Today it is 10 years since the first pre-alpha of “Whispers in Akarra” was released. Back then I was building the game on my own, but the project was shortly discovered by Kinten and thewreck, and the three of us are now the core of Oxeye Game Studio. I think I always will look back at this game with fondness. It may not have been the best game in the world, but we peaked at over 100 players online, and it’s nice to say that you’ve made an “online RPG.” Maybe we’ll get the chance to revisit that area some time!

Hit the jump for some pictures!

This is what Akarra looked like back then (screenshot from pre-release 3, May 2002):

This is what Akarra looked like at the end of 2003:

Here’s a pic of thewreck and Kinten  from the summer of 2006:

… and a picture of me and thewreck:

You can read more about Whispers in Akarra in its blog category!

/ jeb_

PS: There are still some active shards where you can play Akarra! Check out www.akarra.com.  /Kinten

http://www.akarra.net/download/get.php?file=7

The editors were created using a tool called Borland C++ Builder. Borland has since then discontinued it in favor of the Java Builder, so I’m not sure if it’s possible to get your hands on a copy any longer. In any case, some of the editors are a real mess, I suggest you check the readme in the source package before you begin. Of course, if you’ve never used the compiled binary versions of the editors, it will be even harder. Check my previous post for download links to the editors.

The Akarra shard hub, Akarra.net, hasn’t really gotten started yet, but according to rumours TbbW is working on the back-end, so hopefully it will be more useful “soon”. I suggest you check back there every once in a while if you’re into Whispers in Akarra.

Cheerio,

/jeb

Speaking of the source code… If you add new features, bug fixes or simply tweak the source, please let me know! I’d love to see what happens with the project. So far I’ve only heard that the source is “clean”, which sounds good, and the expected “how do I compile?” questions. I hope you will be able to create some cool stuff with the server.

/jeb

As I wrote earlier, Dawn of Daria and, in essence, Oxeye Game Studio have a past in an online role-playing game called Whispers in Akarra. The game was never completed – it barely reached alpha stage – but the editors and server were released to the public and a number of shards were started. Several years have passed since then, and I think it’s time to add the server’s source code to the list of available tools…

What is Whispers in Akarra?

Whispers in Akarra, or WiA for short, is a 2D online role-playing game in a persistent world, for Windows. The client uses Direct3D, DirectInput, DirectSound and DirectPlay (for network communcation). Since the game was developed in 2002, everything is DirectX version 8.

The server is hard-coded to support up to 128 client connections at the same time. This value is easily edited, but I haven’t tried the server’s performance with that many people. While the game was still active, the number of connected players peaked at around 100, and that seemed to work fine for most people.

Here are some screenshots from the game:

I don’t read books, give me the feature list!

• 2D online RPG
• Chat-friendly GUI
• Combat, experience, levels, attribute points, abilities, skills etc
• Items, horses, paper-dolling
• Spells and item effects
• Fellowships and guilds
• Free PvP areas, guild wars, and PK rules for other areas
• Overworld areas with day and night, and ever-dark caves
• NPCs, shops, “item storage” and quests (including “Kill 10 rats”! Wicked!)

What resources are available?

Except the server source code, the following tools and applications are available:

• The Akarra Client, required to play the game.
• The Area Editor, used to create new maps and regions.
• A number of Server Editors, used to create monsters, items, spells/effects, quests, skills and NPC chat scripts.
• A tool to pack client graphics, called the “texture builder“.
• A pre-built binary of the Akarra Server. This file also contains all the items, monsters, quests etc of the latest release of WiA.
• And, of course, the Akarra Server Source.

Where can I get help?

Oh, that’s the catch! Not from me or Oxeye, that’s for sure. But there is a lot of information floating around, and an Akarra shard community is going to be organized around www.akarra.net. Until it has started for real, you can peek through a couple of threads in the old Oxeye forums:

• How to use the Area Editor: http://www.oxeye.se/forums/viewtopic.php?t=108
• A list of admin commands: http://www.oxeye.se/forums/viewtopic.php?t=88
• Some notes about the texture builder: http://www.oxeye.se/forums/viewtopic.php?t=120
• How to create admin accounts: http://www.oxeye.se/forums/viewtopic.php?t=87

In any case, I recommend you visist www.akarra.net for latest community views.

A final question… where’s the other source?

I may release the source code for the client and the tools later. First of all I want to see how much work it is for me to release the server, and what kind of reaction it gets. Secondly, the server source is the part of the code which is best organized. The client source is a mess (GUI code ftw), and the tools were developed with Borland C++ Builder. It was inexpensive and useful when I got it, but is no longer supported by Borland and probably difficult to come by these days. Even if I released the source for the tools, I’d recommend you to rewrite them from scratch in a more modern environment.

In any case, I hope you find the project entertaining or maybe educational. It was created with tears and blood, but also a lot of joy and extreme geekiness, and deserves a better place than on an old backup CD.

/jeb

One of the most long-lived Akarra shards is Emperium Xenos. It was started by a group of players back when the server files were made available. I sent a few questions to tbbw, who is in charge of the project now and also is running Akarra.net. Follow the jump to see his answers. And tbbw, your meatloaf is here, come and get it before it ruts.

Hello tbbw, tell us a little about yourself.

tbbw: I’m a 18 years old super model with silicone….. err… actually I’m just like any other regular guy Work at a Swedish computer store during the days. So I’m usually that annoying tech guy u call up when your email wont work.

How did you get involved in Whispers in Akarra?

tbbw: Well it was a friend named Nema (aka Wormer) that got me to play, a few months b4 the official one closed down. One day we where going to do a all weekend with ruis and yzor (well I was a lowbie at the time… so it was nema, yzor, ruis) where gonna run around in EG [Admin: Eastern Gate - a high level area in Akarra]

tbbw: So i quickly built a PC from space parts I had so we had two comps hooked up next to each other in my apartment. nema connected to quakenet and asked an admin to add an account under the name “tbbw”. We both logged in and he was giving me some starter help. Then the game freases and then connection times out. After a quick look at my cable modem and a lilmath in my brain made me realise that it’s Friday night and i forgot to pay the bill to my isp. I think that’s one of the first times i was pk’d… and i was still lvl0.

Please tell us a little about Emperium Xenos.

tbbw: Well i think it musta been a couple of years back actually. We all sat in the #daria channel (culda been #akarra my memory is getting bad or fuzzy form all the beer). It was December at the time, i was talking to the usual folks in there. A few days passed and i kinda did the same things i usaly did at the time. Just before Xmas i started to talk more and more with Gorgorath and he starts to talk about starting an rpg project. We spoke about it a bit more about it and at the 25:th December 2005 Emperium Xenos was born with four members. After we seen a lot of power struggle in other projects and drama was when the desition was made that EX would have a vote system where all the developers vote on a topic so no one feels left out or overrun. This system worked surprisingly good for us so it’s still used today.

How active is the shard now?

tbbw: Well not as active as we were two years ago. We still have members that regularly visit us that plays a lil now and then and a few newcomers. But i don’t think we will reach a new peak until the update is released.

You are currently running Akarra.net, what are your plans for the site?

tbbw: Well akarra.net was the home site of the original (when we shard ppl use the word “original” when talking about Akarra/WiA then we refer to the server project b4 it closed down) Akarra and the domain was free at the time so i bought it.

tbbw: First we wanted to point www.akarra.net to the Emperium Xenos website, but after a late night of coke and a wolf and his computer a php sub domain redirect script was written. So I changed my mind and made it so all the shard related web pages can have a sub domain and since Oxeye stopped with the WiA forum on their site one for that was needed as well. So my intentions with the www.akarra.net web page is more like a new place for the files and forum regarding the game Akarra.

What plans do you have for Xenos, in case the source code is released?

tbbw: A lot of people have asked me this recently. I’ve told ‘em all that the code base of the WiA game is BIG. I would like to read thru at least a chunk of it (of some selected areas) before i will make any official statements of what i want to do or can do with it.

Anything else you’d like to add?

tbbw: Where is my meatloaf? You said i would get meatloaf if i answered the questions!

Thanks for your time!

tbbw: Is this a trick question?

During the last year I have tried to write a small update on the development of Dawn of Daria every week. This update was posted as the “Monday Dev Update” in the development forum of www.DawnOfDaria.com. The most recent version of the game was released in December 2006, so it has been a while since this update contained any real Dawn of Daria news. Over the year, the readers of the update have become more and more irritated by this, which is sometimes reflected by their replies. I have thus decided to cease with the monday dev updates for a while and only post there when we have relevant Dawn of Daria news to tell.

Dawn of Daria is a dear project to us, and it’s interesting to see how it has affected Oxeye Game Studio and the development of our games. This story goes back to 2001, when I was living in Stockholm and working for Oblivion Entertainment…

In September 2001 I began writing down the first ideas for a game that would become “Whispers in Akarra.” If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s a 2D online role-playing game with simple (but charming!) graphics. Akarra.net is being built to act as a portal for everything Akarra-related.

In any case, this game would – like many projects do – grow, peak and decline. The most talented team members of Akarra, thewreck and Kinten, wanted to make their own game when Akarra failed. They had access to the game’s source code and began working on Dawn of Daria. With this they became – regardless if they liked it or not – the inofficial sequel to Akarra. The community was quite active for a year or so.

Some time later I decided to allow people to use the Akarra server and game tools, and a number of shards were started. This spawned an interesting time of intrigues and conflict, which wasn’t exactly helped by the fact that I later sold the source code to one of these projects. During this time Dawn of Daria also became an Oxeye Game Studio project. There were many reasons for this, but thewreck was already an Oxeye member and I wanted to help developing Daria, so it felt natural.

I will write some articles about these projects and the people behind them. Since I haven’t met most of these people in real life, the information I have about them is based on hearsay and rumours, so please let me know when I’m mis-informed on a subject. Click on the timeline to the right to view the timeline in full scale. Who said time is a straight line?

/jeb