I heavily advise you not to write your own game engine.
Even implementing a small engine for crude vertex drawing is exhausting. Building in everything necessary and increasing the performance to a usable state WILL take years and that when all 6 of you are working full time. You will need converters to current 3D modelling studios (maya etc). You need a rag doll system, a dynamic model/landscape reload system, an abstract world builder which doesn't involve c coding for the user (even the scripts have to be simple) and lots more. The problem is not only creating the basic engine but all of the tools around it so that the non-programmers can work with it.
Try out something like Ogre3D or Irrlicht. They are open source engines that come along with lots of tools. Do not be deterred by some crappy screenshots. Those are just the result of the artists with low skill. This is the next point. You will need good artists and a lot of them. The engine just draws and gives the artists the possibility to put their thoughts onto the screen. If they suck, the game will look bad no matter how good your engine is.
Btw, what rule set are you going to use to distribute the simulation load onto several machines?
--- Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Game design is something where you learn more from 2 small projects than 1 big project. So tryiing to make a project like a MMORPG (that is the equivalent of a national space program ) mean the oportunity lost of making in that time about 60 small games.
Theres also the thing you can make a small game in 3 months, and sells 100.000 units at 20 $ each.
The expertise needed to make a MMORPG is hugue (much like for space exploration). I don't think 6 guys can have all the expertise needed. A guy can be good in 1 or 2 areas, not on 4. And probably the expertise is poorly distributed (all guys programmers, or all guys modderlers) or some key expertise is lost (a guy to make so everybody move forward).
If theres a fraction of a feasibility to make something: reuse existing engines / systems. Theres already "worldbuilders", even "MMO engines".
I heavily advise you not to write your own game engine. Even implementing a small engine for crude vertex drawing is exhausting. Building in everything necessary and increasing the performance to a usable state WILL take years and that when all 6 of you are working full time. You will need converters to current 3D modelling studios (maya etc). You need a rag doll system, a dynamic model/landscape reload system, an abstract world builder which doesn't involve c coding for the user (even the scripts have to be simple) and lots more. The problem is not only creating the basic engine but all of the tools around it so that the non-programmers can work with it. Try out something like Ogre3D or Irrlicht. They are open source engines that come along with lots of tools. Do not be deterred by some crappy screenshots. Those are just the result of the artists with low skill. This is the next point. You will need good artists and a lot of them. The engine just draws and gives the artists the possibility to put their thoughts onto the screen. If they suck, the game will look bad no matter how good your engine is. Btw, what rule set are you going to use to distribute the simulation load onto several machines?
I've written one before, and it doesn't take years just a lot of man hours.
XNA handles all model loading for us, it's an entire framework for all things that are games, no way am I writing an interpreter for .3ds structs and what not -- it's messy.
You don't need ragdoll physics for an MMO, almost no MMO's I can think of use rag-doll physics on their models. Most death animations are predefined.
Problem with Irrlicht is that it has it's own crappy physics system that I don't really want to work around. And really its a bit a too robust of a graphics engine for us. I'd rather just make my own engine so I know wtf is going on.
Tools for content creators aren't that bad to make if you plan for XML parsing early in the engine. You can treat many things simply as an XML file, and then make tools that simply export visual creations to an XML format -- and boom, you have a tool.
I heavily advise you not to write your own game engine. Even implementing a small engine for crude vertex drawing is exhausting. Building in everything necessary and increasing the performance to a usable state WILL take years and that when all 6 of you are working full time. You will need converters to current 3D modelling studios (maya etc). You need a rag doll system, a dynamic model/landscape reload system, an abstract world builder which doesn't involve c coding for the user (even the scripts have to be simple) and lots more. The problem is not only creating the basic engine but all of the tools around it so that the non-programmers can work with it. Try out something like Ogre3D or Irrlicht. They are open source engines that come along with lots of tools. Do not be deterred by some crappy screenshots. Those are just the result of the artists with low skill. This is the next point. You will need good artists and a lot of them. The engine just draws and gives the artists the possibility to put their thoughts onto the screen. If they suck, the game will look bad no matter how good your engine is. Btw, what rule set are you going to use to distribute the simulation load onto several machines?
I've written one before, and it doesn't take years just a lot of man hours.
XNA handles all model loading for us, it's an entire framework for all things that are games, no way am I writing an interpreter for .3ds structs and what not -- it's messy.
You don't need ragdoll physics for an MMO, almost no MMO's I can think of use rag-doll physics on their models. Most death animations are predefined.
Problem with Irrlicht is that it has it's own crappy physics system that I don't really want to work around. And really its a bit a too robust of a graphics engine for us. I'd rather just make my own engine so I know wtf is going on.
Tools for content creators aren't that bad to make if you plan for XML parsing early in the engine. You can treat many things simply as an XML file, and then make tools that simply export visual creations to an XML format -- and boom, you have a tool.
Well I think you are thinking a bit too large. Look at it this way, cities are built and added to one house at at time. Since you came to this site, I'm thinking you want some opinions, so here's mine.
1. Figure out a movement system.
2. Get a character moving and animating on a flat surface first.
3. Get a character moving and animating in a house that's on a flat surface and calculate in collision, other models, walkable geo etc.
4. Get a character to hold a sword.
5. Figure out a combat system, I would sugges something simple like. Sword hit's the hit box = take a roll. Or figure out a targeting system and how to constantly update the players position with the enemy's position then calculate distance and facing every game loop. (Please also work on making this optimized so it doesn't lag to hell.) When the criteria of facing and distance are met have your attack go off every 1.5 seconds taking a roll for each attack and reducing the targets health every time.
Now, you guys need to start with this BEFORE you start gathering ideas. You build the foundation before you start worrying about features. If the above seems too tough to accomplish in 3D start with a simple text game, then put the text game online where two people are playing in the same space. Netcode alone is enough make anyone never want to make a game again. Like any development whether it be a level, story, character, or weapon starts at it's most simplistic form and gains complexity from there.
If you guys set your sites at this huge picture you will get discouraged and burnt out really fast. So start with the player running around in a room first! Then decide if you wanna go the whole 9 with it.
Our general philosophy right now is to: 1) have a lot of technical knowledge 2) ask what people want and make false promises for early sales 3) be enthusiastic about cinematic trailers rather than in game footage 4) talk about how cool it is. So what do you guys want in the mmo?
Sounds like you recently parted company with DFO or SGW?
Originally posted by Neosai Artists usually don't ask others what they want in a painting, it is art, so it is suppose to be the vision of the makers.
Commercial artists do.
What part of USUALLY don't you understand? lol
Edit: BTW I don't even consider Commercial Artist being artist. They are basically art merchants that produce certain art on request. No arts made for commercial is going to remain in history as being great piece of art work.
I guess the Sistine Chapel doesn't ring a bell to you.
Our general philosophy right now is to: 1) have a lot of technical knowledge 2) ask what people want and make false promises for early sales 3) be enthusiastic about cinematic trailers rather than in game footage 4) talk about how cool it is. So what do you guys want in the mmo?
So, if you haven't figured out he is trolling by now....
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Our general philosophy right now is to: 1) have a lot of technical knowledge 2) ask what people want and make false promises for early sales 3) be enthusiastic about cinematic trailers rather than in game footage 4) talk about how cool it is. So what do you guys want in the mmo?
So, if you haven't figured out he is trolling by now....
Seems like a professional dev going by recent releases.
Our general philosophy right now is to: 1) have a lot of technical knowledge 2) ask what people want and make false promises for early sales 3) be enthusiastic about cinematic trailers rather than in game footage 4) talk about how cool it is. So what do you guys want in the mmo?
So, if you haven't figured out he is trolling by now....
Seems like a professional dev going by recent releases.
LOL!
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
The moment you ask what others wants in it. It already is heading down a path of self destruction. Artists usually don't ask others what they want in a painting, it is art, so it is suppose to be the vision of the makers. Asking what people want in it basically will make it turn out to be a mess or become basically what the current MMORPG industry is doing. What you really want to ask is to ask yourself what would I find fun, and would others find it fun? How would I go about making it fun, and why it would be fun and not just interesting.
Here's 10 things off the top of my head I want to see in a new MMO. Would be great if you could put any of them into your MMO.
1. Loads of veriaty. Including multipule leveling areas so that when I level up a new character, I don't have to do the same starting area every time. Kind of like how the starting areas in WoW are, but even more variety then that. The more I don't feel like I'm doing the same thing over and over again, the better.
2. Lots of quests or atleast quests with lots of variety to them. Not just the same old, kill this many of this monster and/or go collect this many of this thing all the damn time. The less you can make feel like I'm just grinding, the better as well.
3. Loads of diverse land scapes and mobs. Loaded with lots of stuff never seen in an MMO before. And emersion. I want to feel like I am in another world as much as possable. Cool areas I want to go, see, level up at, and maybe even control land at. Awesome monsters and creatures I've never seen before or atleast look very diffrent then creatures from other MMOs.
4. An ever changing global weather system, complete with diffrent seasons and all. And have the weather effect the game play in some way. Example, when it rains in the swamps, certain monsters come out that aren't normally there when it doesn't rain. Have things like fluds, tornadoes, snow storms, and such, or whatever your world is like.
5. A nice variety in playable characters. Both races and classes. And the less alike they are from one another, the better. I also want my characters to start out with a nice amount of fun skills and all of the skills I earn threw my character's life span to be as usful and fun to use as possable.
6. Challenging. Don't be afraid to make parts of the game difficult. People want a good challenge now and then, especially gamers. Ones of the biggest mistakes Blizzard has made with World of Warcraft is making their hardest instances easy now.
7. Make each of your classes feel useful and important in their groups, especially durring raid, instances or whatever major grouping events your game will have.
8. Castle building, land control, and guild Vs. guild combat. I miss this allot, Shadowbane was all about this kind of game play and it was AWESOME. But few MMO's these days have any guild vs. guild combat or even castle, town, or base building, or any type of land control fighting. Would be great to see it make a come back. Runes of Magic is planning to do something like it in the future, but so far from what I can tell, it will be very restricted feeling.
9. Armor and weapons. Should be a fare amount of different types and all of it should look cool. But make sure the gear with the best stats in the game looks the best. If there's anything I hate it's getting a sweet looking weapon mid level and a stupid looking one at max level. Being able to, in some way, design your own gear would be sweet also. Off the top of my head would be cool if you could put your gear together with already premade parts to make them look how ever you want in that way. Kind of like how you can put together your own guns in some shooter games, like adding a sniper scope or a grenade launcher.
10. Mounts, if you have them in your game, I think it would be sweet to have nearly every large or or a certain size mobs able to become mounts. Like you have to go out, capture and tame them, or something like that.
honestly, people who get into acts of creativity by asking the community "what do you want" might not be very creative people and most likely will not enjoy the actual process of creativity.
They may, however, make a good amount of soulless money
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Okay this is what I want: Make an MMO where you do quests to get skills as oppose to leveling up to get skills. Don't have leveling up. Instead have a character develop through quests and exploration. Then I'd totally play your game.
Agreed.
No levels, no "skill ups" but instead advancement through content, not content for the sake of advancement.
Okay this is what I want: Make an MMO where you do quests to get skills as oppose to leveling up to get skills. Don't have leveling up. Instead have a character develop through quests and exploration. Then I'd totally play your game.
Agreed.
No levels, no "skill ups" but instead advancement through content, not content for the sake of advancement.
LOL, I love it. Been thinking of ideas to make advancing your character more unique and fun in MMO's, other then grinding, and this idea is just great. Would totally play an MMO like this.
I've always been a big fan of your threads. Can I beta test? I have lots of really good ideas. I am pretty busy though because I'm also making an MMO, so shoot me an email.
einexile the meek Vacuos, Winterlong, Vaciante, Eicosapenta Atlantean, Tyranny, Malton
Comments
I heavily advise you not to write your own game engine.
Even implementing a small engine for crude vertex drawing is exhausting. Building in everything necessary and increasing the performance to a usable state WILL take years and that when all 6 of you are working full time. You will need converters to current 3D modelling studios (maya etc). You need a rag doll system, a dynamic model/landscape reload system, an abstract world builder which doesn't involve c coding for the user (even the scripts have to be simple) and lots more. The problem is not only creating the basic engine but all of the tools around it so that the non-programmers can work with it.
Try out something like Ogre3D or Irrlicht. They are open source engines that come along with lots of tools. Do not be deterred by some crappy screenshots. Those are just the result of the artists with low skill. This is the next point. You will need good artists and a lot of them. The engine just draws and gives the artists the possibility to put their thoughts onto the screen. If they suck, the game will look bad no matter how good your engine is.
Btw, what rule set are you going to use to distribute the simulation load onto several machines?
---
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Game design is something where you learn more from 2 small projects than 1 big project. So tryiing to make a project like a MMORPG (that is the equivalent of a national space program ) mean the oportunity lost of making in that time about 60 small games.
Theres also the thing you can make a small game in 3 months, and sells 100.000 units at 20 $ each.
The expertise needed to make a MMORPG is hugue (much like for space exploration). I don't think 6 guys can have all the expertise needed. A guy can be good in 1 or 2 areas, not on 4. And probably the expertise is poorly distributed (all guys programmers, or all guys modderlers) or some key expertise is lost (a guy to make so everybody move forward).
If theres a fraction of a feasibility to make something: reuse existing engines / systems. Theres already "worldbuilders", even "MMO engines".
The constant "I dont know, what do you want, leads me to believe you are here to rip off a good idea. Go find your own....
I've written one before, and it doesn't take years just a lot of man hours.
XNA handles all model loading for us, it's an entire framework for all things that are games, no way am I writing an interpreter for .3ds structs and what not -- it's messy.
You don't need ragdoll physics for an MMO, almost no MMO's I can think of use rag-doll physics on their models. Most death animations are predefined.
Problem with Irrlicht is that it has it's own crappy physics system that I don't really want to work around. And really its a bit a too robust of a graphics engine for us. I'd rather just make my own engine so I know wtf is going on.
Tools for content creators aren't that bad to make if you plan for XML parsing early in the engine. You can treat many things simply as an XML file, and then make tools that simply export visual creations to an XML format -- and boom, you have a tool.
-No levels, only skills and skill levels.
-Medieval Fantasy based with large world.
-Soloable.
-Important and fun Crafting.
-Character gets class/job during gameplay based on how they have leveled skills. so you don't choose class when you create your character.
-Better ranks in classes/jobs.
-No grinding
-Fun story, and fun side quests with background.
Our general philosophy right now is to:
1) have a lot of technical knowledge
2) ask what people want and make false promises for early sales
3) be enthusiastic about cinematic trailers rather than in game footage
4) talk about how cool it is.
So what do you guys want in the mmo?
No you're not. Have a nice day.
I've written one before, and it doesn't take years just a lot of man hours.
XNA handles all model loading for us, it's an entire framework for all things that are games, no way am I writing an interpreter for .3ds structs and what not -- it's messy.
You don't need ragdoll physics for an MMO, almost no MMO's I can think of use rag-doll physics on their models. Most death animations are predefined.
Problem with Irrlicht is that it has it's own crappy physics system that I don't really want to work around. And really its a bit a too robust of a graphics engine for us. I'd rather just make my own engine so I know wtf is going on.
Tools for content creators aren't that bad to make if you plan for XML parsing early in the engine. You can treat many things simply as an XML file, and then make tools that simply export visual creations to an XML format -- and boom, you have a tool.
Well I think you are thinking a bit too large. Look at it this way, cities are built and added to one house at at time. Since you came to this site, I'm thinking you want some opinions, so here's mine.
1. Figure out a movement system.
2. Get a character moving and animating on a flat surface first.
3. Get a character moving and animating in a house that's on a flat surface and calculate in collision, other models, walkable geo etc.
4. Get a character to hold a sword.
5. Figure out a combat system, I would sugges something simple like. Sword hit's the hit box = take a roll. Or figure out a targeting system and how to constantly update the players position with the enemy's position then calculate distance and facing every game loop. (Please also work on making this optimized so it doesn't lag to hell.) When the criteria of facing and distance are met have your attack go off every 1.5 seconds taking a roll for each attack and reducing the targets health every time.
Now, you guys need to start with this BEFORE you start gathering ideas. You build the foundation before you start worrying about features. If the above seems too tough to accomplish in 3D start with a simple text game, then put the text game online where two people are playing in the same space. Netcode alone is enough make anyone never want to make a game again. Like any development whether it be a level, story, character, or weapon starts at it's most simplistic form and gains complexity from there.
If you guys set your sites at this huge picture you will get discouraged and burnt out really fast. So start with the player running around in a room first! Then decide if you wanna go the whole 9 with it.
Sounds like you recently parted company with DFO or SGW?
Commercial artists do.
What part of USUALLY don't you understand? lol
Edit: BTW I don't even consider Commercial Artist being artist. They are basically art merchants that produce certain art on request. No arts made for commercial is going to remain in history as being great piece of art work.
I guess the Sistine Chapel doesn't ring a bell to you.
I'm not asking whether or not I should make an MMO. I am making one. What do you want in it?
Top notch animation.
So, if you haven't figured out he is trolling by now....
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Sheesh ppl that guy was just screwing round with you . Funny that some of you even answer to that ina serious way .
So, if you haven't figured out he is trolling by now....
Seems like a professional dev going by recent releases.
anything else?
So, if you haven't figured out he is trolling by now....
Seems like a professional dev going by recent releases.
LOL!
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Great post.
1. I want to be able to affect the environment; building dams, re-routing rivers, farming land, weather (weather should be something uber powerful)
2. I want a political system that centers around a kingdom in which players can rise to be mayors of a village, a duke or even King or Queen.
3. RvR that really means something, in which you defend the outer territories of your kingdom.
4. Merchant class system that make a person rich or poor.
5. Not too many races to select from: High Elf, Wood Elf, Half-Elf, Human, Ogre, Gnomes, Dwarves and Trolls (EQ1ish)
6. Only one server, zones are ok.
7. A world so gigantic it will take you real years to circle it.
8. Altered planes of existence where it will take a coven of the most powerful wizards to create doorways.
These are things just to start
Here's 10 things off the top of my head I want to see in a new MMO. Would be great if you could put any of them into your MMO.
1. Loads of veriaty. Including multipule leveling areas so that when I level up a new character, I don't have to do the same starting area every time. Kind of like how the starting areas in WoW are, but even more variety then that. The more I don't feel like I'm doing the same thing over and over again, the better.
2. Lots of quests or atleast quests with lots of variety to them. Not just the same old, kill this many of this monster and/or go collect this many of this thing all the damn time. The less you can make feel like I'm just grinding, the better as well.
3. Loads of diverse land scapes and mobs. Loaded with lots of stuff never seen in an MMO before. And emersion. I want to feel like I am in another world as much as possable. Cool areas I want to go, see, level up at, and maybe even control land at. Awesome monsters and creatures I've never seen before or atleast look very diffrent then creatures from other MMOs.
4. An ever changing global weather system, complete with diffrent seasons and all. And have the weather effect the game play in some way. Example, when it rains in the swamps, certain monsters come out that aren't normally there when it doesn't rain. Have things like fluds, tornadoes, snow storms, and such, or whatever your world is like.
5. A nice variety in playable characters. Both races and classes. And the less alike they are from one another, the better. I also want my characters to start out with a nice amount of fun skills and all of the skills I earn threw my character's life span to be as usful and fun to use as possable.
6. Challenging. Don't be afraid to make parts of the game difficult. People want a good challenge now and then, especially gamers. Ones of the biggest mistakes Blizzard has made with World of Warcraft is making their hardest instances easy now.
7. Make each of your classes feel useful and important in their groups, especially durring raid, instances or whatever major grouping events your game will have.
8. Castle building, land control, and guild Vs. guild combat. I miss this allot, Shadowbane was all about this kind of game play and it was AWESOME. But few MMO's these days have any guild vs. guild combat or even castle, town, or base building, or any type of land control fighting. Would be great to see it make a come back. Runes of Magic is planning to do something like it in the future, but so far from what I can tell, it will be very restricted feeling.
9. Armor and weapons. Should be a fare amount of different types and all of it should look cool. But make sure the gear with the best stats in the game looks the best. If there's anything I hate it's getting a sweet looking weapon mid level and a stupid looking one at max level. Being able to, in some way, design your own gear would be sweet also. Off the top of my head would be cool if you could put your gear together with already premade parts to make them look how ever you want in that way. Kind of like how you can put together your own guns in some shooter games, like adding a sniper scope or a grenade launcher.
10. Mounts, if you have them in your game, I think it would be sweet to have nearly every large or or a certain size mobs able to become mounts. Like you have to go out, capture and tame them, or something like that.
I'll add more if I think of any later.
protip: he's trolling
have a good day.
honestly, people who get into acts of creativity by asking the community "what do you want" might not be very creative people and most likely will not enjoy the actual process of creativity.
They may, however, make a good amount of soulless money
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Agreed.
No levels, no "skill ups" but instead advancement through content, not content for the sake of advancement.
Agreed.
No levels, no "skill ups" but instead advancement through content, not content for the sake of advancement.
LOL, I love it. Been thinking of ideas to make advancing your character more unique and fun in MMO's, other then grinding, and this idea is just great. Would totally play an MMO like this.
I've always been a big fan of your threads. Can I beta test? I have lots of really good ideas. I am pretty busy though because I'm also making an MMO, so shoot me an email.
einexile the meek
Vacuos, Winterlong, Vaciante, Eicosapenta
Atlantean, Tyranny, Malton
Ability to level via crafting- You´ve made an axe? Ok here´s 50XP