Heroes of the Clan

[lindhsky]

Hello All!

Last year before summer I decided to learn PHP and to be able to do that I needed a project. I sat down and wrote down a game I wanted to do in WORD and then I began my journey. It went fast and in September I had a game ready for my friends to try out. I cut some of the features, but added others. Then after the closed beta I worked on the game for about a month before I took a break and recently I put my soul into it again. So it is now Open Beta if you would like to try it out. But first some warnings...

- This is my first game ever and I have learned a lot. Now when I am working on another project as well I know how stupid I have done some things in this game. I have a lot of extra clicks for an example and also other things that you will notice. So don't be too harsh please about that. I'll change it in the future.

- The game is done to 90%. Still some broken links, some info about villages that are not there and so on... I also have some features that will be added such as Village Wars and more.

- My english is not the best, but I have a friend that will look over it later on.

- When you arrive to the game it will probably just look like a bunch of links with millions things to do. I created a tutorial but I am not sure if it is enough. Either way, I am working on rules but it is not done yet. I do have info on the different pages though.

- Images and avatars are taken from free sites and I have them as a motivation factor right now. If people like this game then I'll buy my own pictures and perhaps add a VIP/Member function. At the moment it is just a fun project for my friends and hopefully others to enjoy. 

You can find info about the game on the frontpage of the site but here goes a short description. You take the role of a leader of a clan. Then you create five heroes from ten races and ten classes. Every hero has five skills depending on class and you set tactic for every hero both for clan vs clan battles and for 1vs1 battles. You clan is placed in a village with other clans and the more successful the clans in your village are the more people arrive to it.

Then every day we have one big turn and this is where clans battle eachother in the War (war affects exp and other things) or in the Arena (a tournament that is resetted  every month). You can also send your heroes to expeditions to get ingredients used for crafting.

Between the big turns you have action points to spend and here you can send your heroes behind the enemy lines for duels. Adventure for different kind of encounters that might give you weapons and armor. Or just killing mobs for experience. Perhaps you want to spend your actionpoints on yourself as a leader instead and if you do that you have a
chance to bring in more soldiers, resources, money and so on.

Well, that is a short description of the game. You'll find out more when you try it out. I hope it is not too confusing. I have only let my friends try it so far and they like it but they are probably too nice to say something else.

http://www.heroesoftheclan.com/

[Hawkins]

The front page looks really good I'm getting the activation key one right now and will play it later

[lindhsky]

Thanks to a bug I had to make away around that activation key. So you need to do it all at the same time the way it is now because I had to save some info in a session (a balancing the villages issue). It is just a quick fix while I was trying to fix the problem. A friend had problems so I solved it that way. I'll delete you registration and then you can do it when you have the time to complete it all. Sorry about that.

I'll try to find that bug now.

[Hawkins]

Does that mean I have to register again? And a suggestion is add password masks

[lindhsky]

Yes, you need to register again. Sorry about that.

[Sunchaser]

I like the graphic. Do you have a graphic artist in staff?

Don't forget to put about and/or contact links on the home page

[lindhsky]

No like I said above, I have taken avatars and small images from pages that are saying you can use them for free as long as it is a free site. I put them there to motivate myself to do the project because if it is just text it gets old pretty quick, atleast for me.

If the game ever gets popular(100+ regular users perhaps) then I'll hire a graphic artist unless I can talk my brother into it. But as it is now it's just a fun project for me and a way to learn even more about php.

Hmm, you're right. Forgot about contact links. The first page is my about page but I guess I could go more into details. Thanks.

[Sunchaser]

Well for being a "fun project" looks rather professional; i would be happy if my game graphics will be of the same quality as yours.

Regarding contacts info in the Home page:

In my game database i have a lot of webgames that don't have contact informations in the Home page; that's an error in case toplists or game portals want to contact the owners.

For example if i find an email or a contact form (better solution to avoid spam) I consider the contact cost "low". If i must sign up to the game or to the forum to contact the owner it's a high contact cost, so i usually avoid or postpone the contact.

[Nox]

Some notes:
- the picture of keyboard doesn't fit there at all (warrior and below him keyboard?)
- white links on brigth background are not visible (including signup )... normal text is not that well readable either...font is a bit smaller
- make signup some special button and more visible, appealing, highlighted
- I would make the white in the borders much darker because it doesn't give the rusty feel this way anyway and is a bit distracting
- Leader choice should be <select>
- Wow...that server time is confusing, took me some time to notice it's 3:20 there....it was already 10:10 here so I was wondering why it's not done

Design is I think quite unusual for fantasy game, but I think I'll get used to it...but the images are very nice
Can you please name some of those free sites with them?

[lindhsky]

Thanks for your input.

 - The keyboard picture was my attempt to make the signup more visible and highlighted, but I agree it is not fitting in with the medieval theme the game has.
 - What do you mean with the leaderchoice should be select?
 - And yes, the server-time is confusing. The server is placed in US and I am from Sweden so confusing... yes. I had swedish times there for my friends before I announced about the game here. I'll change so that people can enter what timezone they are from and adjust the times everywhere based on that.

I'll give you some of the links when I come home. It was something with avatars bla bla, but I'll give you them tonight (not servertime)

Thanks Sunchaser, it makes sense. I'll put up contact information when I come home. Thanks for the advice.

[dsheroh]

- And yes, the server-time is confusing. The server is placed in US and I am from Sweden so confusing... yes. I had swedish times there for my friends before I announced about the game here. I'll change so that people can enter what timezone they are from and adjust the times everywhere based on that.

Personally, I deal with that by starting off with reporting times in UTC until I'm ready to let users select their timezones for themselves.  That seems to work fine for me as an American living in Sweden and running things off a server back in the US. 

[Hawkins]

How would you go about letting the users  changing the times is that all done in javascript?

[lindhsky]

I do not know much about javascript so I'll try to find another solution. I think I would simply add a code for their timezone in the DB and then on the two pages I have the times mentioned I would check what timezone the user is from and then give them the correct time. Perhaps have some sort of function where they write in what the clock is right now and then save the difference in a DB and use it later on the two pages. I havent thought that much about it to be honest. It was only yesterday I changed them to server-time for my non-swedish users.

There are probably easier methods.  

[Sagefire135]

*Falls in love with game*
This looks super super promising to be an awesome game!! i havent looked at everything enough to have much in questions or comments though. I will be sure to give input just as soon as i can.

Mmk, some things i noticed.
1) After you log in, the 'home' page still shows the login page. rather than have 'clan'  page a separate tab, I would just make the home page show the clan stuff after you log in.
2) I see the tab for mail, but I cant find anywhere to actually send any messages to other clans.
3) Also on communications, I have a personal preference to in-game forums and chat. Any chance that those are a planned update?
4) There are 14 different trainable skills with 0-500 points in them...although they have descriptions, I dont really get a solid idea of how they work. And will the extra 2 or 3 points to something from skills REALLY have any noticeable effect to a skill that has 500 in it already ?
5) Can skills that effect single group mates also effect the caster in 1v1? Ex. Healing Hand ( 1-8 heal on the group mate with the fewest wounds left ). Does this have any use in 1v1, or just in group battles?
6) Similarly, many skills say "Does not stack with other __ buffs." So what happens if 2 skills are used with the the same buffs? does the first stick or does the second overwrite it?
7) Password field for register/login is =text. probably should be  =password instead.

[lindhsky]

Answered this in the game forums as well.

1. This is something that I am aware of and something that I'll try to change. The only problem I have here is that the opening page is in html only because I already have another index.php. So it is a change of pages-name that will have to fix this one for me to fix so that I can see if someone is already logged in. There are a lot of rookiemistakes like that and they have limited some smaller things for me. I just have to sit down and fix some things i made early on when I was still learning. Well, I still am.

2. No, this is not in the game yet. But on the to do list.

3. I have an idea about making you automaticaly log into the forums when you're logged in so that you don't have to have one forum account and one game account. That is something I have on my to do list. The chat, I am not pleased with how I have it now at all, so expect a change.

4. 2 points won't change a lot because I wanted a game in which a lower level character can beat a higher level. But the more points you get the more powerful you get and that was quite noticable in the first closed beta we had. Another reason is that I don't want a level cap instead there's a skill cap. If a hero improves too much every level that is harder to achieve. 

5. All single target spells can be used on self in all situations including 1 vs 1.

6. The best one is used of the two.


Thanks for your kind words and feedback.

[dsheroh]

I do not know much about javascript so I'll try to find another solution. I think I would simply add a code for their timezone in the DB and then on the two pages I have the times mentioned I would check what timezone the user is from and then give them the correct time. Perhaps have some sort of function where they write in what the clock is right now and then save the difference in a DB and use it later on the two pages.

That's the normal way of doing it, yeah.  The most common use of javascript for this sort of thing in my experience is a simple js timer to adjust the time every second so that the displayed time is 'live' instead of being fixed at the time when the page was loaded, although I believe you could also use js to read the user's clock and display that time, bypassing server time and time zone considerations entirely - but, at that point, why bother?  If the user wants to see the time on their own computer's clock, there are plenty of desktop programs they can use to display that.

[Nox]

5)
I understand you want to make smaller the gap between low level and high level players, however I believe you're doing it wrong.

I of course didn't play beta, but please read it anyway

What you do is taking a few basic aspects of the game and reduce them almost into insignificance (said for effect, but... 0.4% increase per level is not that far from it)

As Sagefire I as well found the level-up not satisfying, instead of increased joy, I was dissapointed.
If there really is a noticable difference between 500 and 510, in this case it needs to be presented as such, there's actually no benefit from doing otherwise

What I would advise is to develop a certain game mechanics that would be level-independent and in some way availible to everyone (or maybe only low levels), that would give them a chance.
That would:
- add more game options and depth
- therefore make it more interesting
- AND solve your issue while leaving joy from level-up intact

[dsheroh]

OK, finally trying it out...

- When initially setting up your heroes, the list of current heroes below the class select should include the class/race of each hero.  Forgetting what you've already made and accidentally creating five clerics would kind of suck.

- Powercost for skills is displayed on the 'set 1vs1 tactic' page, but not 'set group tactic'.

- It would be nice if the boxes to set percentage for skills in the tactic screens were next to the tactic descriptions instead of all grouped together at the bottom of the page.

- Don't force users to do unnecessary math!  Let them enter whatever values they want for how often to use each skill and calculate the percentages yourself.  (e.g., If the user enters '2, 0, 1, 1, 1' for the skills, that adds up to 5 and 100/5 = 20, so multiply the entered numbers by 20 to get 40%, 0%, 20%, 20%, 20% instead of making the user do that conversion himself.)

- Shouldn't there be some indication of which heroes have their tactics set yet and which don't?

- The character whose tactics will be set should be based on a URI parameter or hidden form input rather than stored in the session data.  Since I couldn't see whose tactics are set and whose aren't, I just tried opening up all five of my heroes in five separate tabs so i could set tactics on the first, close the tab, set tactics on the second, etc.  Instead, the "set tactics" links in all five tabs went to set tactics on the hero whose tab was opened last - even though the hero displayed on the page where I clicked "set tactics" was someone else!

- Do all skills last for one round only?  If not, the tactic screen should identify which are for a single round and which last longer.  There should also be some indication of whether any longer-lasting skills will be used redundantly.  (e.g., Assuming for the moment that Barkskin lasts multiple rounds, are druids smart enough to not re-cast Barkskin if it's already up?  And will healers cast healing spells even if nobody is injured?)

- "Foresters" only has one "r".  (Spellcheck may not catch that one because Forrester is a family name.)

- "Fine Clubs In City" should probably be called "visit clubs in city" or something along those lines.  In this context, "fine" sounds like a verb (Swedish "böter"), rather than an adjective meaning "high-quality" (Sw. "fin").

- I would rename the "Military Houses" and "Knight Houses" from "houses" to "barracks" or maybe "halls".  English doesn't use "house" nearly as widely as Swedish uses "huset".

- On "Daily Adventures", is there any purpose to the "Click here to see the result" screen?  It would be a lot smoother if it just immediately showed the results after you select the hero to adventure with.

...and the game itself looks very promising!  I expect to be back many times.

[Sagefire135]

Ohh another really important thing i forgot to mention. When creating your heroes it you should mention that you are creating a leader and 5 heroes. alot of players will instinctively name the first hero something, then realize that they actually wanted to use that name for their leader. i was lucky that i didnt take my normal naming route because i would have ended up naming a hero Sagefire, and i would MUCH rather have used that as my leader name.

Just happened to work nicey that i sorta dislike the Sage Rauru, so i left him out of my Hero list. was also handy that he is sorta the leader figure among the sages though, so it worked using that name for the leader lol. </zelda>

[lindhsky]

I do not know much about javascript so I'll try to find another solution. I think I would simply add a code for their timezone in the DB and then on the two pages I have the times mentioned I would check what timezone the user is from and then give them the correct time. Perhaps have some sort of function where they write in what the clock is right now and then save the difference in a DB and use it later on the two pages.

That's the normal way of doing it, yeah.  The most common use of javascript for this sort of thing in my experience is a simple js timer to adjust the time every second so that the displayed time is 'live' instead of being fixed at the time when the page was loaded, although I believe you could also use js to read the user's clock and display that time, bypassing server time and time zone considerations entirely - but, at that point, why bother?  If the user wants to see the time on their own computer's clock, there are plenty of desktop programs they can use to display that.

Yes, but I have one big turn every day at one time and one time when the " - You have already been on a duel today."  resets. And I guess those times confuse people even though I am showing the servertime on the same page. I have noticed that things that yourself as a programmer take for granted that people would have no problems with they have. I guess that, among other things, is what makes the difference between an experienced programmer and quite a rookie like myself.

[lindhsky]

Nox

The difference is there but it is not an overpowered difference between for an example a level
ten and a level one. If you look at the duels then a high level could lose to a lowlevel because
there is still a quite big luck factor. When leveling up you increase your chances to win, sure
not by a big margin every level, but it is still there. Maybe people do not see the differences
while leveling up and that might be discouraging. They just see a number but do not know the
formular that is used in battle. Only health is visible and something you see advance while
leveling up quite easily if you put your points in there.

My first idea was to have a skill-tree. Every class could choose between two ways to go and
for every point they put into that tree they got new skills and improved old. That was a bit
too much though and I decided to let the heroes get five skills at creation so the element of
strategy was there already at level 1.

I do have ideas though to let people feel that something happens while leveling up but it's
not in the game yet but it is improvements to some of their five skills when they reach certain levels.

Thanks for your input, Nox.

***

Dsheroh

Very good points, help and suggestions.

About your question about heroes having their tactics set or not. When they're created they
all have a default percentage set. So it is kind of set already from the beginning.

About all skills last for one round. Yes, everything last for one round only. First all heroes
do their skills / spells in the first half of the round. Then they do their normal attacks. Things
like this will be described in the rules.

I appreciate your help, thanks, and copied your post here into a to do file.

Sagefire

Good suggestion, thanks. 

[Sagefire135]

Overall, i want to believe that there is a extra x10 on everything just to try and confuse us. the numbers are all very high to begin with and HP *is* health/10 so its a reasonable assumption. players like seeing high numbers but a high number that hardly changes, sucks. maybe im crazy but this is how im seeing everything....

i THINK my level 5 barbarian gained 1+1+3+3, so im going to pretend that the pattern keeps up like that (... +5+5+7+7+9+9+ ... im likely very wrong, but i h ave nothing else to go by ). that means that at lvl 100 you should have 5000 points to spend. If i spend it on health, i would get +500 HP, pretty good investment. since im seeing damage in battle around ~10 per hit ill guess that strength gets cut by around /100 before being used in battle. so the 5000 points would relate to 50 extra damage, seems pretty low compared to how much HP you can get but still not bad.  Then i get to thinking about items, at level 100, i would expect my equipment to be dealing WAY more than 50 damage, so taking that into consideration, +50 damage or +500 HP is utterly pointless.

I understand that you want to give newer players a fair chance to get to the top, but leveling up appears to be pointless in the long run. keep in mind that if your newer players dont like how it works they may leave.

[lindhsky]

Although I understand your worries then I don't agree. Leveling will improve your character and I noticed it especially at the end of the closed beta when I had about 200 characters to play around with before the wipe. There are more things than just the stats you improve, you also get better and better gear. Every stat has a cap as well, so thinking about how it will be in 50 levels won't be easy right now I'm afraid. Small things did matter and that is something we all noticed when I did some class-balance changes in the closed beta. Decreasing the health of the barbarians with just 20 points and weaponskill with 40 points did a lot to that class and made them go from almost impossible to a quite balanced class.

And like I mentioned to Nox, I'll give classes a boost to some of their skills at certain levels. 

[Nox]

It's not just about a real performance, it's also about mind's perception and emotion.... imho it's way better seeing 20% increase, even if it's 2% in real, than seeing 0.5% increase being 2% in real (if Sagefire is right about the effect). Even if I said this and KNOW it's just 2% in real, it still would make me happier JUST to see a higher increase

[lindhsky]

Sagefire was correct when it comes to health & power. The rest is not correct when it comes to just adding a zero because I have a bit more advanced formular there when I transform the stats into battle-stats.

Either way, something good came out of this because I sat down yesterday and finished 8 out of 10 classes adjustments to skills while leveling. Now I just have to put it into the game as well. This will give the heroes an upgrade in skills/spells every 5th level and even though that is not exactly what you guys are talking about then it will atleast make some people more motivated to reach certain levels and also more effectively see that their hero has improved.

I made the game a bit how I am like a player. I hate to become overpowered directly in games or if I can hit someone for 10000 in damage just because I am 10-20 levels above like I have seen in some games. I like small progress when I play, but making a game is not about yourself it is about the players. But still when you design something for fun like this project has been for me, it's hard to not get affected by how I would like it as a player.