So Arcalyth and I have been playing <a href="http://urbandead.com">Urban Dead</a>, a mostly text-based MMORPG for some time now. It's really fun, and if you've never played a text-based game before you really should try, regardless of how stupid it sounds.

Anyways, playing UD inspired me to make my own, similar game. However, being a huge fan of D&D-type things (I'm also currently addicted to <em>Neverwinter Nights</em> again), I thought I'd base it on the d20 system. It's still got a long ways to go, but I thought I'd give you guys a preview (click for full-view):

<a href="http://upload.thetyphooncorp.com/mmorpg.png"><img src="http://upload.thetyphooncorp.com/mmorpg.png" width="640" height="480"></a>

So yeah, that's what's been on my mind for the most part recently. Urban Dead has well over half-a-million users after under two years of being online, and I thought I'd shoot for something along those lines.

I plan on releasing it to the public soon enough, I just need to accomplish a bunch of things. In fact, here, I'll make a list of what's done and what isn't:

<strong><u>Done</u></strong><ul><li>Ajax-powered movement</li><li>Speaking, including regular speech, shouting, and talking to yourself</li><li>Lame PvP (1HP/hit with stats not affecting anything and death being impossible)</li><li>Varied terrain</li><li>D&D die rolling</li><li>Functioning D&D alignment shifting (Good-Evil, Chaotic-Neutral)</li><li>Ability to search around for items and money</li></ul><strong><u>Not Done</u></strong><ul><li>Real D&D combat</li><li>NPCs to fight and interact with</li><li>Items, and an inventory to manage them with</li><li>Areas-within-areas (you go into a building on the world map and get a new mini-world map to walk around in for the inside of the building)</li><li>Better tile graphics</li><li>Player-to-player and player-to-NPC bartering</li><li>Levelling up and other Character Sheet-related things</li><li>PvP and No-PvP areas</li><li>More…</li></ul>So yeah…that's about it right now. Pretty weak so far, but it's actually kind of fun. Especially when you're an administrator, because you can modify buildings and such.

Anyways, if you're interested in testing it, post a reply to this blog post saying so and I'll PM you the URL to the game. Or you can just PM <em>me</em>, I suppose…either way works. (By "test" it I mean just mess around with it, you don't have to do any rigorous testing or anything.)

<strong>[EDIT]</strong> Oh yeah, forgot to mention: it's only for Firefox. If you notice me having IE open in the screenshot, it's because I was going to take a side-by-side pic of how bad Internet Explorer botches my awesomeness. However, laziness occurred, and prevented me from executing my plan to its completion.

Also:<ul><li>"d20" is D&D-speak for a twenty-sided die</li><li>Adam Readman is the moniker I usually use for role-playing</li><li>The buildings in the game are currently entirely stupid and should not be taken seriously (Arcalyth has built himself not one, but TWO bases…and one has a moat around it)</li><li>I expect this game to be titled and released in a month, if I'm lucky. I work on it every day during my lunch period</li></ul>