Balls in your court now Haemish, Schild & Co.

[Hoax]

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=149&fp=1024,768,815195250,20050701161605

Vaporware?  Good idea? Bad idea? You decide.

[Margalis]

Problem is the engine really isn't the hard part. I mean, it's hard, but in terms of labor it's actually a small amount of work compared to other things.

[WayAbvPar]

[Viin]

There are other companies that do similiar things, some of them are Open Source even.

But Margalis is right, even with MUDs the easy part was the engine - the hard part was filling up the world with stuff to do.

That's why 99% of the MUDs out there have the same zones, it's easy to copy someone else's work into the game and much much more time consuming to create your own.

[HaemishM]

Art costs money. Bandwidth costs money. Sound recording and editing costs money. QA apparently costs more money than anyone is prepared to spend.

This is a good step, provided it works and doesn't suck ass. But it's only one piece of a very big puzzle.

[Hoax]

Heh obviously I kid and/or am not good at clever titles, I guess its a step in the right direction though.  There can never be too many things that are open source no?

[Margalis]

I used to be involved in stuff at GarageGames a bit and some other side projects. One big problem is that nerdy programmers (such as myself) don't seem to have a problem giving stuff away, but artists are usually quite different. It's very rare to find "open source" models, stills, music, etc of any real quality.

I'm working on a hobby project right now (which I might unveil at some point if it turns out well) and to solve my problem I'm liberally stealing from other places for the time being.

[stray]

I'll do the voice acting 

Seriously though, I have a little professional experience with sound editing and recording on some multimedia projects. I'm a musician as well.....Which leads to my other perk: I'm unemployed. Not getting paid is something I used to.

[schild]

The ball is in SOE's court. Blizzard bent them over and slapped a nightelf over their mouth.

[Venkman]

An interesting service. The only real difference seems to be that they're pushing their Server/Billing service. Basically, create the game and they'll host it. Their publishing arrangement is 50% royalty. Not bad really, if a bunch of folks with time and dedication got together and hacked a few trillion polygons together in whatever programs they already have.

But like Margalis said, the problem isn't the tools. Those have existed and better ones are out there. It's the effort, dedication, and sometimes the money. I say "sometimes" because as long as people understand going a Kaneva route (or Big World or NWN or DS or any other semi-opensource route) will not have SOE or Blizzard closing divisions in fear, the production values become a secondary concern.

This is actually quite enabling. Everyone's capable of thinking up a game, putting it together, and seeing if it sucks or is good. "Good" is measured by the game play though. At the very least, "good" can get you noticed, if you know where to shop it. And being about the game play means you don't need to overthink details most other companies overthink anyway.

Success can be a trap. When most of a development budget goes to worrying about crap like the proper luminosity of the gem on the ring of a stone golem guarding a hidden temple featured within yetanotherfrigginnewgraphicsengine, it's time to question the priorities.

[schild]

Here's my problem with 90% of the homebrew/open/amateur shit out there.

Polish. They got none.

I'm not talking about shiny. I'm just talking about all the parts adding up to a whole in an organized fashion. That simply doesn't happen with amateurs. Sure, you've got your Gishes and your Wiks, but for every one of those, you have 1,000 shitty free/amateur games.

[Venkman]

Agreed. The ratio could be applied to the "real" games though too 

This shit is hard, and we've seen what happens when people think money is the answer to all. Vision(tm) isn't the answer either, at least no exclusively. Ya gotta know what you're doing, and if you don't, find some people who do. These are not solo efforts.

I find more failure rooted in not understanding that than in any lack of access to the proper tools. So many false starts. So much promise. None of it possible from folks who think they'll just bang out the code in their spare time.

[schild]

It takes a certain Vision as well. Certainly not THE VISION. But a vision. Look at Okami, Katamari, Technic Beat, Stretch Panic, Rez, insert obscure game here. Odds are these had smaller budgets than *some* amateur shit out there (in america). But the guiding hand of a mastermind can shape even the oddest idea into sweet sweet gaming perfection. I would put Gish among those titles. There's a whole mess of independent games and amateur games. I think the qualifying line between them is who has the drive to do it right - not who has the most money.

That said, I'm pretty confident that no engine like Kaneva will ever result in anything worth wasting time on. It's the graphical equivilent to a half-assed fanmade MUD.

[sidereal]

This thread is supposed to be about balls!

[Teleku]

I think something like this might be a good way to test out ideas.  Make a world up and start screwing around with all sorts of different advancement schemes, pvp mechanics, combat rules, ect.  It doesn't have to be pretty or very large scale.  Just get enouph people online to screw around with it to see how the idea works in real world situations when it actually gets off the paper and into practice.  Then major companies can hopefully use the knowledge gained from these experaments to impliment better and different game mechanics.

As far as making an amature product lots of people are going to play and be profitable....not so much.

[stray]

This thread is supposed to be about balls!

That's what I thought too. What the hell? Now it's all serious and shit.

[WindupAtheist]

So can a regular schmuck like me get this engine, and code an MMOG where you camp the Schild spawn with your Lightsaber of +2 Wooden Dialogue, until one of them drops the rare Art Fag Beret of Ownage?

[Hoax]

If you build it I will play..   :-D

[Fabricated]

I have little faith in Open-Source anything in terms of games.

I mean, Planeshift? Hello?

[schild]

I have little faith in Open-Source anything in terms of games.

I mean, Planeshift? Hello?

timothy:

· frozen bubble
· flightgear
· Kbounce

Timothy from Slashdot disagrees with you. Yer just not cool til you're running linux at home and playing the crappiest games ever made.

[Margalis]

Making games is hard. A game requiers art, sound, programming AND fun, and polish. Fun is hit or miss and polish takes real discipline to put in. I don't think there is any one reason amateur games tend to be awful, other than that it's a complicated process.

Compare to something like painting. An amateur painter just has to be good at one thing, painting. An amateur game maker has to be good at programming, graphics work, sound, "intangibles" - or at least finding and managing people that can cover those bases.

Until you try to make a game you have no idea how much work it entails and how diverse that work is.

[schild]

Until you try to make a game you have no idea how much work it entails and how diverse that work is.

Words to live by. Making nearly anything that requires skill is hard.

[Arnold]

I used to be involved in stuff at GarageGames a bit and some other side projects. One big problem is that nerdy programmers (such as myself) don't seem to have a problem giving stuff away, but artists are usually quite different. It's very rare to find "open source" models, stills, music, etc of any real quality.

I'm working on a hobby project right now (which I might unveil at some point if it turns out well) and to solve my problem I'm liberally stealing from other places for the time being.

Now and then, I've thought it would be cool to have a cheesy, 2D, pencil-drawn, stick figure MMOPG, complete with lined notebook paper background :)

[Arnold]

Here's my problem with 90% of the homebrew/open/amateur shit out there.

Polish. They got none.

I'm not talking about shiny. I'm just talking about all the parts adding up to a whole in an organized fashion. That simply doesn't happen with amateurs. Sure, you've got your Gishes and your Wiks, but for every one of those, you have 1,000 shitty free/amateur games.

What about Mount & Blade? That game has NO polish, but is fun as hell.  I LIKE the fact that the developers put gameplay over graphics.

[Arnold]

Making games is hard. A game requiers art, sound, programming AND fun, and polish. Fun is hit or miss and polish takes real discipline to put in. I don't think there is any one reason amateur games tend to be awful, other than that it's a complicated process.

Compare to something like painting. An amateur painter just has to be good at one thing, painting. An amateur game maker has to be good at programming, graphics work, sound, "intangibles" - or at least finding and managing people that can cover those bases.

Until you try to make a game you have no idea how much work it entails and how diverse that work is.

That's why the old school game programmers were so fuckin' cool.  They did design, programming, graphics, sound, music, and art (and sometimes packaging/marketing) all by themselves, all the while finding inventive ways to work around the limitations of the current hardware.

[raydeen]

Don't know if you guys ever fooled around with the Shattered Light engine. It was a commercial MMOG a few years back that saw some daylight before the original developer went under. Then it was bought up by a company called Past Tree and reworked and re-released as the MMORPG Construction Set. It then pretty much died after a few patches and the original programmer tried to re-release the original game. Long court battle ensued, original developer won, and the project has been slowly creeping along for the last 2 years or so. It appears that the company that owns it now is trying to finance it with a virtual stripper chick program (which is actually quite good from an animation and modeling standpoint). At any rate, the download for SL should be up in a week or so (they've had server/financial trouble). It's graphically similar to UO and has a server app and map making app along with the client. There's also a 3D MMOG construction set in the works. All this and more can be found at:

www.ensigngames.com

If you can get around the headache that is the mapmaker, it might be a neat little program to fool with. I've tinkered but never really made anything of value.

[schild]

What about Mount & Blade? That game has NO polish, but is fun as hell.  I LIKE the fact that the developers put gameplay over graphics.

That game has mad gameplay polish. I wasn't just talking about graphics.

[WindupAtheist]

Grammar Nazi time:

Whenever one uses "mad" in place of "substantial" or some other such word, one is expected to end the sentence with "yo!"  Ergo, Schild, you ought to have said "That game had mad gameplay polish, yo!"  Bonus points are awarded for spelling "yo" with a zero.

[schild]

Grammar Nazi time:

Whenever one uses "mad" in place of "substantial" or some other such word, one is expected to end the sentence with "yo!"  Ergo, Schild, you ought to have said "That game had mad gameplay polish, yo!"  Bonus points are awarded for spelling "yo" with a zero.

Your bizarre not-quite-Boogish schtick is wearing thin, yo.

[WindupAtheist]

Mad thin, yo.

[TheWalrus]

Special round for throwing in a "dawg" in there somewhere. Or some sort of "izzle".

[stray]

Sad thing is, only white guys, especially dorks on the internet, are the only ones who use "dawg" these days. That's like, SO 1991.

[MrHat]

Sad thing is, only white guys, especially dorks on the internet, are the only ones who use "dawg" these days. That's like, SO 1991izzle.

Fixed that.

[HaemishM]

There is only one component that is the "Holy Grail" of good game-making, the veritable font out of which all other streams flow. And as the Holy Grail, it is the hardest thing to find, but should the developer, whether amateur or professional, find said font, he will have a bug-free, fun-laden game.

Project Management.

Fo' shizzle.

[Ookii]

Here's my problem with 90% of the homebrew/open/amateur shit out there.

Dude it's time for F13.MMORPG or F13.Game...

I invision the game to have a two hour character creation process, followed by a never ending grind masked by random drops of phat lewts.

We could rule the world with this thing.