Illarion - An open source online roleplaying game
What is this all about?
Illarion (http://www.illarion.org) is a free, graphical roleplaying game that focuses on true roleplaying. A persistent fantasy game world, featuring elves, wizards and demons invites players to fulfill glorious deeds and exciting quests every day. Illarion features a complex crafting system, arcane wizardry and countless nasty monsters that wait in dungeons for their Judgement day. Illarion is a well established project, the game is fully playable. It is has been a free alternative to games like Ultima Online, Tibia or Runescape for almost ten years now. During this time, the game was improved and updated regularly - currently 15 volunteers work on it, and around 200 players are playing. These days, the staff works hard on an update to the game that will change all aspects of the game further improving the quality in order to satisfy the demands of players from all around the world. For this task, a helping hand is needed. If you are interested in joining an existing project and have own ideas for a fantasy roleplaying game, we invite you to join the development team of Illarion. Screenshots of the game and further information can be found at http://www.illarion.org.
http://img221.imageshack.us/i/screenshot2md.jpg/
How can I help?
You can support the development of Illarion in many ways. Everyone who grasps the basics of programming is able to contribute to it. Interest in fantasy roleplaying is preferable, team work is essential. The staff consists of people from all around the world, hence, English is the project language and you should be able to communicate in it. Since Illarion is a free game that is developed for the public domain, no payment is possible. Concerning legal aspects, Illarion is organized as a registered society.
In every aspect of development, you can rely on skilled developers with many years of experience. Illarion specific content is explained in various documentations. In detail, Illarion consists of the following elements:
Server
The server is coded in C++. The hardware runs on Debian Linux. To contribute to the development of the server, you need to have good skills in C++, and experience in the implementation of multi-threading. Licence: GPLv3
Client
The Illarion client is written in Java and makes use of the JWJGL library for its graphical display. To contribute to the development of the client, you need good skills in Java or C++. Also, you have to grasp the basics of OpenGL. Licence: GPLv3
Server scripts
Most action a player can invoke are controlled by scripts. These scripts are programmed in the scripting language Lua. Lua is so simple that everyone with enough interest can learn it very quickly. Scripts are also the most influential way to develop game content for Illarion, e.g. quests, magic spells or crafting processes.
In addition to said projects, Illarion also offers opportunities to work in other areas, mainly to improve the game content.
Homepage and Wiki
Even the homepage and the wiki of Illarion have room for improvement. The homepage is based on PHP and works with its own, custom framework. Everyone who is interested in coding of websites and has skills in PHP will have an easy start. The wiki, which contains descriptions of the game world, such as gods and myths, is based on Mediawiki. Players may use it to submit own content.
Graphics
Graphics of buildings, items and characters of Illarion are 2D graphics, derived from 3D models by rendering. The client composes the graphics to scenes on the fly. Thus, a graphics artist needs to have good skills in 3D modeling software. 2D and 3D animations of magic spells and natural events are another field of interest. You can review a screenshot of the game here: http://illarion.org/community/wiki/index.php/File:Screenshot1.png
Sounds and music
Illarion uses the free ogg format for background music. Midi music is supported as well. Artists havemany sources in which to exert their creativity. Many things are possible, be it background music for different dungeons and towns or a general theme. Sound effects are embedded as .wav files and are played to illustrate player actions like crafting or fighting.
Authors of game content
Illarion is a mysterious fantasy world with the technology of Europe in the 11th century. But there are orcs, irascible gods and magical artifacts. For the game content, tales, legends, poems, songs and fairytales are needed. This background of the world may find its place in book in the game or can be read on the walls of a decayed ruin. Tales can also be made quests in the game to entertain players. Illarion offers a custom, very simple NPC scripting language and tools to generate books and other quest elements. These tools require absolutely no programming experience. [/list]
If we have sparked your interest for contributing to Illarion as volunteer, we'd welcome to get in contact with you. Illarion has a dense and friendly community of roleplayers that will defiantly reward you with gratitude. Please send us an email to vilarion@illarion.org or join our IRC chat #illarion at quakenet.
In order to display the progress of Illarion please find the video below. The video shows the state of the game as it should look like after the next update which is currently "work in progress". This development snap shoot does not show a finished game, especially the graphics need some improvement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IBParyKVxk
You can watch the video in HD and fullscreen mode.
May Eldan, god of wisdom, bless you,
Estralis on behalf of the Illarion staff
PS: We also welcome every new player! Just check out the game at http://www.illarion.org!
Hello OpenGameArtists,
as announced on http://www.illarion.org, we'll have a chat today (10/26, 17:00 GMT) in the #illarion IRC channel on quakenet. The topic of this TechTalk is
The upcoming skill system
This chat is a good opportunity to talk about development, using a concrete example. Also, you can influence the development process directly. During the chat, we'll talk about the general process of learning and the aims of this skill system.
http://illarion.org/...ity/us_chat.php
Please note that this chat is not information session but an opportunity to get involved in the development of Illarion. You should have a basic understanding of Lua code and control circuits in order to be able to contribute to the discussion. We'd be happy to welcome any guests or newbies!
See you!
Estralis
http://www.illarion.org
I think you missed the most important part -- how are the art and code licensed? I think that's what we care about here. :P
Thanks for the comment,
even though Illarion is a well established project, it is pretty new to the "OpenSource" scene. The server software and the game client were released recently under GPLv3. All game content and art is, at this moment, still under copyright. It is basically the licensing model of Planeshift. A registered non profit society called Illarion e.V. holds the copyright and funds the project.
I added the licence information to the client and server section.
http://www.illarion.org
Pretty sure your login system isn't working.
I tried regisering under two different email accounts. On One of them I got am email with a link to click to complete registration - but when I click it it took me back to trying to make a new account. On the other email address I received no email. One email address was a hotmail one, other was one registered under my own name. Trying to recover password on either just says it's invalid email address.
If new players can't sign up then pretty obviously you're gonna have a low level of activity. Unfortunate as the game looked interesting from what I could see from the information publically available.
Hello,
and thanks for the feedback! There are some known problems with password recovery, especially with @xx.yy emails. However, your account (if your email goes like d**************@hotmail.co.uk) is active and you should be able to log in! The link in the email should have brought you to a page where you are prompted to log in.
http://illarion.org/community/account/
In any case, I forwarded your report to the support, see: http://illarion.org/community/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=36100
Also, if you want to take a look at the development branch of Illarion, you can take a look at the new "Illarion loader". It gives you access to all development tools and the testserver.
http://illarion.org/~nitram/downloads/illarion_download.jnlp
http://www.illarion.org
Yeah - it seems to work now. When you login it doesn't give any clear indication that you logged in - and if you choose to "play game" you can't as you haven't made a character yet (seems that has to be done on the web-page).
Good to hear that your problem was resolved!
I reproduced the (confusing) redirection behaviour of the account system and posted a message for the developers how to improve the situation.
http://illarion.org/community/forums/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=36101
http://www.illarion.org
What's the reason for making media non-free, if the game isn't being done for profit? Is it because you don't want other people profiting from the media?
I'd say it's worth mentioning explicitly what licence the media will be distributed under, if you want people to contribute for no payment (especially since Open Game Art is a site for Free media, so most people here would I imagine be less likely to want to release work under non-free licences).
Hello,
those are indeed interesting questions. In order to answer them, I think it is best that I describe the current organisation of the project Illarion. There is no person that holds any rights on any code, media or content of Illarion; all rights are with a registered non profi society according to german law. This society has a board that decides about important issues such as licenses.
Recently, it was decided to put the game client and the server code under GPLv3. So, this was a first step towards open source, not a step away from the idea of a totally free game. Media was not included in this step so far, not because of any particular reason. There is, however, a small share of third party media, used with permission, that will never be released under a "free" license.
Currently, it is being discussed to incoperate media licensed under CC or similar. This is an ongoing discussion and, in all honesty, no team member is really familiar with the countless licenses out there. Any input is appreciated in this field, especially at the Illarion forum: http://illarion.org/community/forums/index.php
Estralis
http://www.illarion.org
By open source online roleplaying game, don't you mean its just an open-source mmorpg ? I am confused, is there a difference between 'an online roleplaying game' and MMORPG's apart from open-sourcing some of the code ?
Looking forwrad for answers and clarifications.
It's neither "massive" (20 people not 2000 people), nor it is what you call "RPG" today. The focus totally lies in the classic roleplaying, not in the dumbed down game mechanics you usually have in today's MMORPGs.
That's right!
Illarion is not a MMORPG like World of Warcraft. Actually, it is a game, designed for a niche audience that enjoys a dense community and direct contact to the fate of the game world over hundreds of repetitive "kill 10 wolves"-quests.
The actions of the players have direct impact on the game world. If you do it right, you can become king of a small town with that town maybe just having 30 citizens, but you know them at least ;-).
Roleplaying - true roleplaying, like a stage play, without script - is the main focus. That means you really try to play your character as a role, as an actual being with thoughts, feelings, desires and flaws. This can be pretty challenging but is an interesting concept.
http://www.illarion.org
Edit: I realised that the post below is off-topic for this board. Sadly, I cannot delete this post entirely as it seems. So I apologise and leave the "spam" where it is, promising to write something art related next time ;-)
Hello Artists,
on wednesday, 02/01/2012 at 19:00 GMT, an Illarion TechTalk is scheduled. The purpose of a TechTalk is to interest you in the development process of Illarion and display interesting topics to you.
The topic of this workshop is 'semi dynamic quests with easyNPC'. Dynamic quests are characterised by a different plot and different starts for every character ("generated"). Semi dynamic quests are a hybrid form of quests with static elements that are placed dynamically.
The workshop will treat the basics of quest placing and advanced possibilities of easyNPC. If you want to prepare yourself for the workshop, you can find some material on the forum:
http://illarion.org/community/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=36430
The workshop will be hosted in the #illarion chat on quakenet. We'd love to welcome anyone who is interested in developing an OpenSource online roleplaying game!
http://illarion.org/community/us_chat.php
See you tomorrow!
Estralis
http://www.illarion.org