So I’ve got the ability system mostly set up, and now need to actually start using it.  After some gentle prodding from Increpare (thanks, dude!), I’ve got the player able to control a PC within the game world.

So far, the player can move around the same way that regular AI PCs do.  He has health and other attributes (not yet displayed), monsters will notice and attack him exactly like they do the AI PCs, and if the PC dies, he respawns at the nearest graveyard, as you’d expect.  When in this mode, the control is almost exactly a standard WoW-style MMORPG interface;  the camera swings around the player, you can zoom in and out with the mouse wheel, etc.

Stuff still to be done:

• Set up the top left information box to display the avatar’s statistics, instead of the MMORPG statistics, when in this mode.
• Set up the player’s action bar to display and trigger the PC’s combat abilities.
• Action bar needs to be extended to display action “charge-up”, for abilities which have a cool-down, and to be able to show which abilities are enabled and which are disabled.  (The action bar already understands these concepts;  it just doesn’t change how it draws based upon them, yet)
• I should probably be turning the PC model to face the same way that the player’s facing.  Or maybe I’ll wait on this until I have a character model which more obviously has a ‘front’.

Once these four things are finished and working so that the player can inhabit a PC avatar and fight monsters, it’ll be time to make the AI PCs and monsters begin to use the new combat system as well.

I’m hoping to be able to get through most of this tomorrow..  but we’ll see how far I get!