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Portals, Triggers and Zones - oh my!

by Scottie Sirius · in Technical Issues · 01/11/2010 (12:48 pm) · 7 replies

I'm trying to decide which way to set up my game overall. The world has multiple kingdoms with different themes and several quests.

1. Should I go with one huge terrain and zone off areas?
2. Should I create many missions and use triggers to get from one area to another?

I can't find enough info about using zones to make a decision.
What all does a zone do? Can I limit chat to a zone? Can I have a different looking sky? Can I have a different ambient sound?

If I make different missions for each area, when going from one mission to another, is there an annoying loading screen? What's the best way to teleport from one mission to another? Triggers?

What's the difference between a Physical Zone and a Zone?
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Torque Owner Mike Rowley
Mike Rowley
#1
01/12/2010 (4:25 pm)
If your game is single player, option 2 is the second best. (option 1 won't give you what you are looking for)

The best way would be to dynamicly place your map. In Ed Maurina's first book, The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque, Ed teaches you how to do this. It won't work in multiplayer mode tho, as all the players would get transported into the new map.

Torque 3D Owner Scottie Sirius
#2
01/12/2010 (4:41 pm)
Sorry, forgot to mention this is a Multi-player online game.

So, if I create a trigger for a player to walk into to TelePort him into a new mission it will TP everyone in the game?

How does that make sense?

EDIT: Wow, you're right...that just really sucks...lol. I had an AI chase me and when HE went thru the trigger it sucked me into the other mission too. Is there a Multi-Player work around for this?

Or am I going to be forced to use just one very large terrain and chat zones?

Torque Owner Mike Rowley
Mike Rowley
#3
01/12/2010 (6:25 pm)
Yes. It teleports everyone. (I've tried it) There are some posts here on the forum where people talk about teleporting in multiplayer games, but I don't recall the title of them.

Torque 3D Owner Steve
YP productions
#4
01/12/2010 (7:53 pm)
If you can't have one huge terrain (which we already know we can't) and you can't set up zones to travel from one terrain to another which are used by one player independently of others, wouldn't that effectively mean that it is impossible to create a MMO in torque?

Torque Owner Mike Rowley
Mike Rowley
#5
01/12/2010 (8:42 pm)
Quote:wouldn't that effectively mean that it is impossible to create a MMO in torque?
Out of the box, ... yes. Impossible...no. It's been done, and there is an mmo port of torque. They use python as the scripting language I believe.
You can search it here if you want.

Torque 3D Owner Scottie Sirius
#6
01/15/2010 (10:31 am)
Has anyone used multiple terrain blocks successfully? Would that work better than one large terrain?

Torque 3D Owner Scottie Sirius
#7
01/27/2010 (12:26 pm)
@Steve. I found the answer for hopping from one terrain/level to another. You can get the info from this post where Matt Kronyak helped me get it sorted out.
http://www.torquepowered.com/community/forums/viewthread/107671