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Space/Planet MMO.... Would you play this?
Barrikor
Member UncommonPosts: 373
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@ Mods:
I thought that it would be be best to post this here in General Discussion rather than in the Developers Corner because I want to target this to the players. Sorry if this causes any trouble 
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I'm thinking of starting to write an MMO in a few years from now (I've got about five big projects that I want to / have to finish first)
The game will take place in an alternative future. The back story / history is a bit long and I don't want to give too much away on a public forum so I'll just sum up the main points:
In Humanity's fist space war, Humans managed to win and become the dominate war power, however the enemy created a new race by combining Human DNA with the DNA of other races: Thus creating the arch enemy of the Human race.
A 1000 years later:
Humanity has fought generation after generation in an epic war against this new enemy. At long last the enemy conquers Earth itself and Mankind's resistance is broken. The survivors escape to four planets far from any life and attempt to hide themselves.
300 years after that:
The human race will rise again. From their "New Earth" they will begin their new expansion across space, forming new nations, always building, always colonizing ...only to face their dreaded adversaries in battle once again.
Overview:
- Players can have 7 characters per account.
- Death: The races are basically immortal by this time. If your body is so injured that it can't support itself any more then you are tellaported into "the void" to heal. Afterwards you are tellaported back usually to you home city but not always.
- Game starts with 3 habitable planets
- Planets can be colonized but it takes a lot of people and a lot of time to be able to colonize and terraform a whole new planet. Some planets are easier than others for this due to size and atmosphere type.
- Player owned housing / stores. The players build their own world. 99.9% of the planet maps start out as a wilderness.
- Humans cannot attack each other in their "starting" solar system. Other races can attack there if they can get inside that far though.
- New nations can be formed but don't expect the nation that owns your planet to be happy if there's a revolution.
- Quests: Several "organizations" (NPC's) dynamically offer missions and rewards from the very start of the game. Players can offer "wagers" and "escort missions" in space. The mayors of player cities can offer "challenges" (setting their own "prerequisites" and rewards) Nations have players piloting their ships. Nations can offer missions against other nations as well.
- Personal Combat: Mostly guns, swords, and spears... Most players will be wearing an item that creates a force "shield" when attacked that can withstand shots for a short while. Plasma from a plasma sword or plasma cannon will temporarily destroy the personal "shield", however, the person using the plasma weapon also loses their shield too. (unless it is far enough away from them: i.e. a spear)
- Space Battle: Besides the obvious, Ships can also do things like board other ships or transfer their own shield power over to injured allies. There are many components that can be placed on board your ship to make it better. Ships can be sold to other players and sometimes governments. If you lose your ship the insurance company will refund you providing it was insured in the first place. (Can't get insured if you captured it by piracy)
- PvE: There will be a lot of player vs the environment too especially on newer planets, unfortunately most of it is due to enemy players... "Who was it who put one those self-replicating robots on our planet again?" MOB's will attack cities if they are strong enough on the planet.
No player classes: Every player can theoretically learn every skill, however if you try to be a "Jack of all Trades" it'll take forever to be a master at anything.
(EDIT)
Nothing is "instanced" as most people think of it... no "instanced" raids or "instanced" this or that. Technically alot of things will be instanced - like the insides of buildings... It doesn't exist if there isn't anyone inside, however if there are people inside, you're walking into the same "instance" as they are in but you'd never know it's an "instance"
Comments
CORE issue:
- Open PvP. I want to be FREE from PvP, raiding, RvR and any other silly gameplay. ALL REWARDS must be given inside grouping and/or soloing. (If PvP is enable in a zone, then it is a PvP reward, not a grouping reward, thereby not a game I would even consider playing)
- Not sure about the "dependacy" on other players...I don't mind to need to find a group, but if I need to find peoples for other stuff than grouping, I am pretty sure it will be problematic...
Side issue:
- I am bored at space and sci fi in general. Sure, I could give it a try...but...I feel this is overdone. I much rather play an elve or in another setting completely. But, I can accept this.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Theres alot of good ideas, and I am sure you can't flesh out the entire game in one single post. The elements you have stated are interesting, and in a sense almost seems as if a reversal of EVE (staring with player avatars and then move to space and ship combat).
One thing I would personally like to see in an MMO are more cooperative elements; such as shared space-ships were 2 or more players actually pilot and or operate the various aspects of a ship. Something that made the dynamics of the game more detailed, and more personal as it would really put into focus the "Multi-playing" aspect.
Just my two-cents, though overall I think it has merit.
Good ideas, it will be very difficult to accomplish as of today. To answer your question: I would most likely give the game a shot.
Tecmo Bowl.
Not really seeing anything new here that isn't already found in several games.
I also feel that if you were a serious developer with the millions required to develop such a game then you wouldn't be here laying your non-copyright material and concept on the table for all to see.
So good luck, but I suspect you don't have the money, backing or experience to release such a game to a playable level of quality or content in 5 or even 10 years time.
No offence meant just stating my opinion.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
No offense taken
I've left out some things that were unique on purpose but I think I was able to show the main feel of the game... Maybe I said too much, maybe too little... I think I hinted at a few things too...
No I don't have millions of dollars to use for it... but I'm not planning on recruiting a hundred people either... In fact I'm planning on doing most of the coding myself. I'm planning on grabbing a fan-base from some of my current projects and in the pre-betas I'll offer free memberships for certain things. I'll hopefully be able to optimize my older game engines for it too. I won't need any designers. I won't need any artists either until after the game is almost finished.
well i didn't bother to read the whole description but i taken its as a space simulation mmo
well it may be off topic but i heard that NASA is develpoing a mmo and if not a freindly sci-fi mmo..there is Tabula Rasa <--- mother of all sci-fi mmo (littarly)
Sorry for it being so long, I didn't plan on writing that much... hopefully it's at least worth reading though
I didn't know about NASA. I decided to google it. Too bad they're only planing on it becoming some sort of educational tool...
Good games are NOT just about ideas. They are about implementation and polish.
There is no way to judge your game without seeing something. Stuff sounds great on paper can be botched by bad implementation, bugs, technical issues, bad UI design or just bad art direction.
Good luck but show us when you really have something as opposed to a bunch of ideas on paper. Ideas are cheap. You get a bunch of players in a room for 3 hours and you have more ideas than you can implement in your whole life.
yeah.. right now im playing one the bulfleet...i have my own colony.. its like playing red alert. but it takes time upgrading espcially when your colony is growing..
Well, I have to agree with you there... If someone else had written it I'd probably say the same thing...
My weakness would probably be "bad UI design or just bad art direction" since I'm bad at 3d art myself (really bad) and I want my "team" to be as small as possible (ideally I could try to do it all myself... but that'd take forever...)
The main parts of the game are different enough that they can be pre-beta tested separately. The pre-beta's will be quite long so hopefully I can eliminate all the "known" bugs. My "space" engine (still building) will probably be a good framework for space ...but so far I've only tested it with 5 users at a time, so I have no idea how it will hold up in an MMO...
My main fears are server load and lag...
Hey! You have some good ideas and I especially like the idea of the player base actually developing their planets.
However, when you started enumerating your ideas, the first point made me cringe already:
- Players can have 7 characters per account.
How can you at this point already specify a detail such as this? The same goes for some other things you stated. Don't get me wrong! You apparently have programming experience, but I think you will quickly find that execution is a smaller part of the overall project than you seem to assume.
My advice would be to try and get some sw development and project management experience. MMOs are very time and money intensive for a reason!
But to answer you question: Yes, I would try that game. Waiting for a good SciFi MMORPG for a while now. Don't like Eve or TR. Actually, Anarchy Online 2 would be my favourite
Best of luck!
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Seems interesting although a few questions and ideas came to my mind when reading this. What setting is it, is it post-apocalyptic or is it in between post-apocalyptic and pretty decent? I personally would prefer 100% post-apocalyptic setting as it allows for more freedom (see later). Crafting isn't mentioned, what about it? I want to be able to build whole cities from nothing, would that be possible? I.e. a combination of player houses and colonizing planets. How much will players be able to own? Will shops belong to NPCs or will everything be player owned?
I picked that number on purpose... Even though there will be no "fixed" classes, it will still take more than one character to experience the entire game. The different races look at the game world from completely opposing points of view. Also this would allow younger player's with siblings to let their siblings use the "slots" that they don't need. Even if the first one gets tired of the game after a while, there will be a good chance that the account will stay active. Also I want my company to be very player/community oriented and this would help our image.
The game won't really be very post-apocalyptic. The devastation of Earth and the Human empire happened hundreds of years before. The game will probably feel mostly "modern" or "expansionist", however, if you are defending a planet that is under attack by the "half humans" (I don't want to use their real name on a forum) then you might feel like you are in the middle of an apocalyps.
I don't have have many original ideas about the crafting system yet so I decided not to list it... Almost every item in circulation in the game world will be player made. The economy will be a "five tier" system:
Tier I: Gathering resources
Tier II: Refining resources
Tier III: Item production
Tier IV: Item / resource sales
Tier V: Services needed for economy to function
Crafting and Player-Buildings will all fit into this model
Building a whole city on your own would take forever, but it would be theoretically possible... Not from nothing though, everything takes resources to make.
Take the unreal Engine, make a quick mod with 1 level, 1 ship, 1 space level, 1 small base with one room and a basic layout of your idea. (you don't have to make it fully functional, all you need is a vision...)
The point is mate, we all have ideas and everyone would love to make a game but proves that I should invest my time in you?
Don't take me wrong but I do work in the gaming industry and music industry as a sideline, I know alot about how things roll and typing out ideas on a forum is not going to help you much.
Who are you, what are you trying to accomplish, do you have a team to start with?
money is a silly detail that can be aquired with ease if you at least have the previous steps up and running.
I'm not really looking for someone to "invest their time in me". I don't have a team. I'm not looking for a team. And I don't want a team if I can help it... (I'm no good at art or music though)
I know that typing out my ideas into a forum instead of into an IDE won't really produce anything but all I'm really looking for is what the players reactions to it would be.
BTW:
I like the Art of War quote under your avatar
I like the idea of indirect PvP, with the players setting up robot factories that will be hostile to other factions.
That's pretty much the only idea I liked.
I dislike totally classless games and refuse to play them. My preference would be a hybrid class/skill-tree system where there is a lot of freedom, but you cannot master EVERY skill. Skill-fans love to say classes are unrealistic, but I say it is far more unrealistic to allow someone to be a master of everything.
I hate player housing that is not instanced, and I will not play a game that has such a thing.
The death penalty makes no sense from a gameplay perspective.
The whole political aspect of the game seems very vague, and I have my doubts as to its viability.
Anytime I hear "dynamic" missions, I think "randomly generated content," which in my mind is exactly the same as "cheap-ass lazy developer."
I don't like the idea of people becoming a "master of everything" either and I think it should be all but impossible, but it should be theoretically possible... (IMHO, of course) The users will recognize defacto classes and play types anyway.
The "death" system is a bit unique, I'm avoiding giving out too much info on that...
The political aspect of the game is vague on purpose... I can explain a bit more though. Everyone has a home city, a planet that the home city is on, a solar system, and a nation that owns the planet, also each player belongs to a race. Every city, planet, system, and nation have their own "charter" and their own government. The "charters" states how much voting power each group has on each type of issue, how issues are proposed, the structure of government, and how to change the "charter" itself.
"dynamic missions" might not sound good I suppose... But the game world will be constantly changing, and manually changing quests everyday would be quite a job. Dynamically having the game look at the world and change the quests seems better in the long term. Quests need to be meaningful and actually help change the game world for the better. (For your side at least)
Ex: "If the questers today manage to wipe out the giant insects in this forest today, there won't need to be a quest here any more. We'll target that other forest next"
Im much interested in how the game will be to play.. will there be an endgame play or like in EVE where everyone can make a differences.
One thing im also interested in is, will the game end at some point.. when all has been exploreded and all enemies has been killed will the game then be "over"? or will it be a static environment like WoW which.. eh... also has it problems, or what did you have in mind.
Well, I have to agree with you there... If someone else had written it I'd probably say the same thing...
My weakness would probably be "bad UI design or just bad art direction" since I'm bad at 3d art myself (really bad) and I want my "team" to be as small as possible (ideally I could try to do it all myself... but that'd take forever...)
The main parts of the game are different enough that they can be pre-beta tested separately. The pre-beta's will be quite long so hopefully I can eliminate all the "known" bugs. My "space" engine (still building) will probably be a good framework for space ...but so far I've only tested it with 5 users at a time, so I have no idea how it will hold up in an MMO...
My main fears are server load and lag...
Your problem is that you are trying to do everything on your own. There is a reason why there is division of labor in our economy. It is HIGHLY inefficient to do everything by yourself because you can't be an expert of everything.
For example, client/server stuff is a KNOWN thing. There are plenty of technology developed over the years and there is lots of know-how. You can't compete if you can't do a decent job on this and you are better off hiring someone to do it for you.
The same can be said about UI. UI design is a huge field and designing UI is really not an unknown process.
I don't think your project has any chance of becoming anything than a garage hobby without seeknig some professional help.
Let me give you a advice.. take a good look on the story of Darkfall.. theres a reason some games take ages to develop.. You really that dumb/smart that you think you can do it all by your self and actualy get ppl to play it ?
(Mods please dont get offended for my question and stop banning me :P)
You're probably right... But there's no point in asking people to join my team if I don't have a large portion of the game already written first. I think I'd be fine client/server stuff as long as what I write can handle that much UDP coming in... But yes, if the only way to make this is hiring a couple people to help me then I will (temporarily), ...as long as my current "projects" manage to give me a strong enough income... I'll need a couple artists for sure though, but not till later.
Well, I think I can do most of it at least... When it comes down to it I suppose I'm not all that smart really, but I learn things faster than most coders I know so that's got to make up for something... I answer to your question I'm probably on the "dumb" side
Once I finish some preliminary projects and a couple browser based games I'll be able to hit this project full force.
Did any of the Darkfall devs write any thing about that? It'd be interesting for me to read if they did...
No offense taken BTW
There won't be any "definite" endgame per say but there will come a time when a given player has learned most of the skills and has knows most of the gameworld. These players can use their position, levels, wealth, and skills to their advantage more easily than someone with lower skill levels and less wealth. They can try to gain leadership over their given area. They could try to buy up land to have complementing industries or to strengthen their voting power. They can also invest in various "public works" Don't forget that there's a war on though, Strong players are needed to strengthen their nations' defenses. Ultimately some players will be rich enough to field fleets of battleships piloted by lower level players.
The gameworld will be in a state of constant change because it is all player-owned. Somewhere that was a deserted wasteland a month ago might be a sprawling city now... But I expect that a lot of areas will "stabilize" over time. There will always be new things to see though and there will always be enemy races that want to conquer your planets and try to destroy your race. There is a way for a race to ultimately lose (at least for a short while) But that's a bit of a secret until someone finds it in-game... it has to do with Greek mythology
Well, I think I can do most of it at least... When it comes down to it I suppose I'm not all that smart really, but I learn things faster than most coders I know so that's got to make up for something... I answer to your question I'm probably on the "dumb" side
Once I finish some preliminary projects and a couple browser based games I'll be able to hit this project full force.
Did any of the Darkfall devs write any thing about that? It'd be interesting for me to read if they did...
No offense taken BTW
It is really not about whether you are smart or not. Today's software development is really about knowing the tools and do not spend time on doing something that has already been done, as opposed to 20 years ago based on pure intelligence.
No one on this planet has enough time and memory to be proficient in all the necessarily tools (from networking, to UI design, to graphics, to database) to build a MMO. My guess is that you will need at least a 5-10 people team to even do a serious attempt.
Furthermore, I also don't think modern game development is all about software. It is about project management, design and how to make different parts of a project works. The era of a single hacker can create a good game has gone forever.