I just finished up a new feature in Firmament Wars that players are sure to enjoy: private messaging! This will make it possible to message your friends anywhere on Broken.Net. If they’re in a lobby, in a chat channel, or in a game, they will be able to receive your messages. Here’s an example of what it looks like. It really hearkens back to messaging in popular games like World of Warcraft.
In the picture above you can see two players exchanging messages both in a private channel and via private whispers. So I have basically implemented Google Hangouts, but way cooler because you can pick a neat flag to appear next to your name. Plus you can name the channel whatever you want, and I think that’s pretty cool, too. I have considered the possibility of adding the ability to ignore certain users, add friends lists, and who knows what else. Of course, I would also like to actually release this game one day, so we’ll see about all of that.
Next, I will be working on converting all of the lobby and game chat to work via socket connections as well. This will make the game more scalable and reduce the latency. I don’t know how many users my VPS can support, but I hope to find out one day!
