Medieval Europe

[Sunchaser]

Hi there, I would like to share some information on a game that my friends and I are working on.

We are on the lookout for creative people willing to help us improve our game, so your contribution/s will be most welcome.

Basicly we are searching for someone that will help us in designing and balancing the game. We have a general idea about the major concepts of the game but we need definitely some feedback.

Your feedback to improve this site will be immensely appreciated and can be posted here or on our forum (see address below).

Project Name
Medieval Europe

Brief Description
Medieval Europe is set in Medieval Europe (circa 1450). It’s an historical game in which players will experience the day to day, political and religious aspects of life in the Middle Ages.



The European map will consist of a neutral network; where the Nodes will be the cities or Towns.
Each town or city will include buildings/structures (such as Castles, Harbours, Courts, Royal Palaces etc...)

City and towns will belong to a Kingdom. The Kingdom will be ruled by a King, Prince, Duke, Doge (depending on the Kingdom type).
The Regnant will be able to appoint Vassals and Consuls, that will be in charge for a city or town.

Some of the task of Consuls and Vassals will be to set taxes, write and enforce laws and appoint a Sheriff, Magistrate etc...
The Objective of the Monarch/Regnant & Kingdom is to make the Kingdom stronger and superior to other kingdoms (e.g. going for war/s)

Peasants will be able to seed a terrain or take different professions in order to increase their wealth and try to make a career either in Politics or in the Church.

Game will be played/managed by ingame-mechanics and by forum discussions.
The players who have a role (Vassal, Magistrate, etc... ), will be able to propose and make laws, corrupt other players, plot to overthrow the king etc...

Target Aim
Free to play; There will be premium accounts and/or buyable in-game bonuses.

Compensation
We offer the chance to increase your experience in game design and a percentage of revenues based on the agreed role if the collaboration will prove to be successful and stable (and obviously if the game will make revenues).

Talent(s) Needed
Co-creator: Should be able to give us feedback on the game playability and suggest changes and balance the existing and future formulas related to game mechanics. It should an experienced pbbg player/lover with strong math skills.

Cartographer: we need someone that will help us to draw the Europe Map and do maintenance (adding nodes/paths etc.)

Team Structure

At the moment the team is composed by:

Sunchaser, Andrea – Creators and Coders
Lorenzo - 3d Graphic
FlyandFagel – English translation

Links

Game: http://test.medieval-europe.eu
Forum: http://forum.medieval-europe.eu
Wiki: http://wiki.medieval-europe.eu/index.php/Main_Page_English

Technologies/Tools used:

Mysql, PHP, Kohana Framework, Unfuddle

Contacts
Send me a private message through this forum.

[Chris]

Decide on gamescale, players being peasants and kings... it won't work The lowest rank probably should be landlord.

The Objective of the Monarch/Regnant & Kingdom is to make the Kingdom stronger and superior to other kingdoms (e.g. going for war/s)

Then Great Britain will win and conquer everyone (most players from English speaking countries + US visitors will probably join that nation).

King will nominate vassal through the Royal Palace function. Vassal will be owner of a Castle. See Castle function to find Vassal duties.

It is not feudalism, it is despotism. In feudal system king can not appoint a noble. Nobles are born. It is more like a balance of power between king and nobles, sometimes even nobles were much more powerful (Poland). You put too much power into king's hands.

The castle has... Laws and Rules Board

There are 20-30 kingdoms, each let's say 10 castles. It means 20(30)*10=200(300) separate board. For a board to be active you need around 100 users (most won't post). So total 100*200=20,000 active users required to make this game work, minimum. How are you going to achieve this?

Player mode ON:
OK, so I registered, what I do next? I want to be a duke and have a big palace! How do I do it?

[Sunchaser]

Thanks Chris for the feedback. Some notes:

Decide on gamescale, players being peasants and kings... it won't work  The lowest rank probably should be landlord.

We think it's better that players will start as peasants, we would like every player to have the opportunity to acquire the Noble status by playing well. If it is't not 100% faithful to a feudal system we will change accordingly the game settings.

Then Great Britain will win and conquer everyone (most players from English speaking countries + US visitors will probably join that nation).

Probably we will put a cap on the people that can be in a kingdom. or we will introduce some kind of balancing, anyway it's a good point to think about.

It is not feudalism, it is despotism. In feudal system king can not appoint a noble. Nobles are born. It is more like a balance of power between king and nobles, sometimes even nobles were much more powerful (Poland). You put too much power into king's hands.
.

Correct. However, the game should be playable and because we want to give the possibility to everyone to become vassal, we will maybe change the description to a more generic historical period.

There are 20-30 kingdoms, each let's say 10 castles. It means 20(30)*10=200(300) separate board. For a board to be active you need around 100 users (most won't post). So total 100*200=20,000 active users required to make this game work, minimum. How are you going to achieve this?

Castle laws boards are used only for displaying laws local to the town/city. They are not a discussion board, maybe we should call them
in another way if it's confusing.

OK, so I registered, what I do next? I want to be a duke and have a big palace! How do I do it?

We are currently developing the milestone 0.4, so the political system it's not there yet. Kings will be nominated directly by the Administrator (at least in test phase), because they will have great power (and responsabilities). The King will be able to access the Royal Palace special functions, it's all described in milestone 0.4 doc.

We need (specially after the 0.4 milestone) find some players that want to help us to make consistent and give solid cricitism/feedback to the gameplay, like yours (thank you).

[Chris]

Then Great Britain will win and conquer everyone (most players from English speaking countries + US visitors will probably join that nation).
Probably we will put a cap on the people that can be in a kingdom. or we will introduce some kind of balancing, anyway it's a good point to think about.

Read topic "1066" there was discussion about it.

Also check www.galacticimperator.com and check planets and Planetary Senates. I made a system a bit similar to your kingdom/castle, you can see how players reacted to it (I think 30 players per castle will be not enough judging from how they elected the planetary leaders in my game - several "vassal" spots are vacant on smaller planets).

OK, so I registered, what I do next? I want to be a duke and have a big palace! How do I do it?
We are currently developing the milestone 0.4, so the political system it's not there yet. Kings will be nominated directly by the Administrator (at least in test phase), because they will have great power (and responsabilities). The King will be able to access the Royal Palace special functions, it's all described in milestone 0.4 doc.

We need (specially after the 0.4 milestone) find some players that want to help us to make consistent and give solid cricitism/feedback to the gameplay, like yours (thank you).

No, no. I will pretend I'm a player, you try to convince me to play it. Pretend that the things you plan to make are already done. By reading my response you might be able to evaluate some of the features before these are coded (and possibly save you time not making the ones that would be crappy).

So, I joined the game, all king's spots are already taken (so I don't care about setting taxes part, king election, kingdom wars since these won't affect me anyway), I have no desire to play as a peasant too. Convince me to stay and explain what can I do there. I like being some middle/high level noble, or a knight maybe, I don't know.

[wolfexplains]

Looks like a good start.

Is the game website in english?? The link at the top left isnt working.

What platform is this game developed in? Javascript, flash? If so how advanced is your programming skills?

 

[Sunchaser]

Looks like a good start.

Is the game website in english?? The link at the top left isnt working.

It should work, when you click on the english flag does the menu options change? Unfortunately the news were written in italian, next news will be written in English. I don't see a link on a top left, maybe you mean top right?

The game it's really in the beginning phase. While completing milestone 0.4 (we are just introducing some basic Politic functionalities), we are switching to play mode to analyze and consolidate the gameplay.

What platform is this game developed in? Javascript, flash? If so how advanced is your programming skills?

We use

- Kohana, a php framework that implements the MVC framework
- mysql as a database
- jquery for writing javascript routines. We will introduce ajax scripts where needed

I can say our programming skills (mine and andrea) are very good, as for designer skill, this is the 1st game we are creating, so i would say there is space for improvement, and that's why we are searching some help.

[Sunchaser]

Update on the project.

We opened the Alpha, and got very useful feedback feedback from toxin and helderic (thanks!).
We are releasing now some features that will bring us to the beta version. I will post here the most important ones, to keep you updated:

Life and Death char system - Phase 1 and Holiday Mode

From today the first phase of character life/death system is active. Every day glut is decreased by a certain amount, and when gets down to 0, health is decreased. If health is low, the user is advised with an email; when reaches 0, the character is deleted from the database, together with his/her possessions. The user can of course relogin and create a new character.

I have set glut and health to maximum level. For the moment, health is decreased only 10 points a day, in future this factor will change.

It's possibile to meditate and pray in the Cathedral for 40 coins/day and for a maximum of 15 days. While meditating you don't have to worry for food and rest, so use this mode when you plan to go on holiday or you expect to be inactive.

[zolacat999]

Not looked at the game but from you map there are a few errors for a start wales was already owned by england and I think by this point to two crowns in spain had united by the marriage of ferdinand and Isabelle

[Sunchaser]

Some updates on the game. We are adding some features to reach the Beta stage, and just introduced some changes that are prerequisites for the War add-on.

We are searching as always for testers - expecially ones that find exploits - and help for completing the English Help/Wiki.

If any game creator wants to help test our game, I can exchange my time as a tester for his game, 1 hour per 1 hour.

@zolacat999: thanks but the map was an example, it's not the map used in the game. The Map used on the game is/will be physical as with war a Kingdom will be able to siege other cities and change the political status.

---

05 Jun 2010 20:32:22 - War - Phase 1

Referrals: A Referral section has been added to the char profile page. The section contains the link with your Referral ID (you can use it in Forum and Blog signatures) and a report of your earnings for each Referral. If your Referral(s) gain some money, you will receive some money too. Details about earnings rates will be soon specified in the wiki.

Weapons and Armors: Some Weapons and Armors have been introduces. Blacksmith and Carpenter can produce them.

Shop Configuration: It's possible to specify an advertising text for your shop. It will show on the Shop List page reachable from the Explore City page.

Send object: It is possible to send an object or some money to other characters. The receiving char must be in the same city of sender, and sending object take some time due to the existing bureocracy.

War - Phase 1: King can declare an hostile action (Raid or Siege) towards another city. The action can be canceled before 24h from the declaration. After 24h, the attacked King will known about the Hostile declaration.

Public Announcements: It's possible for the King and Vassals to publish public announcements that only Kingdom residents will be able to see.

22 May 2010 08:23:54 - Char life/death system - Phase 1

From today the first phase of character life/death system is active. Every day glut is decreased by a certain amount, and when gets down to 0, health is decreased. If health is low, the user is advised with an email, when is 0, the character is deleted from the database, together with his/her possessions. The user can of course relogin and create a new character.

I set glut and health to maximum level. For the moment, health is decreased only 10 points a day, in future this factor will change.

It's possibile to meditate and pray in the Cathedral for 40 coins/day and for a maximum of 15 days. While meditating you don't have to worry for food and rest, so use this mode when you plan to go on holiday or you expect to be inactive.

[solrak29]

Awesome a live game....!!!!   

I checked out the page and it initialy timed out.  I guess is because the location of the server.

The second time it took some time to load, but it loaded and after that things went pretty smooth.

I only signed up, but expected the email right away for registration....waited only about 5 minutes, so

I will have to check in the morning.  I accidently cleaned my spam box...so I could deleted it accidently.

So far I like the concept and graphics....

I even try some error conditions on the logon screen and seems pretty solid to me...

[Sunchaser]

The game is atm not active because we are heavily coding the war system and upgrading the wiki.
We lack testers but when we will upload the next update we will try to spam decently  and try to build up a player community.

About slowness of the main page... could be the graphic that is a bit heavy, i will try to run some performance test (anyone can suggest any site?)

[solrak29]

Well keep me posted when I can get in and check it out.

I will provide comments on my experience as needed.

[Sunchaser]

Links

Game: http://test.medieval-europe.eu
Forum: http://forum.medieval-europe.eu
Wiki: http://wiki.medieval-europe.eu/index.php/Main_Page_English

Update: The First Phase of War has been introduced. Now it's possible to attack another city. We need help on:

- testing functionalities, and try to break them by finding exploits
- comments and suggestions on playability

Thanks

Alpha version 1.1

Generic changes

- Added seller name to market.
- Added Government informations on City Info page.
- Taxes on items selling goes to Kingdom and City (25% to Kingdom, 75% to City)
- Added ID Referral information on character profile page

Crafting/Activities

Added new objects:

- Bucket (for milking cows)
- Knife  (to butch animals)
- Short sword
- Iron Helmet

- Eating a bread loaf will raise health.
- Raised action time of 'clean prisons' and 'Raising funds for church' from three to six hours

War

- Added defense and damage parameters on character inventory page.
- Added Raid and combat engine.

Fixes

- Fixed problem with Kingdom infos (was showing always Ducato di Milano)
- Fixed government announcement problems (wrong signature)
- Fixed problem with image load
- Fixed problem with action duration visualization
- Fixed framewor error on Town Crier announcements
- Fixed quantity 0 problem for medicinal mushrooms
- Fixed rest problem (Tavern)

[aerosuidae]

Is the game active now?  I tried the registration form, got and used the verification email, but can't login.

Your post asked for testing help.  Happy to help with testing, just need instructions how

[Sunchaser]

Premium Account
This version introduce the possibility to buy some doubloons at the Medieval Europe shop and acquire with them some bonuses,
in order to help to pay server costs and game development.

It's possible to acquire a Noble title at the castle of your city, with the following advantages for your character:
   

• You will recuperate energy faster than the norm when you rest.
• The time needed to perform some actions will be shorter.
• You can choose a noble title that will appear near your name.
• The meditation period (vacation mode) will be extended from two weeks to three months.
• Change of residence will cost you 750 coins instead of 1500.

King nomination rules
Rules for King nomination has been introduced. For becoming King one has to bring a quite large donation to the Kingdom.
Please read details in the Royal Palace of your Kingdom capital city.

Other minor changes
Cr: Added 'Delete All Events' functionality
Fix: Rebalancing of some blacksmith items
Fix: Battle report was not automatically translated
Fix: Battlefield creation message was the same for attacker and attacked.
Fix: Battle was affecting King (he couldn't do actions anymore)
Fix: Characters died in a fight still participated to the war.
Fix: Battlefield text was not consistent
Cr: Iron Bucket must wear off when milking
Fix: Battlefield was not removed when battle finishes.
Fix: Recovering did not move character in his city.

Next steps
While this version is tested, a quick step tutorial will be written. When version is stable we will open officially the Beta, where we hope to test game mechanics and work through for the next version, that will probably include the Creation of Armed groups and the possibility to Rebel and dethrone a Kingdom Regent.

[Chris]

Disable email validation, at least at the beginning. You are losing players because confirmation emails do not arrive. Enable it only when/if spam/cheaters become a problem. 99% modern games let you at least play while you wait for validation (like they disable some functionality only).

"Username not found or not yet validated." - misleading, you should specify which one.

Login form takes email into username field if you made the browser remember it. This is misleading. You need username or email to login?

I know these seem mundane, but trust me, polished registration system brings more players than plenty of cool features inside the game.


About language, haven't you though about separate English version? I know the interface is translated but all the posts on the forum are not. If you don't speak the dominant language used by the community you can not really participate or know what is going on.

How do you organise translation? gettext or manually (like: $lang['login']='Login'?

Since you already made 2 languages, haven't you thought about adding more?

Maybe you would post something about experience of running multilingual game? We have a shortage of game owners who run these

[Sunchaser]

Thank you for the feedback, always appreciated.

Disable email validation, at least at the beginning. You are losing players because confirmation emails do not arrive. Enable it only when/if spam/cheaters become a problem. 99% modern games let you at least play while you wait for validation (like they disable some functionality only).

Good suggestion. I will follow your suggestion.

"Username not found or not yet validated." - misleading, you should specify which one.

Ok, will be fixed.

Login form takes email into username field if you made the browser remember it. This is misleading. You need username or email to login?

Ok, will be fixed.

About language, haven't you though about separate English version? I know the interface is translated but all the posts on the forum are not. If you don't speak the dominant language used by the community you can not really participate or know what is going on.

In the forum there are some italian language posts but this is because we are still testing . Once launched, the main game language will be English.
The roleplay boards could be a problem because the could be in english or french or german.

How do you organise translation? gettext or manually (like: $lang['login']='Login'?

Game it's written with the Kohana framework. It has the native support for i18n runtime translation. It checks the players language setting and read the translation from the right file. (translations are in files under en_US or it_IT directories). The kohana support is only for run-time translation, I had to write some extension to translate messages saved on the database.

Since you already made 2 languages, haven't you thought about adding more?

If the games will go well we will translate it into French and then into German.

Maybe you would post something about experience of running multilingual game? We have a shortage of game owners who run these

Ok, why not, although i am a novice.

[Chris]

Maybe you would post something about experience of running multilingual game? We have a shortage of game owners who run these

Ok, why not, although i am a novice.

Experience is relative. If you are the only one who run this kind of game, you are bound to be a local expert

What do you think about office acquiring mechanic (like in http://europe1400.com they have an intersting one)? There is a limited number of offices, players compete to get these. Fits nicely with medieval theme.

[Sunchaser]

Thanks; I have already a  character in europe 1400 and one in RK (almost level 3).

I will study e1400 whan i have a bit of time

[Sunchaser]

With great pleasure I'm announcing that the official Beta of Medieval Europe has been opened, after 10 months of hard working.
It's my first game and I am just happy that i managed with the help of mastro and the other guys (see Credits page for details) to finish it.

Thanks for all your suggestions and critics, i will continue updating this thread with the new releases.

Play the Beta Version @ www.medieval-europe.eu?ref=bbgamezone

[Nox]

[I use Opera 10.61, some issues might relate to that]
1) "Field must be long from 5 to 20 characters." ... that could have been written staticly prior to submitting...
2) check sign in checkbox is poorly visible, same for username links, "online" in user list in non-hover state
3) I would really do at least login on index page...
4) no offense meant, but I'd probably choose English as default language... or add some detection for newcomers
5) the post-signup message is quite long, dense, could have better contrast, I honestly only skimmed it...
6) those...attributes on the right side of avatar should have some title too
7) modify account > acquired bonuses probably jumps from user edit section to character section, a bit confusing
8) hover doesn't trigger between item icon and name so that i hover above icon, box pops up, I want to click action, move mouse towards it, box dissapears

same for current action hover under avatar, that's worse because there's no way to get cursor to box without it dissapearing
9) the side menu (right side) looks very not-important, especially in comparison to green top menu, ironic since it relates to the game content unline the top one

Missing translations:
- city names translation missing for Normandia in character creation screen
- Acquired bonuses header

[Marek]

I tried signing up but I was told that my name is too short

I feel silly adding letters to my name just to be able to play.

[Chris]

Registration *much* better than before. Still not user friendly but acceptable.

Interface is crude. You should divide it into inside game and public pages. It is easy to "leave" the game just by clicking some things

The game is unplayable for english speaking players. Governement announcements, city information, chat, forum... all these are dominated by other languages. I'm afraid a fully separate english only world/server is the only option in a long run.

The mood of the game (titles and such) is interesting.

The game lacks visibility of social things (rankings or players, who is who, which provinces/kingdoms have what players, where should I go to be accepted into some group). It is really hard to integrate into the game (with the game community).

[Sunchaser]

Interface is crude. You should divide it into inside game and public pages. It is easy to "leave" the game just by clicking some things

Can you please detail? what does it mean 'you leave the game by clicking some things?'

The game is unplayable for english speaking players. Governement announcements, city information, chat, forum... all these are dominated by other languages. I'm afraid a fully separate english only world/server is the only option in a long run.

Game is fully translated, maybe you mean government announcements or chat dialogues are in italian? That will be a problem if english language speakers join an italian city, yes. We need more international players, but i think it's common that (as the game is becoming heavy rpg) in italian city italian is spoken. I think when we will have more international players everyone will be more keen to speak in english, or, like you suggest we can just open an international server.

The mood of the game (titles and such) is interesting.

Mhh yes, we received positive feedbacks, and we got already some payments, but game needs lot of improvements.

The game lacks visibility of social things (rankings or players, who is who, which provinces/kingdoms have what players, where should I go to be accepted into some group). It is really hard to integrate into the game (with the game community).

Yes, you're right, first thing first we have to add the revolt feature (kings can't be dethroned now), then i will approach that; Do you have any suggestion(s)?



   

[Chris]

Interface is crude. You should divide it into inside game and public pages. It is easy to "leave" the game just by clicking some things

Can you please detail? what does it mean 'you leave the game by clicking some things?'

You can still click "Homepage" after you login.

Game is fully translated, maybe you mean government announcements or chat dialogues are in italian?

Yes, I mean user created text. It does not mean anything if the game is translated or not if you can not communicate with fellow players or are barred from all social features.

That will be a problem if english language speakers join an italian city, yes.

But there are only Italian cities I couldn't spot even a single english description on the whole game.

We need more international players

But you can not get more international players, because when they join they can not play the game fully and will quit. Only single player features are availabe to english speaking audience.

and we got already some payments,

Out of curiousity, payments from italian or non italian players?
 

The game lacks visibility of social things (rankings or players, who is who, which provinces/kingdoms have what players, where should I go to be accepted into some group). It is really hard to integrate into the game (with the game community).

Yes, you're right, first thing first we have to add the revolt feature (kings can't be dethroned now), then i will approach that; Do you have any suggestion(s)?

Hard to tell, to tell so I would need to understand how the social stuff works there first