Whispers in Akarra, Server Source
February 19th, 2008, Code Stuff, Whispers in Akarra
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
February 19th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
I… Love… You!
February 20th, 2008 at 1:02 am
You just added another chapter to the Akarrian soap opera. I don’t know whether to curse your name at the top of my lungs, or congratulate you on your brilliance. Now, I could sit here laughing at the lack of a certain editor executable’s code… but I think I’d rather spend my time convincing you to turn this page’s GUI into a digital grave site.
I’m probably going to use this as educational reading material, hopefully nothing more. I have better things to do than work on Akarra these days. However, I hope someone out there is simultaneously brilliant and foolish enough to give this game a proper continuation.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:21 am
lol, Fledge.
Just cuz u had to respond, I gotta now. Consider me the brilliant and foolish one that is going to give it his all just to prove the world that this engine has the potential to be great.
I may be an ametuer story writer and programmer, but I refuse to let something with potential die with out proper justice done to it (something I have yet to see any shard do).
February 20th, 2008 at 8:45 am
i love you !i love you~~~
February 20th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Haha Fledge, can’t have a soap opera without some drama! =)
/jeb
February 21st, 2008 at 7:55 pm
So in Laymens terms your showing us the original basis of DoD.
We can play around with Akarra and see what we come up with?!
Cool
February 21st, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Glad you made the final step to cement WiA’s legacy – now to see who will take advantage of the potential it offers
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Me, duh…
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:03 pm
mjeah iwe been reding thru the source as a pause while fiddeling with akarra.net webpage.
must say it’s nicely written
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I’ll take “How To Extend the Life of Akarra” for $1000
February 25th, 2008 at 10:16 am
[...] of the source code… If you add new features, bug fixes or simply tweak the source, please let me know! I’d [...]
March 4th, 2008 at 9:41 am
For it’s time, great code. You going to put out the Client Code base?
If so, I might consider throwing my weight somewhere.
Yes, this is the old Cannibal, and whaddayaknow? -grins- I’m an application Developer now.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Cool, I’ll take a look at this too.
April 15th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Good site I “Stumbledupon” it today and gave it a stumble for you.. looking forward to seeing what else you have..later
April 26th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
[...] few weeks ago I released the server source to our old online role-playing game, Whispers in Akarra. I thought it was time for the next piece [...]
July 18th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Cannibal Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 9:41 am
holy crap….havent seen you in forever
-prods jeb out of boredom-
June 28th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Hi, thanks for the serverfiles but I have one question since the links to the forums doesn’t work and akarra.net doesn’t work either, but I’m stuck with spawning an npc in the game :/.. can’t find it anywhere
May 21st, 2011 at 3:26 pm
do you still have the Tileset Editor, Sprite Editor and Spawn Editor?
August 31st, 2014 at 2:51 am
Open the server
August 7th, 2020 at 7:25 pm
Anyone feel up to trying again with this thing? There’s tizfolk just waiting for us to decimate them.