Topic: Moratheia (Read 42641 times)

Verdite · « **on:** August 14, 2013, 02:04:12 PM »

This is the official Moratheia Sword of Moonlight thread. All news etc goes in here.

Summary

Moratheia is possibly the longest and most involving Sword of Moonlight project to date that has been in development for over 2.5 years. Many iterations and tests of the game have been released in order to better polish the custom gameplay, system and enemies, as the project uses no original stock art from the original SOM install or any other game.
However the final public release is still being held back in order to offer the best experience the author intends to deliver.

With original and unique settings, music, sound effects, consistent imaginative art forms, faster combat, involving story and good pacing, Moratheia gives players a Kings Field experience like no other.

Site Administrator speaking: It's 2019, I'm putting a copy of my Moratheia 2.1 demo folder here in case anyone wants to see it. I didn't do anything to prepare it. You may want to change some settings. More in Reply #12. The file is 1.24GB big. It is Moratheia 2.1.zip in http://www.swordofmoonlight.net/holy and you need to combine these to form a download URL yourself so it's not too easy for WWW spiders to download/suck out this site's bandwidth. (EDITED: To be clear, you won't find the screens from Reply #9 down in this demo. I hope that version is ever published, but this is not it.)

2021 UPDATE: If you can there's a new supersampling mode you can toggle with Alt+F1 that will remove most of the cracks that are caused by the do_aa extension. It will come at a cost of "worse" game performance, so if your PC gets choppy when you turn it on, try to not use widescreen first, and then consider lowering resolution a little or just turn it off and live with the cracks. This demo could have much better frame rates but it has many, many unnecessary polygons (you can't even see) which nevertheless must be converted to pixels...

Oh and you should add the following to the Ex.ini file to get rid of most of the black pixels on the edges of grass and trees. A lot of these things have thick black edges originally but recently SomEx.dll has switched to defaulting to treating 0,0,0 as a hole in a texture whereas prior any color between 0,0,0 and 7,7,7 would form a hole.

April 2022 UPDATE: A INI setting (shown below) called do_fix_trip_zone_range=no is needed to change maps because it seems the transfer events aren't situated at the same elevation as the level geometry.

Code: (Moratheia Ex.ini) [Select]

[Bugfix]
;this demo was made when black colors up to 7,7,7
;were taken to be colorkey pixels (even though the
;game program requests a pure black only colorkey)
do_fix_colorkey = no

;this is needed so map change events extend out to
;infinity elevation. I'm not sure why they're not bound
;to objects at the ground level, but they're not
do_fix_trip_zone_range = no

ATTACHMENT INFO

I'm uploading my Ex.ini file in case it's helpful, but be warned it has changes to the damage formulas. I doubt you can play this demo without such changes anyway.

Holey Moley · « **Reply #1 on:** August 14, 2013, 04:37:55 PM »

Everything looks amazing. Especially the new monsters. I think you've found just the right level of detail to not fall over into the valley of parody where so many contemporary games find themselves.

There's too much to individually comment on here I think. But I've said it before. The only games that really look like Shadow of the Colossus is King's Field. I hope that as a SOM community emerges we are able to stay this course so that SOM games will be simple and beautiful, not garish and cartoonish. And I hope you will keep maintaining every instance of Rathmor instead of abandoning it the way commercial games are. And I hope you will stick around for the brutal standardization process that will begin the day after the first iteration of Rathmor shows itself.

PS: I am glad how the Eggthief came out. Always glad when my consultation are not for naught. And again the new Alkarg (nail walkers) and environs look amazing.

I am going to make a point to look into why these images are escaping the confines of the layout, and see about adding the popup zoom functionality already enjoyed by the rest of the site as well.

I'd also like to see if it isn't a simple trick to make the black knockout texels go away in SOM_PRM and SOM_MAP per link. I don't know if they might be instructive to authors. I think so. I may well opt to make them visible by default (you might even have to click a check box every time the preview windows are opened)

EDITED: Like I keep saying. Keep it up and you can be game of the year. Mark my words. There's a revolution brewing... and it goes without saying. Rathmor is going to be its premier tour de force.

Holey Moley · « **Reply #2 on:** August 14, 2013, 06:13:29 PM »

@Verdite,

Can you provide a URL directly to your older information at www.swordofmoonlight.com where you provide the link to som.com in the opening post?

Also, I've moved the topic (and created a new subforum in the process) but for the record, it doesn't look like this will have changed its URL (so any outside links to it should still work.)
PS: Happy B-day Rathmor

Holey Moley · « **Reply #3 on:** January 22, 2016, 01:56:26 PM »

I've noticed the images in the top post are not displaying. They've probably gone from the WWW. I will delete this thread before too long, if it isn't resurrected in one form or another.

Verdite · « **Reply #4 on:** January 25, 2016, 07:39:49 PM »

Despite being unwell I managed to update some of the text and added a placeholder title.

Oh, I'd also like to say, again, thank you so much for offering encouragement and good feedback, Holy. I'm very grateful for your support.

Holey Moley · « **Reply #5 on:** January 25, 2016, 11:42:55 PM »

I like what you did there with the A

I know I've dogged you over the past year or less, but I hope the world hasn't seen the last of this effort, but it's going to require a lot more attention than it got in 2015.

It would be good to get a big game on display here on this website. I read the swordofmoonlight.com forums, and ever so often someone invariably makes a thread asking about problems that have been fixed for years, only to be told that there's nothing that can be done about it. I don't know what makes people go to that website for information first, unless it's just that it has some links to games on the front page (edited: and this also sickens me every time because I get the sinking feeling the people offering the advice have some kind of unspoken vendetta against my work, because I can't understand why anyone would carry on with an inferior product and even advise others that there's no alternative. Also, for readers, I am banned from that website, so I cannot offer advise myself. Banned for abuse of authority reasons; hint, I was not in a position of authority.)

The webmaster does occasionally explain SomEx when these threads occur, but people do not show interest in it, and these explanations tend to come very late as he doesn't seem to read the forum as often as I do (clicking on it is more or less one of my daily clicks along with checking mail and this website)

I'd also like to have something to show people to introduce SOM with. It would be good if you could make a miniature version of Moratheia so to show off all of SOM's potential while still coming in at a reasonably small download size. The world of computer games seems to be expanding into a vast universe while simultaneously getting stretched impossibly thin. I am unsure if anything in it appeals to me any longer, but whenever something does, it's very often I resign myself to not investigating it, because doing that would mean pulling down multiple gigabytes of data. I mean I can do that in the middle of the night with my satellite based ISP thankfully... but it's not the same as streaming an HD movie over a service like Netflix, because it's permanently on your system, until you finish it, or delete it after 10min (which is almost guaranteed to be the case) and I just don't need the hassle. If video games don't figure out a streaming model, I probably will never partake in them again as long as the download sizes keep ballooning (never mind the load screens and 2hr upfront install times) so I'm very committed to making SOM a streaming media format.

PS: I had a bad weekend too. Visiting my family in town is usually about as pleasant as being sick! and I usually end up actually sick once back home, having been exposed to all of the bugs in town!! Speaking of being sick, the guy responsible for probably the most SOM projects posted in that forum the other day that he's been stricken with cancer ... I don't know if this is the best place to mention it, but just passing along the news. He didn't offer anymore details. I hope for SOM's sake the same fate does not befall me (that would literally suck for SOM

)

PPS: Speaking of the unspeakable ... I was very impressed by a game of late called That Dragon, Cancer. It looks like King's Field, in a good way, and does an impressive job of accomplishing the objects of my hopes and desires for this medium--3D--and SOM. I think this is the direction 3D is heading in, I really hope it is anyway. I want it to be like an arm of literature, but right now it's more like an arm of your childhood toy box. I only worry that TDC has already set the bar too high for projects like it, that could result in fewer people trying to do the same kind of thing, for fear of being compared unfavorably, or just for feeling like it's been done already, and relatively well. It also sets a precedent, that may inadvertently short-circuit undeliberate experimentation going forward. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm the only person in the world that thinks about these things this way.

Holey Moley · « **Reply #6 on:** February 12, 2016, 02:57:43 AM »

Here are some understated screenshots I've lying around, from my time wandering around inside this environment. I actually really wish that I had more variety of places to wander around in, performing my various tests of Sword of Moonlight's features as they come online for the first time or receive very long awaited revisits.

Note that these images look better in the player, as the new antialiasing style extension works by showing many images over time, however it just so happens that two frames are overlaid, so a significant portion of the effect shows through in still images. The hairlike blades of tall grass in the background would look like so many unconnected shards shimmering in the sky otherwise.

Holey Moley · « **Reply #7 on:** February 15, 2016, 11:48:57 AM »

Administrator's note: there were briefly screenshots in the top post today, but they've been removed. Hopefully to provide new screenshots under circumstances that make Sword of Moonlight look as competent as possible. In the meantime, I would like to see screens in that post! It used to say "screens coming soon".

Holey Moley · « **Reply #8 on:** August 06, 2017, 12:13:06 PM »

Holey Moley · « **Reply #9 on:** August 21, 2017, 07:46:26 PM »

The author asked me to share these full color images of new art they've worked on in the intervening years. I must admit that I don't know the status of Moratheia as a game proper. But I'm very excited about the prospect of a new demonstration on the horizon.

There are more attachments coming in the next post. I can't tell if these are new takes on Moratheia or new in-game environs. The image with the man is certainly reminiscent of a scene with all different models in the most recent demonstration.

Holey Moley · « **Reply #10 on:** August 21, 2017, 07:52:28 PM »

I increased the attachment limit to fit these into single posts. I don't know if I purposely set them so that the maximum attachment size was also the limit on the sum of attachments, but now the limit is just on the per attachment size. With up to 4.

These screens look to me how I imagine looking through cataracts does. I wonder if the 16-bit color mode would make them pop more, despite being basically gray, low-contrast, without changing monitor contrast settings.

I've seen other screens, which I like very much too. But they were JPGs and noisy around the dither, so I think they are not suitable to showcase a product. I may remove some of these screens if better ones emerge.

Holey Moley · « **Reply #11 on:** October 29, 2017, 01:47:00 PM »

Here's another screenshot from the 2.1 demo that is older than the previous post's pictures.

I think there is only one statue that looks like this, so it seems that either the objects in the newer picture are so old that the earth has grown up around them, or that these objects have been cut down to size.

I've traveled most of the 2.1 demo by now. It took me some years to find my way off the first map! Owing to technical issues and being perfectly happy with the map (and communication issues too, since Verdite rarely writes me and hadn't asked me to look at or fix anything in particular.)

Both sadly and gladly I feel like there is easily a full featured game here. I worry that it's not seemed to evolve much in the past two years or so. It would be a towering showcase for SOM and my work, if only. If audiences are not fickle I would not be surprised if it sold tens of thousands of copies with SOM in its present state. And I actually do think that SOM is in a good state to make its first appearance on the world stage. Even though I still think in total it is "alpha" software; Verdite is able to produce a product that is itself ready to hit the market.

P.S. I feel like my next move with SOM is going to be to add MHM features to objects. I think that's totally doable with what is available, and is a major limitation; much more so than anything I can think of that is on the radar.

Holey Moley · « **Reply #12 on:** March 03, 2018, 06:42:57 PM »

Note to self. Today, found Moratheia's motherload https://www.facebook.com/pg/moratheia/photos/?ref=page_internal

Holey Moley · « **Reply #13 on:** January 25, 2019, 09:28:48 AM »

EDITED: To be clear, you won't find the screens from Reply #9 down in this demo. I hope that version is ever published, but this is not it.

Hey, 2019, I've added a demo's download link to the top-post. It's a big file. I've been feeling afraid a new version/demo may never see the light of day of late, and so am putting this file here, to showcase what SOM can do with all original artwork.

Some thoughts:

I think the Moratheia.ini file has the thumbsticks rotated. That is a feature I've yet to work into the game player. You may want to get rid of those lines in it.

In the Moratheia Ex.ini file you might look at function_overlay_mask and change the last 1 to 0 so it doesn't appear when the game starts. I don't recommend turning it off completely because it allows F3 mode to be invincible, which you will need because the damage ratings are all over the place. The damage calculus is modified to make the monsters reasonably fun to spar with. The F3 mode is different from the original, in that you will experience ill-effects and maybe take damage too, up to a point, but will not die. This makes it more fun/true to the experience. If you fall off the map it should return you.

The cracks (kind of like on the PlayStation) are because of the do_aa extension. It enables a novel form of antialiasing that doesn't tax your CPU/GPU one iota, but these cracks appear when models are not prepared to work with this feature.

5/21/2019: I'm backing up this banner in case it ever goes link dead. Better safe than sorry...

Verdite · « **Reply #14 on:** July 07, 2019, 03:51:51 PM »

New artwork, depicting a key character and item.

simple machines forum

News:

Sword of Moonlight|

Demos|

Moratheia

Author Topic: Moratheia (Read 42641 times)

Verdite

Verdite says,

Holey Moley

Holey Moley says,

Holey Moley

Holey Moley says,

Holey Moley

Holey Moley says,

Verdite

Verdite says,

Holey Moley

Holey Moley says,

Holey Moley

Holey Moley says,

Holey Moley

Holey Moley says,

Holey Moley

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Holey Moley

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Holey Moley

Holey Moley says,

Holey Moley

Holey Moley says,

Holey Moley

Holey Moley says,

Holey Moley

Holey Moley says,

Verdite

Verdite says,

simple machines forum

News:

Sword of Moonlight| Demos| Moratheia

Author Topic: Moratheia (Read 42641 times)

Sword of Moonlight|

Demos|

Moratheia