As I’m working on the current “progression” milestone, I’ve finally re-implemented “zoning”; setting the level range for regions.
In the end, I decided that a simple, color-coded informational view was the best way to show that, and so I’ve mostly mimicked the view I used in MMORPG Tycoon 1, overlaid on top of the full 3D world view.
Like in MMORPG Tycoon 1, buildings and roads show up in this view as well, picked out in glowing vector lines. Eventually, monsters and players should be visible here, too (although they are not yet). You can now switch between the normal “edit” mode which has been seen in every Milestone build up to this point, and the new “grid” mode by clicking the poorly-named “OnGrid” button. That switches the display, and also switches what abilities are available.
I’d like to point out a particular thing that I’m very pleased with; in MMORPG Tycoon 1, I struggled with how to draw region borders, since most borders have two neighbors which want differently colored borders. In the end, in Tycoon 1, I decided that “zoned” or “water” regions always win over “unzoned” zones, and that where a border was shared by two zoned/water regions, the region to the south or to the east wins. In Tycoon 2, each “border” now draws in two tones, so each region is completely surrounded by borders in its own color, even when those borders are shared with a region which wants a different border color. In the screenshot here, this is probably most visible at the border between the “3-5” zone, and the “15” zone.
Next up, rebooting crashed servers. (And similarly, making it much more obvious when they do crash, even when you’re in ‘edit’ mode)
