Developer Diary #5 - Burning Down The House

[Daniels 359]

Time for another OwlGaming V Developer Diary! This one is all about fire.

 

Be sure to tick "HD" on the video player settings if you want to watch in high quality.

 

Introducing Fire Missions

We have added a variety of missions for the fire department to undertake including forest fires, churches on fire, etc. Each mission requires a unique response and requires the use of different vehicles & techniques.

 

Fires spread and behave differently, some may reignite as you're fighting them, others will spread to trees, foliage and roofs of buildings. Certain missions will require the use of the FD helicopter to attack the fire in hard to reach areas for example the roof or deep in the forest where a fire truck cannot reach.

 

These fires are 100% synchronized, including the spread of the fire and progress made fighting the fire.

 

Creating scenarios is simple and can be done in minutes by a staff member. The creator does not have to specify each fire node, instead they specify basic meta data (a mission name and description), a root starting position and the modelling of the fire (how does the fire spread).

 

We have many models for spreading and many places where a fire can start, or a fire could be started from a dynamic event (e.g. your car caught fire). This means that fire missions should not be repetitive, should create additional roleplay in the server and require no admin involvement (fires ignite, spread, reignite etc all on their own).

 

Fire Department Helicopter

To assist with fire fighting, we have added in functionality to the EMS helicopter. While hovering over a fire, the pilot of the helicopter can hit a button to drop extinguishing material on the flames. 

 

 

Media

Words are never as cool as pictures & videos. Note that for testing, we've sped up the fire fighting process in the videos below.

 

Fire Fighting:

 

Fire Helicopter:

 

Fire Fighters ready for action:

Sadly, we had to ban ThatGuy after this screenshot for famous name.

 

Deploying to the scene:

 

FD Helicopter:

 

Rural Fire Spreading Development Shot:

 

Urban Fire Spreading Development Shot:

 

Early Development Shot:

Red = Root / Fire start position

Yellow = Fire Spread nodes

Green = Latest Fire Spread node

 

Community Input

We need your help in designing this feature. We want the communities input on what the reward should be for fighting the above fires? For example, should the faction bank balance get a boost? Should the participating players get a reward? How can we expand this feature and make it more interesting? Let us know what your ideas are!

 

How is the development of Owl V going?

Development is going good, making a good, content rich script which relies on nice intuitive user interfaces rather than complex SAMP-like commands is a massive task, similar to that which we undertook back when we made the MTA script. We really only focus on 'cool' things in these developer diaries, but a lot of smaller things go on behind the scenes which aren't as interesting to cover - for example, we recently expanded vehicle auto loans, vehicle rentals, property mortgages, and banking to include factions.

 

Aside from that, the on-going UAT beta is helping us find and resolve bugs before launch rather than at launch.

 

Got skills in GTA V Mapping or Web Development (HTML, CSS & Javascript)?

If so, I am very interested to hear from you. Please reach out to me on Discord and show me what you can do.

 

Special Thanks to the UAT

As always, the UAT has been awesome in helping us test new features.

 

 

 

As always, feel free to reach out to us below or via Discord with any questions, concerns, ideas, etc.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read the developer diary and we look forward to making OwlGaming the number one place to roleplay in both GTA V and MTA.

[ThatGuy 3,149]

[croozerdog 640]

Heya, so you're thinking of adding random fire missions? How are you guys going to implant this? Will it be more like an RPG where firefighers can just do these missions or does it need player input to start?

[Daniels 359]

4 minutes ago, croozerdog said:

Heya, so you're thinking of adding random fire missions? How are you guys going to implant this? Will it be more like an RPG where firefighers can just do these missions or does it need player input to start?

The goal isn't that this becomes an RPG minigame for the FD (perhaps fire missions isn't the perfect name, but things need names and that's what we've been calling them internally). The idea is that these events get players together and drive RP and create stories for certain characters which are outside of their control.

 

For implanting, certain types of these 'missions' occur randomly as natural events (e.g. forest fires) which the FD can respond to and others occur as player initiated events (e.g. my car caught fire, i threw a Molotov cocktail, etc).

 

Of course, for heavily customized RP situations, for example I'm RPing that I spilled gas everywhere whilst filling my tank and dropped a match, admins are still able to kick off the initial fire if required, but the spread etc will all be managed by the script.

 

Players are expected to RP these fires as actual RP events, not an RPG mini-game.

[croozerdog 640]

1 minute ago, Daniels said:

The goal isn't that this becomes an RPG minigame for the FD (perhaps fire missions isn't the perfect name, but things need names and that's what we've been calling them internally). The idea is that these events get players together and drive RP and create stories for certain characters which are outside of their control.

 

For implanting, certain types of these 'missions' occur randomly as natural events (e.g. forest fires) which the FD can respond to and others occur as player initiated events (e.g. my car caught fire, i threw a Molotov cocktail, etc).

 

Of course, for heavily customized RP situations, for example I'm RPing that I spilled gas everywhere whilst filling my tank and dropped a match, admins are still able to kick off the initial fire if required, but the spread etc will all be managed by the script.

 

Players are expected to RP these fires as actual RP events, not an RPG mini-game.

Nice, happy to hear that. It shouldn't have a name on the frontend at the end of the day probably. Would be awesome if they actually get a 911 call without being able to see the difference to a real player calling.

[fluX 149]

hello nice

[Shaderz 1,388]

I don't think they should be specifically rewarded for putting out these kind of fires. It is literally their job as firefighters to fight the fire and they already get paid for doing that and much more. If there has to be a reward, it is most definitely not recommended that they get it script-wisely but instead via IC means, by recognition of bravery for example, or by getting hurt on a call. But this shouldn't be automated.

 

I love the concept though, this is way better than the /randomfire script on MTA. Maybe a good way to expand this would be by creating HAZMAT incidents. This doesn't necessarily need fire but may be a result of it, or sometimes result in one, depending on a lot of circumstances. For example, industrial plant incidents involving toxic/flammable leaks, transportation incidents of hazardous materials, waste site leakages (municipal landfills or dumpsites, for example), pipeline breaks (fuel leaks, etc.) are a good example of scenes that could be recreated and bring some interesting roleplay that has been practically inexistent over the past years.

[JohnM 2,567]

Good one now where's the dogs

[Law 2,675]

Juicy development, keep it up Dan

[Renny 306]

Nice, looking good.

 

How would things like indoor fires work? Would fire be visible from the outside, or maybe some smoke could be added to the house making it look like it's on fire from the outside?

[patrick 179]

make it so you cant move the engine as you're using the deck gun

 

also dont allow fire on roads (fire barrier)

[Piney 938]

Seems lit 😏

[RayPayne 523]

2 hours ago, JohnM said:

Good one now where's the dogs

Someones asking the right question.

5 hours ago, Daniels said:

Aside from that, the on-going UAT beta is helping us find and resolve bugs before launch rather than at launch.

When is Launch? At this rate we're looking in possibly two years.

[Fernando16 344]

39 minutes ago, RayPayne said:

Someones asking the right question.

When is Launch? At this rate we're looking in possibly two years.

Hell no, I'd say sooner.

[TheNeonGuy 891]

Daniels, how will the injuries be roleplayed? Will it have some scriptwise things attached to it? I know that if you shoot a NPC in the stomach they cover it (atleast in GTA IV) will the same thing happen to the player getting shot? Sometimes people don't roleplay their injuries properly, will a script act upon them, forcing their character to behave in a different way? (Faint onto the ground after a while. Having visual effects when you crash [Drunk camera with drunk walking to roleplay being dizzy] and such?

 

Will drugs have visual effects, and possibly even effects on the character? (Using cocaine makes you run faster, but also makes out a /me would laugh uncontrollably) (Abstaining from using drugs will make the character lose health?)

 

How will the legal factions work? Will it be possible to start companies (having a f3) if one goes to the city hall and pays a fee to start a company (as in real life, where you fill paperwork and pay taxes for the company) or will we have to do the forum threads as of now?

 

How will the illegal factions work? Same as in MTA? Will there be changes?

 

Thanks 

 

Spoiler

I see what you did there...  

 

 

 

Edited June 5 by TheNeonGuy

[Park 531]

haha yeah good work

[Chaos 6,826]

2 hours ago, Renny said:

Nice, looking good.

 

How would things like indoor fires work? Would fire be visible from the outside, or maybe some smoke could be added to the house making it look like it's on fire from the outside?

Right now this is an outdoor fire system, notice how we showcased vehicles like the helicopter and fire engine. I like your idea of a visual cue on the outside if we choose to expand it to indoors as well.

1 hour ago, ititan said:

make it so you cant move the engine as you're using the deck gun

 

also dont allow fire on roads (fire barrier)

The fire on the road is just a demonstration of the spread system. Fires will be mainly on properties.

20 minutes ago, TheNeonGuy said:

Daniels, how will the injuries be roleplayed? Will it have some scriptwise things attached to it? I know that if you shoot a NPC in the stomach they cover it (atleast in GTA IV) will the same thing happen to the player getting shot? Sometimes people don't roleplay their injuries properly, will a script act upon them, forcing their character to behave in a different way? (Faint onto the ground after a while. Having visual effects when you crash [Drunk camera with drunk walking to roleplay being dizzy] and such?

 

Will drugs have visual effects, and possibly even effects on the character? (Using cocaine makes you run faster, but also makes out a /me would laugh uncontrollably) (Abstaining from using drugs will make the character lose health?)

 

How will the legal factions work? Will it be possible to start companies (having a f3) if one goes to the city hall and pays a fee to start a company (as in real life, where you fill paperwork and pay taxes for the company) or will we have to do the forum threads as of now?

 

How will the illegal factions work? Same as in MTA? Will there be changes?

 

Thanks 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I see what you did there...  

 

 

 

Forcing the animations is possible, but not something we have really considered yet. We want to reduce the amount of forced script on players, so I don't see us forcing your player to behave a certain way. There's no way we could cover every type of injury with a unique script response and it's usually best to let the player RP this.

 

I'll be discussing drugs in a later update.

 

Wait for our development update about factions for answers to those questions We do plan to have a way for legal factions to get better organized without official FT channels though.

[Script 1,914]

This was great!

 

23 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Wait for our development update about factions for answers to those questions We do plan to have a way for legal factions to get better organized without official FT channels though. 

Very happy to hear this!

 

Keep it up everyone!

[simple 49]

I don't want to be rude here, but let's be real, you are teasing me like a little bitch with each update, closer and closer 

Really proud of you guys, and looking forward to take part in this new server  

Edited June 5 by simple

[DrJoseEviI 2,712]

I know you don't like telling us this because the development is being done in chunks rather than a step by step list, but how close do you think V is to launch? I can already guess there is a billion more things you need to do, along with this, that and the other but in your opinion do you think it'll be out some time during the summer? 

Also, WILL YOU BE ABLE TO HIDE THE HEALTH BARS ABOVE SOMEONES HEAD? I dont like that SAMP esque. @Daniels

[Corruption 28]

30 minutes ago, DrJoseEviI said:

I know you don't like telling us this because the development is being done in chunks rather than a step by step list, but how close do you think V is to launch? I can already guess there is a billion more things you need to do, along with this, that and the other but in your opinion do you think it'll be out some time during the summer? 

Also, WILL YOU BE ABLE TO HIDE THE HEALTH BARS ABOVE SOMEONES HEAD? I dont like that SAMP esque. @Daniels

salty

"Proving a point"

Edited June 5 by AresVelocity
Cause i can

[Daniels 359]

7 hours ago, DrJoseEviI said:

I know you don't like telling us this because the development is being done in chunks rather than a step by step list, but how close do you think V is to launch? I can already guess there is a billion more things you need to do, along with this, that and the other but in your opinion do you think it'll be out some time during the summer? 

Also, WILL YOU BE ABLE TO HIDE THE HEALTH BARS ABOVE SOMEONES HEAD? I dont like that SAMP esque. @Daniels

We do have a step list internally as well as target dates. We have nothing to share publicly yet.

 

We'll have options for customizing nametags/healthbars in the future.

15 hours ago, RayPayne said:

Someones asking the right question.

When is Launch? At this rate we're looking in possibly two years.

No.

[Matey 1,690]

Will there be weapon modifications? (Extendo mags, drum mag on the draco, flashlights etc) and if so, will you showcase such update?

Edited June 6 by Matey

[Unitts 3,259]

23 hours ago, JohnM said:

Good one now where's the dogs

This

[Daniels 359]

On 6/5/2018 at 9:50 PM, Matey said:

Will there be weapon modifications? (Extendo mags, drum mag on the draco, flashlights etc) and if so, will you showcase such update?

There will be, yes. Not sure if we'll showcase it. Wait and see