Minions of Mirth goes into free alpha amongst cries of, "WTF?"

[Signe]

Here it is.

At least it has a happy name.

[HaemishM]

What the fuck is Massively Single Player Gameplay?

[Dren]

"Prairie Games, creators of the massively single player, multiplayer, persistent world RPG Minions of Mirth!"

Tee Hee, that's just sounds silly.  I'm sure it is all explained later. 

...

It has to be.

[Signe]

I know... it makes me giggle, too.

[Aenovae]

Maybe your avatar is HUGE!




ba-dum-CHHH!

[schild]

Minions of Girth?

[Aenovae]

Maybe Diablo II was massively single player.  There are thousands of people you COULD play with, but everyone mostly chose to ignore the rest of the populace and play by themselves.  You joined 8-player games and farmed beefed up mobs by yourself for extra exp and loot.  Or you joined 8-player Baal run games and killed the demon in under 2 minutes without saying a single word to your teammates.

[Aenovae]

No wait, I got it.  Minions of Mirth is like .hack.  It's a single-player RPG where you play a character playing a MMO.  So every player you meet and interact with is really just an NPC with AI. 

What would be really great is if the NPCs went on quests, formed groups, raided, and joined guilds all on their own.  They could be coded to always be polite to the player, never kill steal, never farm, always let the player into their guilds, sell items at the auction house for reasonable prices, always be available when the player is lfg, and to never spam general chat with inane chatter.

MMO with all other players removed = best MMO ever?

[Yegolev]

MMO with all other players removed = best MMO ever?

Yes.

[Stormwaltz]

MMO with all other players removed = best MMO ever?

Morrowind?

That's not a criticism, per se. I rather like Morrowind.

[Sairon]

I wouldn't be suprised if it's just a single player game with a built in IRC client

[Signe]

If someone would just sacrafice a wee bit of time and sanity, we could all find out what it means.

Not me.

[Nebu]

MMO with all other players removed = best MMO ever?

[mmog_general_chatl] OMG lik WTF ur gay LOL [/mmog_general_chat]

I think the use of Mirth in their title is apt.  I just don't think they realize why.

[stray]

Ugly name, ugly graphics, but from what I gather, you can also create content/entire zones and host your own server...Which is interesting (there's also an official server IF you want to play online).

[Signe]

Oooh!  We could have it for f13. 

Because, you know, we're so mirthy and stuff. 

[Soukyan]

I'm checking it out. It's cool that they're doing simultaneous Windows/OS X testing, but that may be taking a lot more dev time for them. Ah well, we shall see how it goes.

The hosting your own server thing sounds promising. Perhaps it can replace the Winter's Roar EQ server thing that was shut down by SOE recently.

[Dren]

Hrm, if I can use the game to test out some our crazy game design ideas, I'm starting to pay attention.  I'd even bypass graphics for that feature.

[Trippy]

What the fuck is Massively Single Player Gameplay?

It's a game world designed like an MMORPG a la EverQuest but you can play it by yourself if you want to on your own private server. It's a Torque engine game that's customizable/modable by the end user similar to the way MUDs are.

[Sky]

Bad graphics + OSX = I can play it from work....

I better abandon this thread now ;)

[Stephen Zepp]

What the fuck is Massively Single Player Gameplay?

It's a game world designed like an MMORPG a la EverQuest but you can play it by yourself if you want to on your own private server. It's a Torque engine game that's customizable/modable by the end user similar to the way MUDs are.

As Trippy pointed out, the main precept behind MoM is very similar to how both MUDS and NeverWinter Nights (as far as I am aware, never played NWN) is set up--based around single group action (and you can even play multiple characters at once, in the same group), although in a multi-player environment.

A little bit of background on MoM: it is a fully indie project that started as a custom code base, then migrated across a couple of different solutions and finally landed in the Torque Game Engine with some heavy modifications. It is basically written by a single person (Josh Ritter), on a budget as far as I am aware of under $15,000 (and probably MUCH less than that), along with one partner that did level design and story.

As Trippy also alluded to, it's designed so that you can set up your own servers, and fully control the content and the access, much like muds: once it's in final release, my understanding is that you'll purchase a server for a fee (this may have changed, he really hasn't talked much about that portion of it yet as far as I am aware) get the server as part of the license purchase ($25), and have complete control over your world.

Josh is a very active member of the GarageGames community, and you can read a thread that is kept pretty up to date on the latest additions and related news here.

You can also take a look at some of the history of MoM as it's been developed over the last 2(?)-ish years in Josh's various .plans.

I do want to say again that this is a completely indie project that was written by a team of exactly two people, working with an extremely limited budget. Much of the artwork has been contracted out of their own pockets (neither is an artist), and just 4 months ago they had just about zero artwork at all. Pretty damned amazing actually if you ask me!

EDIT: Josh just let me know that there is no additional fee for the server portion of the code...it's part of the base package.

[Dren]

Ok, I just made a reminder to check this out from home tonight.  If it isn't too hard to get implemented and change, I've been looking for something like this for a long time.  I'll gladly pay them for their time if it fits my needs.  :-D

[schild]

Ok, I hadn't even clicked on the original link. But I'm going to seriously look into this given what Zepp said. That's some clever shit. Yay for customizable shards. :P I love pet projects.

[Roac]

So OK, there's you a graphical MUD.  Now go forth and prosper.

[Kitsune]

This deserves some investigation.  Build your own EverQuest for $25?  Depending on how flexible the development tools are, it may very well offer someone the ability to put their money where their mouth is when they say that they could make the best MMOG, 'if only...'

[Dren]

Ok, I downloaded the clent last night.  You just have to register on their forums and then you get to download it.  I'm going to try it out this weekend when I have time.

Anyone else working on this game?  Is there anything I should know before starting it?  I'll try to provide feedback as I work through it.

[Stephen Zepp]

Ok, I downloaded the clent last night.  You just have to register on their forums and then you get to download it.  I'm going to try it out this weekend when I have time.

Anyone else working on this game?  Is there anything I should know before starting it?  I'll try to provide feedback as I work through it.

I'm not actively working on it, either playing or developing, but if you have any questions of a tech nature I can try to help out.

[Alkiera]

I made a character on the Prairie Games server, a wizard.  Had some issues connecting/staying connected, so I restarted in single player mode... 

It's a somewhat amusing game.  Wizard nukes are pretty amazingly powerful vs. normal critters.  Anything with a prefix "Stalwort Skeleton, Large Skeleton, etc" quickly becomes, uh, exciting.  Wizards have little to nothing in the way of defense...  Tho I can hit things with my pipe and do fire damage, instead of whatever fists normally do.  That's a plus in my book.

Alkiera

[Dren]

I put in about 30 minutes for single player to just get a feel for the game world and mechanics.  The graphics are poor, but I figured it would be.  The mechanics are a bit touchy, but again I didn't expect much.

I started a basic human warrior and found killing the newbie stuff was easy, but purely autoattack.  I may have missed something else that could be done during combat, but I didn't see it. 

My next attempt will be with the multiplayer aspect and try a few other game features and/or different character class/race.

I am actually surprised at how well done this game is with so little invested and so few people involved.  If it turns out to be a nice little sandbox to play around with, it should be adequate for some fun.

[Alkiera]

I put in about 30 minutes for single player to just get a feel for the game world and mechanics.  The graphics are poor, but I figured it would be.  The mechanics are a bit touchy, but again I didn't expect much.

I started a basic human warrior and found killing the newbie stuff was easy, but purely autoattack.  I may have missed something else that could be done during combat, but I didn't see it. 

As far as that goes, it seems not all classes are equally well developed at the moment... part of the issue with having so many, I think.

Then again, it might just be a warrior thing... I know people in the global chat mentioned some assassin-type class had lots of special attacks.  And the wizzard I played had quite a few spells.

Alkiera

[Dren]

Yeah, I'm not making any judgements yet really.  I know I need to spend more time with it and try other things.  I was amazed at how many classes and races they've taken on though (like 15 of each?.)  That's a pretty big bite.

[Stephen Zepp]

Thread ressurection for teh win!

Ulterior motive: find out if/how/why this particular Indie game doesn't seem to attract much interest from the f13 community.

Personal Opinion/Observation: I'm pretty in touch with a decent proportion of the Indie Dev community, and MoM is one out of 2 of the non-funded, "pure indie, large scale-possible" online games out there (Mount and Blade being the other), so I'm curious to see if I can get some solid feedback (positive feedback not important, just concrete observations) on why Minions of Mirth hasn't seemed to draw much interest from the folks here at F13.

Disclaimer: While MoM uses Torque, GarageGames doesn't have any particular ties to the developers or the game itself, but it is one of the strongest examples of a hard-driven indie development team, and my interest/request in how F13 is responding to this project as it develops is more of an abstract nature than a marketing/buzz one. I'd simply like to know what may be negative about the project itself that has (or at least appears to have) given it a lack-luster response here at F13.

Can anyone provide constructive (or hell, even destructive!) feedback on why this project doesn't capture their attention?

For those not reading the entire thread, the project is a "Massively Single Player Online Game", with the ability to host your own server/design your own world built in. The current demo can be found at MoM Demo--Windows or MoM Demo--Mac.

If the demos treat you well, the beta can entered by pre-ordering MoM  ($25) at the pre-order site.

I know it sounds like I'm trying to pimp the game itself, but quite honestly I have no ulterior motive to do so...my interest here in this post is to find out why, even with what I observe to be some pretty incredible progress in a short period of time, the project doesn't appear to be drawing much interest here!

[Evangolis]

Well, I'm almost instantly turned off by the name, as it suggests the project is some sort of joke, and the 'Massively Single Player Online Game' doesn't really tell me anything.  As someone who often shoots his own message in the foot by getting lost in the fun of wordplay, I think I recognize the mistake.

[Stephen Zepp]

Well, I'm almost instantly turned off by the name, as it suggests the project is some sort of joke, and the 'Massively Single Player Online Game' doesn't really tell me anything.  As someone who often shoots his own message in the foot by getting lost in the fun of wordplay, I think I recognize the mistake.

Valid argument for sure! I personally felt the same. Branding is extremely important, and extremely easy to make mistakes with as well unfortunately.

[Sky]

Well, I'm almost instantly turned off by the name, as it suggests the project is some sort of joke, and the 'Massively Single Player Online Game' doesn't really tell me anything.  As someone who often shoots his own message in the foot by getting lost in the fun of wordplay, I think I recognize the mistake.

Heh. Yes and yes, I do the same thing :P

[Merusk]

Can anyone provide constructive (or hell, even destructive!) feedback on why this project doesn't capture their attention?

For those not reading the entire thread, the project is a "Massively Single Player Online Game", with the ability to host your own server/design your own world built in.

You answered your own question in the next line.  Many of us thought NWN's 'build your own world' aspect would be great and keep us going.  Then the amount of work was truly appreciated as scenarios and encounters and campaings were started to be put together.  It's not worth it to dedicate that much time to developing your own content unless you have some aim to be in the field or simply love the process. 

Personally, I'd much rather be a consumer than a provider of games, it's what I enjoy.  If I wanted to develop or build them I'd look at doing so, not play a game that has me do it.