RealmCrafter

Realm Crafter, or RC is a 3D MMORPG game engine developed by Solstar Games. The game creation system includes a game editor, a simple object oriented scripting language which offers many capabilities to versed developers, a terrain editor as well as editors to position equipment precisely on your actors, create trees and stones. Depending on the edition used additional tools and capabilities are present. There are currently two distinct Realm Crafter technologies available.
The first available technologie is Realm Creafter Standard, which is written in the beginnerfriendly programming language Blitz3D and BlitzPlus by Blitz Research. While many users will not need the source code for their project, those who use it will have the benefit, that they have a simple yet powerful language at their hand. For this reason, Realm Crafter Standard is optimal for hobby users and to use it within an educational environment, as educators can focus on the important core topics instead of the technology. RC Standard is also interesting for small indie development teams, as the affordable price tag of $100 per Developer without hidden costs for Updates, Royalties and no need to show the Solstar Games or Realm Crafter Logo make it a very developer friendly technology.
On the other hand, there is Realm Crafter Professional. RC Professional is as RC Standard very intuitive to use, but it isn't as beginner friendly due to its fully shader driven DirectX 9 rendering technology. But it offers professional developers many possibilities to develop the game with the desired style and functionality. This is also reflected by the used programming languages: C++ for the Client, the renderer and the Server as well as C# for the editors. The Source Code for RC Professional is currently not available (January 2009).
As with most authoring tools, both Realm Crafter Technologies do not expect programming knowledge. But to develop an MMO, you need to be able to script to create the extended gameplay.
Basic Design
Realm Crafter includes a Game Editor, which allows the user to create new Items and Equipment. You can create your whole world when using the Terrain Editor and Zone Editor in conjunction. With the help of RC Architect, you can create Indoor Zones and Buildings by putting together smaller parts and export the finished model. Classes, Races and the Ingame Interface can be created within the Game Editor.
Realm Crafter also includes a Project Manager, which allows the user to create and manage various Projects in parallel and modify them with a few clicks.
There are additional tools, like the Mega Terrain Editor which allows you to create much larger terrains, the cave editor to create naturally looking caves and the Skin Crafter, which makes it easy to skin the Interface in your personal style.
Scripting
Realm Crafter includes a Script Editor. The editor allows you to create game functionality and edit it, be it Interaction between players and NPCs, the combat script which defines the amount of damage, experience points and more, Quests or the Special Abilities and Talents that the characters can use. Scripts are written in BriskVM, which has become the scripting language with Realm Crafter Standard 1.25 and Realm Crafter Professional Beta 2.21 and replaced the old scripting language. BriskVM offers many new and powerful capabilities, without making script writing for regular users more complex. The introduction of BriskVM increased the speed and stability of the server dramatically, and allows for much more flexibility in the language.
The Script Editor also contains a Quest Wizard. The Quest Wizard generates basic quests including actions killing a specific number of a specific actor, retrieving items, speaking, or deliver quests. Scripts can be created in the Quest Wizard, Solstar's own script editor, or in a text editor.
Graphics Engine
RealmCrafter Standard uses a widely compatible DirectX7 based graphics engine.
RealmCrafter Professional uses a shader driven DirectX9, high-performance graphics engine, based around Pixel and Vertex Shader Model 2.
Licensing
The Realm Crafter Standard game engine (and accompanying License) retails for USD $100.00 per-seat / per computer
The Realm Crafter professional game engine (and accompanying License) retails for USD $165.00 per-seat / per computer
There is also a demo available at the Realm Crafter page.
They also including a set of tools (known as Toolbox) and sample content. A simple comparison between the technologies is offered on the developer page.
Games Made Using RealmCrafter
RealmCrafter has over 5000 licenses sold, making it the most popular MMORPG creation kit available. As such there are many projects in development, the vast majority are hobbyist or independent developers whom enjoy it for the rapid development time, the vast amount of support available via the internal forums and the wiki available to licensees, the large amount of models, and characters available with the engine, and the lenient license of games created.
The software has been used in a variety of projects. The project span a selection of genres, fantasy, post apocalyptic, space opera, cyber punk, racing, historical and educational.
There are currently numerous teams involved in producing their own titles with RC.
Games being made by teams on the RC Community include, but are not limited to:
Legend of Dekkane
Fasaria World
Witchgate
Seven Islands Online
Apocalypse Online
Mozzoria
Dansken Online is an independently funded and published Danish educational game which was released using the RealmCrafter engine, modifications to the source code were made for international keyboard users.
History
The Realm Crafter technology has been started in 2004.
While it initial versions allowed to create simple Online RPGs, it were the additions in late 2006 and 2007 which really brought the technology to a new level, with back then innovative features like zone instancing for example.
The year 2008 brought the technology a whole step further, when 1.2.0 was released, which introduced an all new and much better performing networking library. Building on this base, the technology has progressed during the whole year with many features refinements and bug fixes.
Realm Crafter, or RC is a 3D MMORPG game engine developed by Solstar Games. The game creation system includes a game editor, a simple object oriented scripting language which offers many capabilities to versed developers, a terrain editor as well as editors to position equipment precisely on your actors, create trees and stones. Depending on the edition used additional tools and capabilities are present. There are currently two distinct Realm Crafter technologies available.
The first available technologie is Realm Creafter Standard, which is written in the beginnerfriendly programming language Blitz3D and BlitzPlus by Blitz Research. While many users will not need the source code for their project, those who use it will have the benefit, that they have a simple yet powerful language at their hand. For this reason, Realm Crafter Standard is optimal for hobby users and to use it within an educational environment, as educators can focus on the important core topics instead of the technology. RC Standard is also interesting for small indie development teams, as the affordable price tag of $100 per Developer without hidden costs for Updates, Royalties and no need to show the Solstar Games or Realm Crafter Logo make it a very developer friendly technology.
On the other hand, there is Realm Crafter Professional. RC Professional is as RC Standard very intuitive to use, but it isn't as beginner friendly due to its fully shader driven DirectX 9 rendering technology. But it offers professional developers many possibilities to develop the game with the desired style and functionality. This is also reflected by the used programming languages: C++ for the Client, the renderer and the Server as well as C# for the editors. The Source Code for RC Professional is currently not available (January 2009).
As with most authoring tools, both Realm Crafter Technologies do not expect programming knowledge. But to develop an MMO, you need to be able to script to create the extended gameplay.
Basic Design
Realm Crafter includes a Game Editor, which allows the user to create new Items and Equipment. You can create your whole world when using the Terrain Editor and Zone Editor in conjunction. With the help of RC Architect, you can create Indoor Zones and Buildings by putting together smaller parts and export the finished model. Classes, RAces and the Ingame Interface can be created within the Game Editor.
Realm Crafter also includes a Project Manager, which allows the user to create and manage various Projects in parallel and modify them with a few clicks.
There are additional tools, like the Mega Terrain Editor which allows you to create much larger terrains, the cave editor to create naturally looking caves and the Skin Crafter, which makes it easy to skin the Interface in your personal style.
Scripting
Realm Crafter includes a Script Editor. The editor allows you to create game functionality and edit it, be it Interaction between players and NPCs, the combat script which defines the amount of damage, experience points and more, Quests or the Special Abilities and Talents that the characters can use. Scripts are written in BriskVM, which has become the scripting language with Realm Crafter Standard 1.25 and Realm Crafter Professional Beta 2.21 and replaced the old scripting language. BriskVM offers many new and powerful capabilities, without making script writing for regular users more complex. The introduction of BriskVM increased the speed and stability of the server dramatically, and allows for much more flexibility in the language.
The Script Editor also contains a Quest Wizard. The Quest Wizard generates basic quests including actions killing a specific number of a specific actor, retrieving items, speaking, or deliver quests. Scripts can be created in the Quest Wizard, Solstar's own script editor, or in a text editor.
Graphics Engine
RealmCrafter Standard uses a widely compatible DirectX7 based graphics engine.
RealmCrafter Professional uses a shader driven DirectX9, high-performance graphics engine, based around Pixel and Vertex Shader Model 2.
Licensing
The Realm Crafter Standard game engine (and accompanying License) retails for USD $100.00 per-seat / per computer
The Realm Crafter professional game engine (and accompanying License) retails for USD $165.00 per-seat / per computer
There is also a demo available at the Realm Crafter page.
They also including a set of tools (known as Toolbox) and sample content. A simple comparison between the technologies is offered on the developer page.
Games Made Using RealmCrafter
RealmCrafter has over 5000 licenses sold, making it the most popular MMORPG creation kit available. As such there are many projects in development, the vast majority are hobbiest or independent developers whom enjoy it for the rapid development time, the vast amount of support available via the internal forums and the wiki available to licensees, the large amount of models, and characters available with the engine, and the lenient license of games created.
The software has been used in a variety of projects. The project span a selection of genres, fantasy, post apocalyptic, space opera, cyber punk, racing, historical and educational.
There are currently numerous teams involved in producing their own titles with RC.
Games being made by teams on the RC Community include, but are not limited to:
Legend of Dekkane
Fasaria World
Witchgate
Seven Islands Online
Apocalypse Online
Mozzoria
Dansken Online is an independently funded and published Danish educational game which was released using the RealmCrafter engine, modifications to the source code were made for international keyboard users.
History
The Realm Crafter technology has been started in 2004.
While it initial versions allowed to create simple Online RPGs, it were the additions in late 2006 and 2007 which really brought the technology to a new level, with back then innovative features like zone instancing for example.
The year 2008 brought the technology a whole step further, when 1.2.0 was released, which introduced an all new and much better performing networking library. Building on this base, the technology has progressed during the whole year with many features refinements and bug fixes.
Also Dec 2008, the early adopter sell of Realm Crafter Professional started. Realm Crafter Professional is an alternative to Realm Crafter Standard for professional Indie Teams and small businesses that are looking for an affordable MMO technology which offers current gen visuals through a pure shader driven engine with advanced light and shadow capabilities.
Right now (Jan 2009), Realm Crafter Standard is awaiting its final 1.2.5 release while the Realm Crafter Professional Beta is progressing pretty well with many additions and fixes to build upon in 2009.
The developers have public blogs on which they inform the public about progress made, show new features and loudly think about the past, now and the future.
Engine Screenshots

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See Also

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