Tokratan / News: Recent posts

A new version of Tokratan has been released.

Please run the client updater to play.

Just letting you know that, despite slow progress, work does continue on Tokratan. The reason for the delays is that I have - again - started rewriting the game server, this time in Java, just like the client. The current server nearly has the same features as the C++ version, so I will deploy it one of these days on the permanent server.

It may be so that the server hardware, a Pentium I 200 Mhz :( is insufficient, in which case I'll see what I can do to upgrade it.... read more

After a week of downtime, the server is back up. There was some kind of problem with the machine, but it seems fixed now.

I've done some work on the item system recently, but it's not fully working yet. I won't put it up until it works completely, to avoid problems.

In other news, Myridiam is working on the new website. Stay tuned.

The server is up and running, I'm trying to get 24/7 coverage. If it's down, alert me, either on the forum (http://tokratan.sourceforge.net/forum/phpBB2/) or by e-mail. You can see the status of the game server from a web interface here: http://tokratan.servegame.com:9980/ or by clicking "Server Status" in the menu above. Note that the "Connected Clients" number might not be always correct. More information will be added to that dynamic page in the future.... read more

A few days later than promised, but here it is!

Head over to the files list on the SourceForge page to download the auto-updater (or click here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=108792\). Note that you will need a Java 1.4 compliant virtual machine to run the client. Head over to http://java.sun.com to download it for your platform.

How to use the client: first download the auto-updater. It's only 6 kilobytes. It includes a batch file, run it. You should see a list of files being downloaded in a console window. When the download is done (could take anywhere between 30 and 300 seconds), you'll see a "latest news" window. Close the window when you're done reading.... read more

We plan to release Tokratan 0.1 Alpha near the end of October. Don't get your expectations up: the features will be limited to walking and chatting, so it'll basically be about showing the engine and testing the network code. Note that you'll need the Java 1.4.2 (or higher) virtual machine, so scoot over to http://java.sun.com and download the J2RE release!

About a week ago, we made a major design decision. We will go "back to the roots": instead of a 3D rendered client, we're now working on an Isometric client, much like the earlier Tokratan versions.

To broaden the audience to other platforms and to people who don't have a modern graphics card, we're developing the client in Java. This will also speed up development considerably.

Currently, clients can join servers, walk around and chat in the test sessions. We have not yet released a public client yet, because we want to make the auto-updater system work first.... read more

Work continues on the Tokratan engine. I have changed the decision on the user interface: we will no longer use wxWidgets for the user interface, because I had problems getting it to work with OpenGL. I'm currently writing a small widget system on top of glut to support the Tokratan user interface. This also allows us any look and feel we desire.

In other news, I have posted two screenshots of the terrain renderer in the screenshots section. They're not spectacular at all, but I thought I'd show we're doing something here.

I am working on the game (as we speak, really), but there's a lot to do.

I created a scripting language for the game first, which may seem like a weird part to start on, but it's a necessary thing anyway.

I'm working on the server mostly, I haven't really got anything for the client just yet.

Current code status: 8000 lines of code :-)

Myridiam is working on a new website design, so hopefully this piece of junk that I made will look better soon :-)

I have exams coming up in a couple of weeks (the whole of june really), so don't expect any release in the coming weeks. Since I am the lead designer of the project, coding will not begin before I have laid the foundations of the system, which will take a few weeks in itself. After these exams we will commence development on Tokratan.

We intend to keep up the Free Software ideal of "release early, release often", so as soon as we have the basics of the game (account management, networking, movement), we will release an alpha.

Myridiam was added to the project as member. He has not participated in the development of the previous versions of Tokratan, but he is very enthousiastic to cooperate.

Work on the website basics has started. It's ot much yet, though :-)

Tokratan developer, co-designer and co-developer Alain Van Hout has been added as member.

Tokratan is now added to sourceforge. Expect more details soon.