regular player…

Chat Lives!

May 28th, 2010

* Chatrooms are done. That went way faster than I thought it would. Chatrooms in less than a day? I think I deserve a cookie. 30 chatrooms available, depending on your permissions and wallscore. Names color based on WS. Some rooms have text-filtering on, some don't. You'll recognize some old rooms, and see some new ones.
* Fixed a bug none of my testers noticed… that having "Refresh" on in your menus and then switching to food and eating a food item caused the "Refresh" to try to eat for you every time it refreshed lol

Computer Crash

May 28th, 2010

Computer died completely last night. Can't work on the game anymore until I get a replacement machine =/ Will try to find one this weekend, but I have to work, so we'll see.

Areas and the Bug Zapping Continues

May 25th, 2010

* Added Druid Valley
* Added Cemetary & Crypts
* Fixed a bunch of bugs
* Added ability to see other players in the room you're in.
* Added Refresh Rate options to menus.
* Added ability to restrict player movement if the creature is "blocking" - like the castle guards.

Bug Zapping

May 21st, 2010

Have to work all this weekend, so I won't be able to update as much as I'd like =/
Some minor updates from tonight:

* Added support for area restrictions.
o Outskirts and Sewers now use this new restriction
* Added initial support for quests. Still needs lots of work
* Fixed bug with Sewers (I put the entrance to it in the wrong place)
* Fixed bug with sewer rat photo not showing up

Possible Backstory

May 20th, 2010

With the Evil Warlock vanquished evil no longer shadowed the land. The residents of Shillatown and every village celebrated the peace and happiness that spread as evil creatures retreated. Every village celebrated the hero’s defeat of the Evil Warlock, every village but one.

In the Orc Outpost an alliance had been formed. The Orcs still brooded over their defeat against the Elves, and the Kobolds had rebuilt after their slaughter at the gates of Shillatown. Both groups wished revenge against all the good races of Shilla, to see their enemies destroyed. All they required was a key to unlock the door of victory.

Outwardly, King Drakmor celebrated along with the Shillatown council, but inside his lust for power had been growing. While the land slept he made his way through the deserted tower of the Evil Warlock, now devoid of all life. At the top he took a moment to survey the land. He did not see a land at peace, but a land rich for the taking. A voice behind him made him turn.

“I know what you seek, King Drakmor.”

Drakmor turned to find the Wise Sage looking at him.

“You will raise no hero to defeat me, old man!” Drakmor snarled, drawing a shining blue sword and charging.

A look of resigned sadness passed across the face of the Wise Sage as the sword cut him in two, spilling his life-blood upon the char-stained spot where the Evil Warlock had been defeated. As the light faded from his eyes the Wise Sage saw King Drakmor’s gloating face raise the sword high. The last word he heard amidst the evil laughter was “Warlord”.

The day began as any other, though it would not end the same. Normalcy had replaced the vigilance that had once been necessary for survival. Treachery was a simple task to accomplish, and it was the Orcs and Kobolds that would celebrate now. Shillatown, Yggdrasil, and the Dwarven Stronghold lay in smoking ruins. Those Elves and Dwarves who remained alive fled deep into the world, while the remaining humans huddled in refuge camps.

Evil was quick to reclaimed the land.

Not all fell to King Drakmor and his army of Orcs and Kobolds that dark day. Those races that remained on the side of good managed a late rally. The blood of Elves, Dwarves and Humans was dearly bought, and Drakmor, now known as Warlord, could not finish his conquest of the land. A rebellion against him was formed.

Will a new hero rise to unite the races and defeat the Warlord Drakmor? Will the Elves and Dwarves return? Will the Rebellion be successful?

Shops and Things

May 20th, 2010
* Shops now work. You can buy and sell items. I've added the Town Weapons shop and the Town Armor shop.

So, did the town jewelry shop actually sell anything? The shop calculators are not to be trusted -.-

Bunch of little updates tonight:

* Town Bank is done.
* Town Guards now appear in the town (I forgot to set the rooms to show them… knew something was missing lol)
* Fixed bug a tester discovered regarding picking up stacks of items
* Fixed character death process so it doesn't just send the player back to the fountain, but displays the clouds from the original game, lets you know you died, and allows you to "reclaim your soul."

That pretty much takes care of all the standard fare gameplay elements. Spells are getting pushed to the backburner while I work on more important things. They were never really that useful anyway.

Bug Killing Begins

May 18th, 2010

It's a little tricky for me to give a time estimate on when I'll open it for everyone. I'm probably going to open it up to a couple of people this weekend, and after I get some of the administrative/designer sections done, I can open it up to all testers and designers. But since we're changing stuff around, development will be "constant" for a while. I'll do the best I can to at least get the starting areas up and working so players can start though.

Unfortunately, we're a week out from Alpha for The Sims (my real job), and that's keeping me really busy. That makes it even harder to give time estimates. I really only get an hour or two a night to work on it.

I say, sure, throw up a message on the main page so at least people know it's being rebuilt, and will be open soon. I'll see about proving you some content (screenshots, information, new logo) this weekend.

Some good news:

* I have one tester right now playing the game and helping me work out some initial bugs, but so far it's going well. He's training in the beach killin' crabs.
* Shops are half done. Yay! Getting there.
* Worked out a new formula for item pricing that will fix some of the money issues old shilla had.
* Napp and I also have a few plans to make mid-game content more interesting by giving you more things to do with that hard-earned gold.
* I've done some admin work to allow me to take the game offline at the click of a button and safely lock out users while I'm updating content. This will happen on a nightly basis for a while when the game is live, because I don't have a development version of it running on a backup server yet where I can do my work without interrupting the game.

To Do… oh, to do.

May 17th, 2010

There are two big things left to implement… shops and chat. I suspect it will take me about 3 days to get shops up and working like they used to. Not sure on Chat. I'd say a rough estimate of 3-4 days for that too.

There's a bunch of little stuff still to do as well:

* Need to keep track of how many of each creature a player has killed
* Need to create the Forges
* Need to create the initial starting quests
* Need to create Authentication process for accounts (check for valid email)
* Need to do a security pass on all form submission data
* Need to add "refresh" option to sidebar menus

… and stuff like that. But it's playable now. I spent about an hour last night leveling a new character up by fighting on the beach. I'll see about posting some updated screenshots this evening.

A different path?

May 15th, 2010

* Training center complete
* Wall of Flames complete

Napp and I have been discussing taking the game in a slightly different direction. The idea we're currently mulling over is to keep the initial starting areas of shilla, re-arrange some things so they're not so outdated and so they make more sense, and then to develop all new areas and a new story with new quests.

Any thoughts on this? Would you guys prefer an original re-creation of the game (100% nostalgia), or would you want a familiar game, but new content (50% nostalgia, 50% freshness)?

Think I'll take tomorrow off. Need a break :)

Items!

Item dropping/acquiring is finished! It was way more complicated than I thought it would be, and I sort of got carried away with it, but the end result seems to be working well.

* Creatures can now randomly drop single or multiple items based on "item groups"
* Items dropped in a room stack, if there are multiple of the same type of item.
* Stacked items can be picked up individually or you can pick up the entire stack.
* Debug interface for testers shows information about dropped items (who caused them to drop, how much longer they will remain in the room before expiring, etc)
* Items dropped are initially only viewable for the player who dropped them, for 10 minutes. If the item hasn't been picked up within 10 minutes, it then becomes viewable to everyone, and can be acquired by anyone. Twenty minutes after that, the item expires and is removed from the room.
* ^ there could be an annoying issue with that. In rooms that commonly drop items that no one wants, items will stack in large amounts, with the lifetime of the stack being refreshed each time an item is added (making a giant pile of items no one wants, but persists for a very long time). How did old Shilla handle this, I wonder?

Tomorrow I'll begin working on the training center, and then the Wall of Flames. Once those are done, it actually becomes a "game" - since you can create characters, invest time to level them up and make them more powerful, and show off your score!

First Three Areas

May 12th, 2010

* Beach is done
* Sewers are done
* Vast Valley is done
* 1/2 way through item dropping support.

All Out and Consider

May 10th, 2010

* All Out Attack is finished.
* "Consider" is finished. I came up with my own formula for this, as Napp said the original one was busted. Seems to be working pretty well so far. Also accounts for possible exhaustion from lack of fatigue, which I don't think was accounted for in the original implementation.
* Players can now die, and suffer the penalties thereof. On death, they are sent back to town.
* You can't have players with negative stats like Shilla once had. Stats are clamped to 1. So despite how much you may suck, you'll always have at least a 6-point wallscore lol

Will do item dropping tomorrow, and that will pretty much conclude combat for a while until I get around to spells.

Combat

May 9th, 2010

About to pass out, but thought I'd leave an update -
I've got a good portion of combat working. You can single-attack creatures, do damage, and kill them and gain exp and gold. Creatures don't currently fight back, and I still need to do All Out Attack and consider, but the hard work for this feature is done.

Also, characters now correctly get initial starting stats based on their race, and I've added the ability to delete characters. Accounts marked as tester accounts now also get a debug diagnostic display to view special data about their current location, movement and combat.

More Looks

May 7th, 2010

Goblin
Convict

Ah, memories. Got creatures showing up randomly for the Outskirts. Have to work overtime this weekend but I'm still hoping to get combat functional by sunday night. We'll see!

208 Creatures

May 6th, 2010

in case anyone was curious, there are 208 total creatures in Shilla.
And I've finally entered all their data into the database.
Also finished creating the outskirts. Combat work begins tonight! Woohoo!

Shillatown returns

April 22nd, 2010

Sorry it's been a few days since I've posted. I work in the game industry and we just kicked into overtime =/ Means less time for me to do the things i want to do (like this).

But I'm still working like crazy on this project, trying to get it up and running as fast as possible. here are my updates:

* I have a new domain name and host, but the host is having some… difficulty. I may switch. I don't want to announce the new domain name yet because it's wide open while I'm getting the initial engine work done, and I don't really want people to see it breaking and all not fully functional. Once I secure the site a bit, I'll post the domain here.
* I spent the weekend making a map editor. I was able to crank it out quickly using some open-source code and massive c# hackery, but it's now finished. This really doesn't matter to players, but it's how I'm able to easily create the world and update the database with the world you'll be playing in. Here's a screenshot anyway: http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/7073/worldeditorscreenie.png
* I've got another programmer (who is also in the game industry) who will join me in working on this project starting this weekend. That will hopefully pick up some of the slack due to my overtime.
* I'm starting character management (basically, the left pane of the game) tomorrow, and should have that mostly done by the end of the weekend. At which point, I'll begin tackling creature groups and combat.

Sneak Peak #2

April 17th, 2010

I'm totally hijacking this thread :)
Did the UI for character creation and selection.
I know the original Shilla only had the concept of "Characters" and not "Accounts," but for security purposes, I've set it up so you can have an account with multiple characters attached to it.

Main Page
Account Creation
Log In
Character Creation
Character Selection

Mapping

April 16th, 2010

Got world navigation working last night. Does anyone remember what the room directly North of the fountain was for? In the maps, it's labeled "Inventory."
I can't remember what its purpose was. Bah.

Shilla: Redmeption's Birth

April 15th, 2010

Whoa someone else is trying to resurrect Shilla? Huh.

Well, I've been doing the same recently. Had the urge to play it, saw it was gone, and figured I'd recreate it. I'm still getting everything up and running, but…

I've got Accounts, Characters, and Game entry all done. I finished all the databases last night. I have a chat system but I'm revamping it (thus, why it is not shown in the screenie). I'm making fairly quick progress, considering I'm going it alone lol. World navigation should be done by tonight.

I'll link here when I've got a host and at least part of the town/combat done.

Could definitely use some help from those who remember it better than I do. I have quite a few questions :)

btw, my username on Shilla used to be Demosthenes.

Ugh I suppose I should actually post a link to the real image instead of just the thumbnail. Duh.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?6f6c766f2c.jpg

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