The Scimitar

Ok and the last melee weapon of the game, which will be used by the soldier class.  I really hope to be able to utilize these components when the time comes.  In the mean time I will continue to make models as I find the process rather enjoyable.  I think I will start on the block types next.  I still have to work out a way to make the whole system go together, but some models put together shouldn't hurt.

Aesthetic upgrades for a price

It would seem to me that many games are moving to a model where one may spend real money in order to have access to a large assortment of purely aesthetic items with which they are able to create their own personal online identity.  In this way the actual game can be free, which works for me because I really couldn't care less what my avatar looks like so long that the game is fun.  That being said I do recognize the value of being able to customize, and also that some people are willing to pay for it.  And so some ideas that I have for this will be objects that people will be able to place on their personal or communal property.  This will mean things like plants, statues, wall paper, pictures, and many other items will need to be created.  I would love for players to be able to insert their own pictures and creations, but because of the possibility of inappropriate material that will most likely not happen.  The fact that people are going to be able to stack their own blocks will be difficult enough in the first place.  At any rate this is something I'm going to have to keep in mind, especially if this game is going to be able to stay afloat financially speaking.

A blue short sword

Ok so yet another creation, and this one was much easier.  This is the scout's melee weapon, a simple short sword.  I also made this in Blender and this time I edited the resulting rendered image with Gimp, another open source image editor.  I think the biggest challenge 3d modeling wise will be character creation.  I think I'm going to work at keeping them fairly simple as well, to go along with the theme.  I imagine that the final product will look like the characters found in Love, which are simple yet artistic.  

A blue Axe

Ok to show everyone that I have been learning a little bit in the mean time I have created my first 3d melee weapon.  I think it turned out fairly nice, though I am a little biased.  This was created in Blender, which is not the easiest program to use.  Anyway this is the builder's melee weapon, and I will make a corresponding green and red one for the other classes.  I'm not even sure I will be able to utilize this yet, but I think the experience is good all the same.  I now have a lot more respect for 3d modelling, which I'm guessing by the end of my studies I will have a healthy respect for each and every job in the gaming industry.

Caves

Since I have determined that there will be levels of metal I feel that there should also be an element of difficulty to getting the high quality ore.  I think the best way to accomplish this is to have 3 levels of caves that run underground.  In trying to keep things random I could have it so sometimes the caves will connect, and sometimes they won't.  This means that someone will need to successfully navigate the caves all the way to the lowest level and then back again in order to get the high grade ore.  Since something else I want to implement would be land  mines, builders could set land mine traps, making entry into a cave even more challenging and dangerous.  Creating the network of caves will be a part of the land creation, which is still going to take a while to complete.

Armor

Ok I've had this idea going around my brain for a while now.  It has somewhat been established that there will be several levels of metals, most likely 9 at least.  So there will three kinds of metal, and low-high grades of each type.  Because I don't want armor to add more than 100 additional hit points at any given time, I'm thinking that armor made of low grade of anything will add 50, average grade will add 75, and high grade will add 100.  The differences in the metal types will determine how much pack space is used in order to equip said armor. To help clarify this I have made a diagram which is shown above.  This means that the easier to get iron will still be useful, especially to someone who isn't going on a gathering mission and will most likely end their mission in being frozen.  It also will mean that the scout class will not be able to wear iron armor at any time, which is one of the weaknesses of the scout class(that and they are just weak).

Large moves to free to play

It has come to my attention that many MMO's are moving to free to play models.  This means that the game is free to play if you don't care what you look like or leveling at a very slow speed.  One is able to pay for aesthetic upgrades or faster leveling.  One game that I recently decided to check out was Global Agenda, a game set in a sci fi setting.  They have 4 classes, 3 of which are the classic healer, scout, and warrior type.  The fourth class was a class relating to robotics which seemed to be fairly unique.  I found that the gameplay was the standard kill stupid mobs and collect pointless things for people.  I don't really want to spend the hours and hours it will take to get up to the point where I will be able to participate in the Pvp aspect of the game.  The graphics were very impressive, particularly the characters.  I think the take away I have from this is that I will have a lot of competition, which was already a given.  I just didn't expect so many of them to move to free to play so soon.