This post is probably going to get really big because I keep editting it with new stuff. I don't know but the limit is, but eh. Here's a table of contents so you can Ctrl + F to whatever you're interested in:
1. Introduction
2. Getting There
3. Notes about the map
4. Vocabulary
5. Color/Species reference
6. 'Scraps'
7. Current Concerns
Introduction
Before reading on, please note:
- The client used to make this thing work is nothing special. It's not 3D, it's made with isometric pixel art. HOWEVER, it's totally free, and it should run equally well on the newest and oldest computers, giving EVERYONE an opportunity to join in. That is why I chose it.
So just what is this all about? What is an MMOSG?
MMOSG stands for 'Massively Multiplayer Online Socializing Game.' It is not an MMORPG because you don't participate in any kind of RPG unless you want to (in other words, no stats or levels or anything, it's not like Warcraft.) People who use Furcadia usually use it to chat and Roleplay. So it is something like a graphical chatroom which is convenient for roleplay as well.
Furcadia was made for furry fans but the game is so unbelievably customizable that it appeals to many non-furries (myself included.) Maps, walkabouts, objects, floors, fonts, the interface, the buttons-- just about EVERYTHING can be editted. This is the background for the creation of the Oddworld map.
Therefore, to join us, you will need to download Furcadia and then head to the little part of Furcadia that is Oddworld. Details of how to do this appear below. Worry not! The specifications for this program are amazingly low due to its use of pixel art as opposed to anything 3D.
Specifications (copied from download page):
DOWNLOAD SIZE 15.9 MB
OPERATING SYSTEMS Win 2000, 2003, XP, Vista
(Linux supported with Wine)
DOWNLOAD TIME 2 minutes with broadband (1 Mb/s)
4 minutes with cable (512 kbit/s)
17 minutes for an ISDN (128 kbit/s)
40 minutes for a 56.6 kbit/s modem
If you are holding off on downloading this, don't! It's not a large program at all. =)
Getting There
1. Head over to http://www.furcadia.com/download/ ; download, and install.
2. Run the program. It should take you to a screen prompting you to create a character:
Don't worry too much about this now. You can easily change any of this later at any time-- your descrition, colors, species, even gender.
3. Insert all of the information it prompts you to. Be sure to use a valid email address because you'll need to validate it within 10 days or so. You'll be prompted to enter your username last; I suggest using your Oddworld Forums name (or inserting it in your description at least) so everyone knows who you are.
4. Upon your first entry you'll be taken to a special Welcome map with a tutorial you can take about Furcadia controls. You can go through it if you want, but it's not really necessary.
5. Technically, you can walk to the dream in Allegria Island (AI on the B tab if you're curious) but for a shortcut, just say furc://slig:oddworld to make a clickable link that should take you right to the dream. The dream is a 4.04 MB download. I apologize for the large size.
6. You're here! You're free to explore and chat around as you like. The Elum tab has your GameSpeak available. (Buttons will work for a certain extent, for example Slogs can only bark and growl, so only buttons 1 and 2 work.)
Notes About The Game
* To change what you are:
- Go to the C tab and click furre edit.
- Change your species and click save.
- Restart Furcadia.
*To see who is in the dream:
- Press F4.
- Also, you can hold Tab to see who is around you.
*To private message anyone:
Say /name messagehere. You can message anyone from anywhere on Furcadia. (ex: /ajiellyn hi!)
*To perform an 'action':
Insert a ; or a : before what you say. For example, :smiles. will turn into 'Ajiellyn smiles.' This is what people usually use to roleplay.
*To talk to everyone in the dream:
Insert - before what you say. Everyone in the dream will recieve the message, unless they have turned shouting off (ex: -Hi everyone!)
*To see what time it is:
Just say 'time'. You'll see the current 'FST', a synced clock for all of Furc (I think it's CST?)This can be extremely helpful in coordinating roleplays or meets since lots of people here are in different time zones.
*Elums can hop a space by hitting F3.
*Sligs can fire by hitting F3. This will kill anyone up to 3 spaces ahead of them.
*Mudokons can chant by hitting F3. This will open a bird portal.
Vocabulary
1. Dream - The common name for a Furcadia map. There are 'Main Maps' (You can see all of those in the B tab) on which any players (yes, even you!) can upload the maps they make with the dream editor. You can find the dream editor on your C tab.
2. Avatar - aka walkabout, the thing you are.
3. Patches - Used to customize Furcadia walkabouts, portraits, interface, etc. If you create a dream with patches, you are replacing the default patches players see on main maps. For example, the Canine is patched over by a Slog walkabout in the Oddworld dream.
4. Digos - Purchasable avatars. These are usually mythical animals and stuff. I don't recommend worrying about it though unless you develop any sort of keen interest in Furcadia and they're not patched in the Oddworld dream anyway.
-Paramite-
Musteline
'Fur'= The main body
'Markings' = The legs
-Scrab-
Bovine
'Hair'= Main body (back and head)
'Fur'= The Scrab's chest
'Trousers' = Inside of the mouth
'Boots' = Nails
-Glukkon-
Squirrel
'Fur' = The Glukkon's head
'Vest' = The suit
'Markings' = The undershirt
'Boots' = Shoes
'Eyes' = Eyes
'Badge' = Its badge
-Gabbit-
Lapine
'Fur'= The main body
'Markings' = belly
'Vest' = coloring spread throughout
'Trousers' = coloring spread throughout
'Eyes' = eyes
'Boots' = coloring around the feet
'Bracers' = things on its head (?)
-Vykker-
Bugge
'Fur' = The main body
'Eyes' = The eyes
Scraps
'Scraps' here refers to a dice game. Such a game exists on Neopets and it's called 'Bilge Dice,' but I went ahead and named it this for now because it sounds more Odd. I don't think it's related to craps, but I'm sure it exists somewhere under an official name; if someone recognizes it please let me know =)
It's no secret that Sligs love gambling.
Scraps is a gambling game that is part judgement/skill and part luck. It is played with 1 or more players, but to prevent confusion the maximum number of players should generally be kept to 4 or 5.
You can play this with each other in-game. I will explain this here; bear with me, I promise the rules are very simple. Do you think Sligs would be very interested if they weren't? ;)
Each player has 6 dice. They begin by rolling all 6:
To roll dice, say ROLL #d6. The roll must be in capital letters or it will bunch the totals together without telling you what each one was. If you ROLL 6d6 you will roll 6 dice of 6 sides. Therefore, to start the game you should ROLL 6d6.
The players examine their results carefully and decide which dice they should hold, keeping these rules in mind:
- You must hold at least one dice before you re-roll.
- By the end of all of your rolls, you must have held a 1 and a 4 or you are disqualified.
- The player with the highest total at the end (not counting the 1 and the 4) wins.
They announce the dice they will hold this round and then reroll:
Munches holds 1 and 4
Flamez holds 6, 4 and 1.
Slig holds 4, 1, 6
Since Munches held two dice, he has four more dice remaining. Since Flamez and Slig each held 3 dice, they have three more remaining. (This is out of the original six dice.) In this case, all players were lucky enough to snatch a 1 and 4 their first roll, so they are all safe and qualified.
And choose what they will hold again... and so on. Notice the eagerness to hold high numbers. This is because, at the end they will tally the scores of their four dice (remember, not including the 1 and 4 required to qualify.)
The player with the highest score then wins!
Development: Current Concerns/Plans
1. Working visually on the native area.
2. Drawing metal/industrial patches for the dream.
3. Steef avatar
Once again, please DO NOT post in this thread saying that the dream is down. The first thing I do when I get home each day is check to ensure that it is up, and if not, I fix it.
Wow, great job!
And welcome back!
My parents are quite scary, so they'll kill me if they see my downloading this before the weekend, I have quite alot of work, but I will ASAP.
You all downloading over the weekend?! Yeah, well I'm installing it NOW!!
Damn... I'm exited...
==========
Oh, um. I seem to have the origannal furcadia 'cause it's showing me all the origanal sprites in the tutorial. Is it supposed to do that?
Also:
You say, "(URL: furc://outskirtsofoddworld) furc://outskirtsofoddworld "
Sorry, the specified dream is not available at this moment.
I managed to install it yesterday and also met Ajiellyn (a.k.a. Outskirts of Oddworld). Everything seems to be working fine, the way I see it.
Carnix, I also had the original sprites in the tutorial, so I guess that's a general symptom. It'll change once you get into the Oddworld dream. Ajiellyn also told me yesterday that if a world is empty for a certain time, it will unload itself. This could be the reason why you couldn't access the dream.
Hey, Jordan, I saw you for a sec but then you disappeared! Did it work out alright?
So that was you I saw! Yeah, it's working fine, been coming on every now and again to see if someone's on. I've also been looking at the Dream Editor. Maybe I could make a simple map for you or something, if I knew how. It's bloody awesome how you can make your own levels.
I've also been experimenting with the Dream Editor, after tomorrow's exam I'm going to have two and a half months of boring myself to death so I'll try my hands at making a level, if you don't mind of course .
__________________
:
“I always believe the movies I've made are smarter than the way they are perceived by sort of mass culture and by the critics,” Snyder said, a statement he immediately followed by saying, “Also, ‘It looks like a video game.’
For those who would be interested in making an Oddworld dream: I've talked to Ajiellyn this Thursday and she told me how would she imagine the new dream. Basically, it would contain three main areas: an Industrial building, the Wilderness and a Mudokon village. I've already made a few Industrial objects and a wall type with the FHS Editor (this can be found in the main Furcadia folder). A map like that would be the awesomeness.
Since the last efforts for a forum project... well, died, I say we should really do this.
I believe these maps are supposed to be a whole; not different dreams. For example, if you wanted, you could walk out from the Industrial building and get to the Mudokon village through a path in the Wilderness. So I guess this is a one-person job. Still, if someone volunteered for making the dream, the rest could provide some layout designs. It should help a lot, in my opinion.
Great job?... All I did was recoloring a crate and a barrel, plus creating a wall... This is nothing yet.
Good finds, Aji. I've checked the First Dream tutorial, really helpful.
I believe these maps are supposed to be a whole; not different dreams. For example, if you wanted, you could walk out from the Industrial building and get to the Mudokon village through a path in the Wilderness. So I guess this is a one-person job. Still, if someone volunteered for making the dream, the rest could provide some layout designs. It should help a lot, in my opinion.
You are correct. The dream needs to be one whole. One map cannot be merged with another.
However, we can collectively work on a map in two ways. Both require that some of us, willing to spend time and effort on the dream become skilled enough at map-weaving to actually work on it. In one method, those people can pass the dream amongst themselves, editting/adding to it, and then uploading it. Perhaps someone can do the factory and someone else will do the wilderness, etc.
Pros of this: It's safer than the other way.
Cons: It may take much longer as only one person can work on the most-updated map at a time and it'll need to be uploaded/downloaded a lot.
The other way: Furcadia recently made a way for lots of people to edit a map at the same time, in real time. That means we'll be walking around and when you place an object in the map editor, it appears in the dream. It's pretty cool, but it's also pretty buggy.
Pros: Extremely efficient, and it'll be a really cool way for us to work together.
Cons: First of all I'll need to pay $5 per month to have this feature... :P But the biggest con is that this feature of Furcadia is very buggy and I've heard of it doing a number on dreams. It can yield some pretty destructive glitches. Even if we save copies of the map for backup, we might lose a lot of work when we find out lines of walls have been randomly placed throughout the dream.
So it's either safe and slow, or speedy and risky. Personally, I'd rather us take the safe way if we can find people who can work quickly enough...
Of course, there's also the option that I can do all the map work myself. It would take out a lot of the community-effort element, though.. =(
For now, as dripik suggested, it might be good to start out with blueprints of areas. The complete map should have 3 areas: a native settlement, a wilderness area, and a factory of some sort. What factory is it and what do they make? How big is it? What's it look like on the outside? Those are all important questions, and I'm no good at that sort of thing so anyone creative is welcome to help out in that area!
The other important contribution that can be made to the dream is isometric pixel art. I'm not expecting anyone to be skilled at this particular kind of art so I'm willing to do it myself. However, if anyone wants to give that kind of thing a try it may help a lot.
tl;dr version:
1. If you get good at map weaving, make yourself known and we'll organize a way to work on the map together.
2. A good map is planned first! I don't even know what to call the factory! If you're creative this way, submit your designs and we'll add them in.
3. I'm going to be in the background drawing the patches for whatever we decide upon... but if you think you can offer some help in that area, let me know. =)
I've also been experimenting with the Dream Editor, after tomorrow's exam I'm going to have two and a half months of boring myself to death so I'll try my hands at making a level, if you don't mind of course .
Copy-pastev this for me, I'm in the same boat.
I'll happily give it a helping hand, and I'd say slow but safe too- we've waited over a year, so a little longer won't hurt to get it fully finished. Just a couple of questions:
Could we not do more than just 1 settlement and 1 factory? Like, add other little peices here and there to really flesh the map out?
And no, I've still not downloaded the thing. I've got tons of free time now though (unless I get of my arse and get a part-time job), so I'll probably download it this week.
EDIT: Erased the floors comment due to my stupidity and not reading.
__________________
Fuzzle Guy: Apart from going swimming I've never been more wet in my life than when I went to see Take That.
Last edited by Munch's Master; 06-16-2008 at 02:01 PM..
: I was a dumbass and didn't read the linked page
Could we not do more than just 1 settlement and 1 factory? Like, add other little peices here and there to really flesh the map out?
Possibly, but lets take this one step at a time for now; focus on getting the three areas up before going furthur.
Downloaded and tested it now; I can see some possibility for some silly games if we get more members signed up.
OK, I'm about to download it all now, but 1 last question:
When entering the e-mail address, can you set it so it isn't displayed like on the forum? Or does it have to be public?
__________________
Fuzzle Guy: Apart from going swimming I've never been more wet in my life than when I went to see Take That.
OK, I'm about to download it all now, but 1 last question:
When entering the e-mail address, can you set it so it isn't displayed like on the forum? Or does it have to be public?
You don't have to worry, I don't think they allow anyone but you to see your email address. There's no listing or anything.
It shouldn't take long, maybe about 2-10 minutes, but in rare cases it's taken longer. Be sure to check your email's junk folder, just in case. Don't worry about it too much, though, you have full playability even before confirming your email. There's just a 12-day limit or something. The reason they did this was to try to deter people from having 100+ names (you can only have 10 per email address.)
If it doesn't arrive, you should be able to set it again by saying setemail blah@blah.com
I had to wait a couple of days before my confirmation email arrived.
And Ajiellyn is currently doing a lot of maintenance on the dream, trying to add new features and stuff. Last time she was on she was trying to make it possible for mudokons to possess sligs; I spent a few minutes under her control (and found I couldn't move afterwards after she'd walked off; back to the drawing board with that ). This experimentation can cause a range of glitches, so sometimes it's shut down while she tinkers. (On said occasion every time you took a step there was a sound of water splashing, wherever you stood you would usually end up sitting down as if you were standing on a chair, and whenever a slig fired its gun it would play a little jingle.)
I know, it was already possible. I've been online with Slig for nearly 2 days straight now. I gave her a few ideas myself of what to add. I think I might know what She is up to. (And yes, the possessing works, although a little buggy)
Oddworld MMOSG
How To Contribute
). This experimentation can cause a range of glitches, so sometimes it's shut down while she tinkers. (On said occasion every time you took a step there was a sound of water splashing, wherever you stood you would usually end up sitting down as if you were standing on a chair, and whenever a slig fired its gun it would play a little jingle.)