Imagine this...

Zindaihas

Hi all,

I am an old MMORPG gamer whose experience goes back to the early days of Everquest.  The first time I played EQ, I fell in love with the MMO genre because of the way it makes you feel like you've been transported into that world.  It was about a year after I started playing EQ that I came up with an idea for an MMO of my own.  I am a history enthusiast with a history degree and I have a special interest in ancient history.

And that's the idea that struck me while playing EQ.  Wouldn't it be cool if I could merge the MMO genre with ancient history?  Wouldn't it give you that sensation of traveling back in time and living in that world?  And I wrote up a small book of ideas that I would incorporate into such a game.  But without the money or the programming experience needed, there was never much of a chance of ever getting it past the idea stage.

However, with new tools available today, such as crowd funding websites and game engines made for even novice programmers, I have decided to revisit this idea.  In an attempt to demonstrate how serious I am, I made up a model of the ancient Acropolis using the Unity game engine and recorded it as a video.  Here it is:

http://historiarex.com/the-acropolis

I actually posted my idea on this website about seven years ago, and I got a very positive response.  I truly believe there's a real hunger for a game like this.  But without something concrete to show anyone, I knew that there would be no chance of ever getting it past the idea stage.  I'm hoping this video might be able push it past that.

One thing I feel is very important to point out, is that, while it would be an MMORPG based on ancient history, it would not be restricted to a purely historical storyline; but would be expanded far beyond that into the realm of mythology as well.  So while it would be a game based on our own past, it would also utilize the mythos of the people who lived at the time; meaning you would also be able to fight all the wonderful creatures they believe existed.  The Griffins, the Chimeras, the Cyclopes, etc.

In addition, one of the things that excites me the most about this game, is the re-creation of all the magnificent architecture of the time (such as the Acropolis in the video).  Imagine the reconstruction of the Ancient Wonders, the ancient temples and the ancient theatres.  On top of that, as a historian, I believe I would be able to add a ton of lore that would give a player that feeling of being in the ancient world.

So, if I've managed to sell anyone else on the idea, get the word out.  I need experienced programmers who are as enthusiastic as I am about seeing this game created.  I've already talked to a few people in the industry where I live and they have told me that I'm basically attempting a Moon shot here.  And that may be, but the way I see it, I have nothing to lose.

Thanks

Zindaihas

Wow, this forum isn't what it used to be.  No replies...not even a negative one.  Maybe MMOs are dying as that one thread suggests.

psiic

lol have faith brother most of us are in games playing not reading forums Im just out because I am waiting on an install

nerovergil

have faith my brada

ConstantineMerus

I'd suggest to present your idea on appropiate platforms if you are serious about it. Here is a place to talk about games. We are already upset about that we need to discuss games in production, let alone in pre-pre-pre-production. 

Zindaihas

ConstantineMerus said:

I'd suggest to present your idea on appropiate platforms if you are serious about it. Here is a place to talk about games. We are already upset about that we need to discuss games in production, let alone in pre-pre-pre-production. 

This website has changed a lot since I last posted on it regularly.  They used to have a forum called "Developer's Corner" (or something like that) where people would post their game ideas and discuss game development.  That forum appears to be gone, so I just decided to post on the Pub forum.  Being a "non-developer", I'm not really sure where they hang out online, but I will look into it.

Slapshot1188

Gods and Heroes called:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gH0_LrF36M

Slapshot1188

TyranusPrime

As another would-be-developer working on his own game, I think your idea has good potential.. I also wish you the best of luck in your endeavor..

Octagon7711

Nice, always follow your passion.  Best of luck.  

laxie

I like those ideas - they are quite close to my heart.

I was working on a Minecraft server for 3 years, which was inspired by Roman/Greek history. It was focused on the life of an ordinary person, so I did a lot of research on how people lived back in the day. The idea was for players to cooperate and develop a small trade town together. Our people working on the town design used Pompeii as a rough guide. You can see parts of the town here.

One thing I find fascinating is translating mythology into everyday life. By that, I mean taking mythology and trying to present the stories/creatures using familiar objects and animals. For example, I think it's unlikely there ever was a Medusa who would turn people into stone with her gaze. So in our Minecraft world, there was a Medusé character - a fanatical sculptor who would kill uninvited visitors of her island, making statues to memorize her kill. These interpretations of myths that are just "normal" enough to seem plausible feel eery and fascinating to me.

We then closed down the Minecraft server 3 years in, due to the difficulty working with the Minecraft engine to do what we wanted. We weren't letting players build directly into the world anyway, so it felt like too much hassle for no benefit. I switched to Unity a year ago and started to explore some of my original ideas in new ways. You can get pretty far in Unity, even as a non-expert. I'm by no means a professional myself. But even as a curious amateur, I am making steady progress.

In about 6 months, I made a basic MMO framework - it has client/server networking, some basic harvesting and crafting, NPC trading and inventories. You can see some of it here. I'm currently working on plot ownership and player owned shops. So it definitely is possible to get quite far, even on your own.

One thing I'd warn against, is trying to put things together in Unity without wanting to understand how it works. Some of my videos on Youtube are gaining a tiny bit of traction (just in the thousands of views), and I have been getting regular messages from Unity "developers" who are making "MMOs", but have no idea even of how objects in Unity behave. Understanding networking in Unity requires a lot of patience (the documentation is not great), so people who aren't keen to learn usually don't get very far. I think game development on our level is as much about learning as it is about making.

nariusseldon

Zindaihas said:

Wow, this forum isn't what it used to be.  No replies...not even a negative one.  Maybe MMOs are dying as that one thread suggests.

Well, since you ask for it .. here is the negative comment.

 "The first time I played EQ, I fell in love with the MMO genre because of the way it makes you feel like you've been transported into that world."

Really? You mean you camp 6 hours for a virtual item that increases some number on your character sheet while trading chuck norris jokes (or at least reading them in the chat channel) with 50 others? I don't feel there is any world.

It is a bunch of gamers trying to kill mobs that pop up every 15 min (or whatever the respawn cycle is), arguing about kill-stealing, camp order, .. and oh don't forget .. trying sell you that piece of loot for 15 real world dollars. And i have not even got to the ebay part. Compared to what we have now, it is not even a good game (combat mechanics just sucks compared to modern games).

Zindaihas

Slapshot1188 said:

Gods and Heroes called:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gH0_LrF36M

I came up with this idea back in 2002, well before Gods and Heroes was ever conceived (or at least before it began development).  When it first began making news, I started following its development because of its close relation to my idea.  However, as it progressed, I didn't have high hopes for Gods and Heroes because I felt it failed in several areas.  First of all, it was restricted to Rome itself, which limited its cultural appeal.  Like I said in my OP, I was introduced to MMOs with EQ and one of the things I liked about it was the different starting locations for the different races; it added a sort of cultural flavor to the game.

My idea would build on this by going well beyond Rome.  There would be four major empires (Greece, Egypt, Rome and Carthage) in the game as well as some minor cities.  In addition, you would not be limited to playing a human character as there would be several mythological races that would be available for character play (remember this is still all in the concept stage)).

Secondly, from the very start, I was perplexed as to why Gods and Heroes would be set in Rome, considering its mythology is ultimately based on Greek mythology.  Why not just go to the original source and set the game in Greece?  I would argue that most people prefer Greek mythology to Roman anyway.

Finally, I never got a sense that that game was very much interested in its historical setting.  It simply used ancient Rome as its setting but never delved that deeply into the rich lore that history provides.  For me, that would be a primary goal in any game set in ancient history.  If you want to play a game set in the ancient world, you have to feel like you are immersed in that world.

Zindaihas

laxie said:

I like those ideas - they are quite close to my heart.

I was working on a Minecraft server for 3 years, which was inspired by Roman/Greek history. It was focused on the life of an ordinary person, so I did a lot of research on how people lived back in the day. The idea was for players to cooperate and develop a small trade town together. Our people working on the town design used Pompeii as a rough guide. You can see parts of the town here.

One thing I find fascinating is translating mythology into everyday life. By that, I mean taking mythology and trying to present the stories/creatures using familiar objects and animals. For example, I think it's unlikely there ever was a Medusa who would turn people into stone with her gaze. So in our Minecraft world, there was a Medusé character - a fanatical sculptor who would kill uninvited visitors of her island, making statues to memorize her kill. These interpretations of myths that are just "normal" enough to seem plausible feel eery and fascinating to me.

Nice videos. I particularly like the landscape in the first one.  On the subject of your second paragraph, there was an interesting program on the History channel a few years back that tried to explain how some of the mythology came to be.  They showed the skulls of elephants (or perhaps mammoths) and how they had a giant hole in the center where their snout extended out.  But when you look at it, it looks like it could be a giant eye socket, and they speculated that the Greeks may have found some of these and thought it was the skull of a giant with only one eye in the center, giving rise to the idea of the Cyclops.

Zindaihas

nariusseldon said:

Well, since you ask for it .. here is the negative comment.

 "The first time I played EQ, I fell in love with the MMO genre because of the way it makes you feel like you've been transported into that world."

Really? You mean you camp 6 hours for a virtual item that increases some number on your character sheet while trading chuck norris jokes (or at least reading them in the chat channel) with 50 others? I don't feel there is any world.

It is a bunch of gamers trying to kill mobs that pop up every 15 min (or whatever the respawn cycle is), arguing about kill-stealing, camp order, .. and oh don't forget .. trying sell you that piece of loot for 15 real world dollars. And i have not even got to the ebay part. Compared to what we have now, it is not even a good game (combat mechanics just sucks compared to modern games).

Well this is a thread about my game idea, not EQ, so I don't actually consider it a negative response.  And you're entitled to your opinion, so if EQ wasn't your thing, that's fine.

But I would just counter with this: The first thing you said is true of any online game you play (with the possible exception of a six hour camp).  They're all virtual worlds, so you can't single EQ out for that.

Besides that, I played several MMOs after EQ and I haven't been able to find any that compare.  I can't say if it was because it was EQ or because it was my first MMO.  It wasn't a perfect game, but it was good enough to make me tolerate the imperfections.

SEANMCAD

Wurm is a game that is based in medieval time setting, although it does have magic in the game it came later, isnt a large part of the game and the developer has always wanted it to be more on the realistic side (the game overall).

So it leaves me with the question , specifically what time in history did you have in mind? and please of the love of god all developers, lets leave medieval alone, its been done, thanks got that covered

Maurgrim

Zindaihas said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Gods and Heroes called:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gH0_LrF36M

I came up with this idea back in 2002, well before Gods and Heroes was ever conceived (or at least before it began development).

I came up with the same idea back in 1999 so yeah I beat you.

Besides here is a game that was waay to ambitious, was fun but buggy as hell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_Victor

There is a new game same settings in the work, can't remember It's name but its green lighted on steam.

Zindaihas

SEANMCAD said:

Wurm is a game that is based in medieval time setting, although it does have magic in the game it came later, isnt a large part of the game and the developer has always wanted it to be more on the realistic side (the game overall).

So it leaves me with the question , specifically what time in history did you have in mind? and please of the love of god all developers, lets leave medieval alone, its been done, thanks got that covered

Ancient history.  It would be set in ancient times.  I know medieval fantasy has been run into the ground, and even if someone came up with a great one, it would be hard to distinguish itself from the others (although I do plan to give Pantheon a try).

An ancient historical mythology game would be relatively new.  And since I have a background in ancient history, it wouldn't be that difficult to fill with content.

SEANMCAD

Zindaihas said:

SEANMCAD said:

Wurm is a game that is based in medieval time setting, although it does have magic in the game it came later, isnt a large part of the game and the developer has always wanted it to be more on the realistic side (the game overall).

So it leaves me with the question , specifically what time in history did you have in mind? and please of the love of god all developers, lets leave medieval alone, its been done, thanks got that covered

Ancient history.  It would be set in ancient times.  I know medieval fantasy has been run into the ground, and even if someone came up with a great one, it would be hard to distinguish itself from the others (although I do plan to give Pantheon a try).

An ancient historical mythology game would be relatively new.  And since I have a background in ancient history, it wouldn't be that difficult to fill with content.

that covers a TON of time which is my point. medieval for example would count. medieval is a time frame that has been grossly over done. please for the love of god no more medieval. so if not medieval then what? caves?

ArChWind

I don't come around here much anymore and kind of lost interest in development or the genre in general. I don't see why you would want to build a MMORPG. I would suggest a MP and let others make their own dictated servers.

Putting together a cluster of servers is just so enormously expense and may probably cost you way more than you would get back unless the game is really successful. A proto type will even cost considerable amount of outlay with no guarantee of success.

The industry has seen it and lived it so now they realize that it cost way more than it's worth and have moved on to what is profitable. 

BTW - The amount of feedback you will get here is probably an indication of lack of interest so unless you have a really good marketing scheme and willing go KS so you build a hype train your ideas will probably get ignored. (I speak form first hand experience)

Nanfoodle

I'm having a hard enough time waiting for Pantheon and Ashes and there is a good chance I will be playing one of then within a year. Cool concept but I will wait a while before I follow the development  

Zindaihas

SEANMCAD said:

that covers a TON of time which is my point. medieval for example would count. medieval is a time frame that has been grossly over done. please for the love of god no more medieval. so if not medieval then what? caves?

Oh, I see what you're asking now.  I can tell you have had enough of Medieval MMOs and I thought you were worried about another one even though I had said ancient in my OP.  But you want to know specifically what period of ancient history I am talking about.

Well since you asked for it here goes.  Your question gives me an opportunity to plug my website because that's the easiest way to explain it.

http://historiarex.com/world-history

The game would be set in approximately 550 B.C., and if you look at 550 B.C. on the history timeline I linked you will see why.  There would be four empires in the game - Rome, Greece, Carthage and Egypt.  In order to have all four in the game simultaneously, it would have to be set sometime between 753 B.C. (the traditional year of Rome's founding) and 525 B.C. (the year Egypt was conquered by Persia).  In addition, it works best before 500 B.C. because Herodotus is generally considered the world's first official historian.  He began writing his Histories around 450 B.C., and therefore, if you set it earlier than the time of Herodotus it makes It easier to venture into the realm of mythology since history is a lot sketchier then.

Now, that still presents a couple of problems, however.  There would have to be a few anachronisms in the game.  Specifically in regard to the Seven Ancient Wonders.  In 550 B.C., only three of the Ancient Wonders had been built - The Pyramids (technically the Pyramid of Khufu is the only wonder of the three), the Hanging Gardens and The Temple of Artemis.  And you can't build an ancient MMO without having the Seven Ancient Wonders; so therefore, you would put the other four in even though they hadn't been built yet.

There are a couple of other reasons why, but I feel like I'm getting into the history weeds and you get my point.

nariusseldon

Zindaihas said:

But I would just counter with this: The first thing you said is true of any online game you play (with the possible exception of a six hour camp).  They're all virtual worlds, so you can't single EQ out for that.

lol .. they are all "virtual worlds"? Diablo 3 is a virtual world game? League of Legend is a virtual world game? Hearthstone is a virtual world game?

and i only thought the definition of MMO is loose. 

Zindaihas

Maurgrim said:

I came up with the same idea back in 1999 so yeah I beat you.

Besides here is a game that was waay to ambitious, was fun but buggy as hell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_Victor

I followed Roma Victor as well during its development and, in my opinion, it had the opposite problem that Gods and Heroes had.  Whereas, G&H did not place enough emphasis on history, Roma Victor was too historical.  In fact, if I'm not mistaken, it was purely historical.  As much as I love history, I don't think I could play an MMO that did not have the monsters and the magic in it.  They're needed to create a more dynamic world.  That's where the mythology comes in.  Mix history and mythology and you have the groundwork for a potentially fantastic MMORPG.