Pondera

by AERProductions
Pondera
Construct your lineage in a living world.

About Pondera

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ID:1290193
 
Jun 10 2013, 10:00 pm

Help development! Pondera Github
Join the Pondera Matrix server!
Exist to survive in a world of creation and destruction. Claim your own in the vast wilderness that occupies the expanse of Pondera. Gathering resources not only to live, but to thrive -- build your desires, a fishing hut, a village, even your own kingdom castle. Team up with others or go it alone to discover what path lies within your desires! The waters of Pondera may tell, while your hands set the stone.

Game Features:
  • Medieval Theme, Scripture inspired
  • Ecclesiastical Calendar with Time, Seasons and Sabbaths/Covenants!
  • Optional 24h Real Time mode
  • Day/Night cycle and Sundials
  • 3D Positional sound
  • Client-side Lighting
  • Client-side Particle weather system
  • Botany/Horticulture/Agriculture
  • Mining/Metallurgy(Smelting)/Smithing
  • Lumber/Woodworking/Carpentry
  • Hunting, Gathering, Biomes
  • Construction and Clayworks/Stoneworks
  • Terraforming and Landscaping
  • Alchemy/Potion/Tonic crafting
  • Strategic defensible position building
  • "Start from nothing, Everything Player Made"
  • Sandbox, Story, PVP/PVE/MMO/MP/SP
  • Consistent artistic vision(Single Artist/Designer)
  • Open Source, designed by one, made by everyone, for everyone!

  • Now supports Laptop (1336x768) and Desktop resolutions(1920x1080)


    This is a game of the ages that will be released and steadily maintained/improved/built upon. It is in a Stable Alpha State, but requires content, bug fixes/function fixes and further additions over time. We are at that time.

    Story mode will also be available in draft form and a new hub has been created to access it, here ( Pondera Story Mode Hub )! May you please report any bugs or issues you may have.






    Gracious Mentions:    : [SFOD-D]Sandman, F0lak, NSBR, NarutoHeroMMaster, Higoten.

    Inspiration/Tutors    : F0lak, NSBR, Hilel, Surge.

    Library Credits    : alieniskiller, Dantom, Deadron, Drumersl, Forum_Account, Garthor, Gughunter, IainPeregrine, Kaiochao, Kidpaddle45, Koil, LummoxJR, Megafartcannon, Misticone, Neon, Scoobert, Shadowdarke, Truzzie, and any whom I may have missed. Special thanks to Xerse & Ripper man5 for the Basic Framework this game was built from.

    Pondera by AER Productions ~ '09-'24
Jun 13 2013, 7:07 am
Screenies?
Jun 13 2013, 7:50 am (Edited on Jan 5 2020, 9:30 am)
Update: Here is a screenshot of a player trying to get started in the world of Pondera: https://i.imgur.com/Q9xtlMY.jpg


~old post~
They will come soon, I have been thinking about it but I can tell you that the art is in the style of Final Fantasy 4 (they are not alike though). It is somewhat gritty with a Medieval appeal and there are weapons from all the cultures of the world!

I will get some screenshots up on the website and the hub eventually, I mainly wanted to feature the first screenshots of actual players playing and not just me showing myself or an area of the game.
Jun 13 2013, 8:04 am
Oh alright.
Jun 13 2013, 8:06 am
I'll think of a few areas I want to show and I might slap some up here, don't hold me to it though after all I have every facet of this development to maintain on my own. :P

I do understand people want to see it and get a feel for the game, but it will be ready for public consumption on more than just a screenshot level in the coming weeks.

Patience, young padawans.

Right now I am finishing mapping the game world, just finished the fourth principality's(what I call kingdoms or nations in this game, Principality.) city infrastructure but I need to hand-make all of the wandering NPCs (both with dialog and without, quests in the future)for several of the cities and building interiors. It comes with time.
Jun 14 2013, 10:57 am
I've finished the basic foundations of the game world, to be dramatically improved upon over the coming months, if not years.

I will be refining a few important systems and releasing this production to the public within the coming days or weeks.
Jun 16 2013, 8:30 am
Fixed two bugs that were impairing the release of the game, connecting additional content and continuing with verification tests before upcoming release.
Jun 16 2013, 8:43 am
Any news on release?
Jun 16 2013, 9:04 am (Edited on Jun 16 2013, 6:17 pm)
Like I mentioned I will be continuing verification tests today; fixing little mishaps here or there (working on getting some hills to work the right way at the moment).

EDIT3: Hills now work as intended, moving to next test.

Since those two bugs didn't take as long as I expected to fix, I can test other aspects and correct them so that is good news (I thought I might be spending the next few days on the bugs but I fixed them fairly quickly).

Release should be in the coming days unless something holds it up, then maybe week(s). Nothing is holding it up but the verification tests and corrections at this point; Once I complete those (a long list of testing all the aspects of the game) I will essentially be ready for a Public Network Test, to see if the game is network viable in its current state (large world to explore) and if it is, then the game will technically be released.

If the current game world is too large to be network viable (unconfirmed so far) then I will revert back to a redux game design that focuses less on RPG storyline/game world and more on the Building, Survival part of the game in a single, large area (instead of many areas).

All of this is to be tested and decided in the coming days/weeks. This production will take user feedback into consideration and if the majority wants to do something like, remove RPG aspects, it can be done. Currently I favor a more, hardcore, view of the game ~ where you cannot tell time by a label on the interface but you must locate a Sundial instead.

That is the kind of logic the game functions on, so expect it to be a difficult game where you must prepare first, in order to survive in the long run (kind of like Dark Souls or even Oregon Trail, although I've never played the first one myself).

Edit2: The load character bug has been corrected but the login system is now disabled and I feel that byond can handle the function, until the possible stand alone future into which I think I have a way to correct it then.
Jun 26 2013, 10:38 pm
I saw my name on your library credit list. Let me know if you have any questions. More than happy to help.
Jul 2 2013, 7:03 pm (Edited on Jul 2 2013, 9:02 pm)
The game is nice. I would recommend a little polishing.
Jul 6 2013, 12:00 pm (Edited on Jul 6 2013, 12:35 pm)
Screenshots have been released and the font color on the interface has been fixed.

Release can only be slated for "Soon".

Once all tests have been completed and pass, Release will be upon us and it will be ready for network testing.
Aug 20 2013, 12:17 pm
I wanted to update the watchers and fans of this production that Sound Effects have just been implemented, The Waterfall(s) of Pondera are now not only Visible but Have Distance Based Audio as well! You can hear them off in the distance and louder on approach Thanks to Koil's soundmob Library.
Apr 4 2015, 11:36 am
It has been awhile.

The project was in a design phase, which had to be completed before production could be resumed. The design phase is long over and there will be a quiet release at some point (I will simply start hosting the game, so keep an eye out) and please register on the website forums and provide feedback if you intend to be helpful via bug/testing, content suggestions, balance, etc.

Currently, it has been decided to split the game into modes and they will be: Design & Build, PVE, Semi-PVP, Open-PVP and Story mode (single player).

They are all self explanatory and will be hosted separately.

This decision came upon the project because the workload was too much as an individual project and the fear was there would be network-latency involved if it was not split.

There is also some difficulty in providing a build-able world along-side a story-mode that shouldn't have its maps altered. There really was no way to prevent abuse such as blocking player progress by building around progress areas, etc. The "all-in-one" mode will simply be turned into story mode/single player offline so a true RPG story can also be made along side this online project.

Keep an eye out for the game in your hub!
Jul 30 2015, 9:56 pm
Pondera.aerproductions.com:~ "}{"News"}{
}{"Thursday, July 30th 2015"}{"11:43AM CDT"}{"Public Alpha for first Omnibus"}{
" The Public Alpha is finally upon us for the first mode of Pondera which I will be referring to as Omnibus'. This "Omnibus" will be defined as 'Design and Build', which will feature a peaceful zone with no enemies or pvp. You will be able to learn how to play and bug test without un-due interference. This mode will be Free-to-play for the testing phase; Subscription models and possible pricing models are still up in the air. The mode to follow is: PVE! In the woodwerks is Semi-PVP, Open-PVP, and Story mode(Others to follow? Who knows).
Thank you for your Patience."
Dec 8 2019, 1:13 pm
No frills public test of Sandbox building mode for Pondera is going on now.

Expect problems.
Dec 11 2019, 8:51 pm
Animated female character walking frames.
Added the ability to select female characters to the game!

Added ability to select Feline, you can play as a cat now! (I want to be able to randomize the colors so each player is different fur color/style).

More Live Tests to happen soon, going to iron out more bugs.
Dec 22 2019, 9:10 am
Finally squashed the lighting logout garbage collector, you can now logout without runtime error plague!
Fixed a time/calendar progression bug.
Adjusted/corrected the Interface UI.
Fixed a character creation duplication bug related to the new Feline class.
Fixed a building selection menu bug.

Another test is up now!

All of this effort is setting up the Persistent World mode of Pondera, then I will get to work on setting up the Story mode ( a demo is available featuring the first couple of zones ).

Sandbox/Persistent mode will be hosted indefinitely and currently I am in need of assistance properly installing a map block save feature (as oppose to a world map save that lags). If anyone is interested, compensation is a potential possibility, contact if you wish to inquire.
Dec 23 2019, 4:53 pm
Fixed a year progression bug and a seasonal overlay bug.
Test is live.
Jan 5 2020, 9:04 am (Edited on Oct 30 2020, 10:37 pm)
I've made lots of progress on my game, Pondera. Rewrote these critical sandbox-mode functions and added cancel options to: Building, Landscaping, Smithing and Smelting and they all work well now with their enhancements.

Polished up the interface and I've been hosting it for public play tests of sandbox mode. You can build forts, houses, forges and anvils you can smelt and smith with, garden, landscape, be a cat, four classes with both male and female sprites that are randomly colored in a living simulated world in 2D all made by me! It's pretty great.

With the smithing rewrite, you can now smith every armor in the game and I've added some of the "materials" you'll need to the map. ;) Weapons, lamps and tools are also smithable.
Fix for the forge light and lifetime, rewrite of some other base functions like carving, combining/etc.

So, in summary, you can build roads and ditches or hills, you can build wood or stone forts, houses with furnishings like forge/anvil/sundial that gives compass and date/time/is trackable, lamposts of varying types that provide light, you can mine ore, smelt it into bars and then smithy the bars into craftable parts of these things. I could continue, but lets just observe the point of the tests for now, an iceberg awaits (lots of content underneath). All of this under night turning to day and time/seasons/years/holidays passing. With some random weather (that needs some more work!). Live in the other world. Roleplay is welcome and this game fosters it, but doesn't enforce it. Enjoy as you please!

Testing is required for progress, please come play and try to break some function so that we can make it stronger! Thank you.~

LIVE test is up now! Enjoy.
http://www.byond.com/games/AERProductions/Pondera
https://www.aerproductions.com/pond/
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