Experimental Online Game

[mPaul]

First, let me introduce myself.

My name is Michel Paulissen, I live in the Netherlands and am 16 years old.
I now have 7 years of experience with programming and making games (if you count the first 2 years "messing around" with the drag&drop functionality Gamemaker has), but I prefer programming that has to do with games and graphics.
Although I'm quite a gearhead concerning programming, I prefer to do any other thing required in the development of the game.

Now, for the project:

The project actually started almost a year ago now, I started it with a friend who's quite a good modeler/animator/artist. The project hasn't been in development much and it's actually just a big collection of ideas, some (3d and 2d) art, 2 horribly messy useless engines and a not-finished design document.

I'll paste the first part of the (slightly altered) design document in here:

The genre is something that hasn’t been technically possible since a few years ago. It’s an MMO game in a "realistic" medieval setting with some RPG and RTS aspects. The idea is that players play in a world they build together, building villages, towns, cities (yeah they're actually almost the same), roads, ports, and every building of which these consist of.
Because the players build up a community with players they ultimately will befriend with, the gameplay will be quite addictive.

You might notice the idea is not what you see every day. However, I am convinced that the idea is a good idea, the game would just need a lot of balancing out. Anyway, working on it would be, and has been, fun all along.

Now, the only thing we lack is a "good" (hobbyist, ofcourse) programmer. The engines I make are just too big of a mess, and I must admit that most of the time I don't really know what I'm doing. It's just I don't really enjoy programming when I first have to convince myself to start learning something new about it.

So, if you're interested in working on the project, or would just like to know more about it, email me (edit: email address removed) or reply here.

Edit (5 minutes later):

As "some art" might not really sound too exciting, I'll post some of it here:


Fireplace / oven in a hut (early stage town in the game), simple render with shadows.


Early (and one of the only) render of the character with a pants attached, back when the proportions still needed work.

More available if you like.[/img]

[JP]

Check out the RPG Builder in this projects forum, it's a project someone's been making to build your own RPG, seems vaguely similar to your idea (though i think his project is more of a build it then play it and your idea is build it as you play it). Maybe you'd be able to use that in some way or get some ideas from it!

[mPaul]

Check out the RPG Builder in this projects forum, it's a project someone's been making to build your own RPG, seems vaguely similar to your idea (though i think his project is more of a build it then play it and your idea is build it as you play it). Maybe you'd be able to use that in some way or get some ideas from it!

JP, I don't think this is really the thing I'm looking for. Thanks anyway.

[rogerborg]

Required reading:

Why your next 3D MMORPG will fail

The usual Dire Warnings apply.

If you really expect your game to be Massive, then you should design it on that basis.

If it's Massive, then some of your playerbase will exploit it.

Every time you come up with a concept for a feature, think (or better yet, have someone else think) of all the ways that it could possibly be exploited.

If you can't design a way to avoid those exploits, and aren't prepared to accept them, then abandon the feature.

Best of luck.

[mPaul]

Required reading:

Why your next 3D MMORPG will fail

The usual Dire Warnings apply.

If you really expect your game to be Massive, then you should design it on that basis.

If it's Massive, then some of your playerbase will exploit it.

Every time you come up with a concept for a feature, think (or better yet, have someone else think) of all the ways that it could possibly be exploited.

If you can't design a way to avoid those exploits, and aren't prepared to accept them, then abandon the feature.

Best of luck.

Thanks for your reply, but as you might have expected I have some things to say.

First of all, it's not an MMORPG. If I sent you the whole design document, you might understand it a little better.
Second, you might have missed the phrase "experimental". The project isn't really to finish, it's mainly to work on, learn from and most importantly to have fun with developing.
Last (but not least), I realise that the "game" would need a whole lot of tweaking on features, balancing out and all of that. But that's really the challenge for me, I would've never even thought up this idea if I knew it wouldn't be new. Yes, new isn't always better, but it's sure to be more fun than sticking with the "classical" approach.

I hope this freshens up your (and everybody else's) view on the project a bit.

[Brainsaw]

Required reading:

Why your next 3D MMORPG will fail

The usual Dire Warnings apply.

If you really expect your game to be Massive, then you should design it on that basis.

If it's Massive, then some of your playerbase will exploit it.

Every time you come up with a concept for a feature, think (or better yet, have someone else think) of all the ways that it could possibly be exploited.

If you can't design a way to avoid those exploits, and aren't prepared to accept them, then abandon the feature.

Best of luck.

Thanks for that link, it's great. Just read it and there were a lot of things I have experienced and found out myself ... that's why I do currently not work on my "biggest game ever" idea but on a much more simpler "nice and marble madness like" project.

[rogerborg]

It’s an MMO
[...]
it's not an MMO[RPG].

Mmm.

Second, you might have missed the phrase "experimental".

You should probably have edited that word into your original post before "quoting" it.

I get where you're coming from. It'll be a good learning experience for you.

Lesson #1: accept responsibility for communicating your ideas clearly and unambiguously.

Best of luck.

[hybrid]

Hey rogerborg, the thread is called "Experimental Online Game". That's so from the beginning, I don't think you need more.
Maybe you should just accept project announcements as they are

[mPaul]

Well I think it's all clear enough now, since I've answered the questions. But let's not get too far off topic. If anyone's interested, let me know.

[ssexton]

Sounds like SWG in a medieval setting to me. Good luck with it!