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[Dev] Sandbox Project "Reside" - Social/Economy/Politics
Residev
Member UncommonPosts: 27
Hi,
I've undertaken a project of developing an indie MMO.
I do realize that this in itself has developed into a kind of laughingstock - but to be frank, I don't care.
I realize the magnitude of the project, and what it requires. It is not the first time I've seen code or worked on a project. I am aware of my limits.
It is not a project that strives to be the "WoW killer" or "AAA Next-Gen Big Thang".
To be fair, I never thought I'd actually do this, either - even when I've fantasized about it for countless times. Looking for an MMO to play, which would be... actually good and enticing, not yet another same-old with slightly different balance and skins. To recapture the essence that many of us have felt when we got caught by some of the first MMO's that we sunk into.
But here I am, telling you that I've undertaken a project that is to develop an MMO.
I've undertaken a project of developing an indie MMO.
I do realize that this in itself has developed into a kind of laughingstock - but to be frank, I don't care.
I realize the magnitude of the project, and what it requires. It is not the first time I've seen code or worked on a project. I am aware of my limits.
It is not a project that strives to be the "WoW killer" or "AAA Next-Gen Big Thang".
To be fair, I never thought I'd actually do this, either - even when I've fantasized about it for countless times. Looking for an MMO to play, which would be... actually good and enticing, not yet another same-old with slightly different balance and skins. To recapture the essence that many of us have felt when we got caught by some of the first MMO's that we sunk into.
But here I am, telling you that I've undertaken a project that is to develop an MMO.
I've titled the project "Reside", core concepts of which are:
- Sandbox in nature
- Sociocentric gameplay
- Persistent, infinite world
- Player-driven economy
- Player-built housing and towns - in open-world
But most importantly, I wish there to be a community-driven development around those features.
What I mean by that is - I think that community is absolutely essential for such a project to succeed.
And I think it is only logical to start growing and evolving that community as soon as possible.
I want the community to be able to express their opinions and ideas about where the game should develop, and have an open discussion about it.
In return, I'll try my best to make it a reality, following the same generic philosophy of openness.
I have just finished setting up a basic forum for the project, in order to hopefully form a community around the project that is able to achieve this goal.
You can find it at Reside.cf
I've made a couple of posts there discussing the project briefly, but certainly in more depth than in this post.
Comments
I'll see where this goes, but I'll write a few quests for you.
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
I've taken notes on how I would develop an MMO.
Feel free to see if any of my ideas interest you.
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
However - quests are more of a themepark feature, and I don't think they could be a functional part of this gameplay concept.
I agree. And I am familiar with such a form of development.
Most of the ideas could be good in theory, but often fall flat in practice.
Many ideas are also impossible or needlessly complex to implement - and some completely disregard integration and balance with features that are already built.
However - I think that in a sandbox environment specifically, community input is still very vital and necessary.
Some features will only work if there's community members - aka players - who are willing to actively work on it.
I'll give a short example.
To be more specific, and since a huge part of this games concept is manufacturing and setting up establishments - this player wants to publish and sell a newspaper.
This functionality would be pretty easy to implement - and it would make the game that much richer. I think it would be rather fun to have someone echo about the happenings of in-game, player-driven events in an in-game newspaper. But it requires a very active member of community to run it.
If there was such a member - I'd be happy to implement such a feature. Maybe that member would even get competition.
This is just an example, but there are tons of ideas that people have.
And of course - as a developer - you got to choose what's best for the game, but also when implementing functionality, the sandbox elements should be central, so a lot of community ideas could be implemented fairly easily, even if they are trivial or cosmetic - they bring a sense of involvement, still.
Even if it's simply to set priorities, or judge what's important NOW.
I do plan the development to be fairly open.
I still need to work on some things - biggest of which is modular building of housing. But once I have the very basic core of the game running - I plan to release it for the community to try out, and get a sense of what could be improved or built on it next.
Also - I think it is beneficial to grow the community gradually, which also allows testing in the same gradual manner - I'd hate to spend months and months or years even - before actually coming out with a game that might have severe, crippling optimization issues or which are just plain broken in functionality that is hard to discover without at least some sort of playerbase.
How many people do you have working on your project? I think picking the right number of people is critical. I've made mistakes on both ends in the past, having too few and too many. I currently have 4. One for models, one for lore, one for coding and me (design / minor coding).
I worked as a lone wolf for 9 months and realized it would take way too long. There were weeks I'd focus on coding a feature, but at the same time lore wouldn't be getting done. When I'd be working on modeling, coding would not be progressing. That's an aspect of solo development I did not enjoy.
Custom modelling, but especially custom animation is something that I am definitely pushing into the "polishing" phase of functionality at this moment.
And I am using as much assets that kind people have made available as possible.
I do agree with you in a sense. But I also believe this is a subject that can be approached in many different ways and just as many different arguments.
A lot depends on what you wish expect to get out of the game, and in what timeframe. As well as general design and foresight in the framework of the game. The know-how and innovation of finding solutions.
Developer can make his life harder by multitudes, by not implementing the right solutions at the start.
There's also the over-all distribution of effort.
For example, I've learned about myself, that I have inclination to over-think and over-do things.
So I might work for weeks on coding a single feature.
But now, I find myself constantly reminding myself about this.
It comes down to priorities.
And working with a small team, or alone, especially so.
Yes - I could go in-depth and polish that feature for couple of months if I wanted to - but is this really a sensible use of time for me?
Probably not - the core functionality took me a day or two to implement. I'd rather implement a dozen more features in the time it'd take me to lick and polish a single feature to completion.
Besides - a project like this will never be complete.
Sure - you might argue the opposite, but like I said, it all comes down to distribution of effort. To get the level of polish, you need to put in the same effort regardless.
But the difference is apparent in the sense of speed in the development. And I find it's much more useful to mock-up a sketch of bigger picture, and start shading and detailing it as the picture starts defining itself.
Especially so if you want to involve the community in the process, it's important to have a bigger picture visualized, instead of a detailed small part of the picture.
https://sagaoflucimia.com/game/faq/
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The first thing that caught my eye was “Player-built housing and towns - in open-world.” Be advised that this can be very problematic. Players / Customers are not your friends. A Developer will have some idea of how their game should be played (the rules). The player will have an opposing / conflicting viewpoint of how the game should be played. First players will occupy every available space with housing and towns, either intentionally or unintentionally. Every system you put in place will be opposed and or exploited. There is that word oppose again, expect opposition on every thing and at every time.
When it comes to “Player-built housing and towns - in open-world,” they will :
Take all available space and leave none for the game.
Take and claim all resources and deny them to other players.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
I'd recommend instead releasing the game in pieces. Hammering out one style of content really well and then moving on to the next piece but making sure each piece of content is getting systems you eventually want in your MMO developed. Done well enough this could even generate positive publicity and revenue toward your final product. For instance you could make a MOBA that works on the same combat system and character creation system as your MMO as your first piece of content.
The other thing I'd consider is don't overlook mobile development. When I play a game on my PC I have one set of expectations. When I play it on my phone I have an entirely different set of expectations. Most phone games are terrible. Not even MMOs just games in general. "Wait X hours for _____ to complete." Very few of them you can just sit down and play as long as you want.
You could really make a great phone game with 2D or 2.5D graphics though that people would accept (Because those graphics are considered fine on most mobile platforms) and really love if you embraced the fact you were making it on a mobile platform.
Two examples I would look at a "Pocket Starships" and "Last Day On Earth". The core gameplay is fun but they are shallow and grow boring quickly. Taking similar models but then implementing detailed economies and more social aspects could be the basis for a great sandbox MMO.
It's a problem . Economy in MMORPG should be balance between the administrator and the player , one side and it will collapse
In most cases - yes.
However I do think you missed rather vital point here - the game world is generated and infinite. Along with mechanics of claiming and decaying of properties I do believe this problem becomes obsolete.
Such mechanics wouldn't work for a traditional MMO - this is no traditional MMO.
I agree. Great majority of players cannot realize what (pre-)alpha phase entails.
However, I also believe that one should not underestimate the whole, based on majority.
I do believe there are people who would be willing to participate in such a development model - and who realize the general process of development, and appreciate constant advances in the game - in which they also have a say.
As the game progresses, and features emerge -
I do not plan to develop for mobile.
The game is 3D and 3rd person. I already have the basic client and server framework setup and running as expected.
Technically it would be possible to port the game to mobile - but this is definitely not on my list of todo's, as it would require significant effort to optimize both experience and resources.
I downloaded Malwarebytes and looked into it - indeed it is.
Apparently Malwarebytes is pretty hungry to block various sites, and many users get false-positives like that.
I believe it's because the IP of the site is on a shared host which has been used to promote malicious software.
However I can safely say that I am not doing it.
The site contains a basic forum.
I will be writing to Malwarebytes to remove the false-positive block on the domain.
If the problem persists I will look into different hosting solution.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention!
To be honest - I don't understand what you mean. How is it that economy should be balance between administrator and player?
I believe economy is economy. No matter if it's in real-life or in a game. In a game however it is much easier to control it - still hard, though.
Economy works on basic principle of supply-and-demand. I do plan to make the supply limited, and prevent hyper-inflation.
I answered about open-world building to a previous post.
Server has no hubs. No cities, no auction-house and no teleports.
All of these things will be player-built and run.
If you add too much gold sinker then normal player will being damaged , but if there are less gold sinker the the gold will lost the value .
Monsters dropping gold and items that can be exchanged for gold means there's infinite supply of money. The faucet is endless.
However - the sink of money, or paths of how the money can leave the system completely are usually limited. By buying stuff from NPC shops, or repairing your gear or similar. Most of the money ends up going around endlessly, from player to player to player. From money acquired from mobs, for items that are acquired from mobs.
HOWEVER
This game does not feature your traditional monster drops or dungeons or raids or even combat.
This game focuses on economy and resources a lot more than your traditional MMO.
Resources will be persistent, and limited.
A tree you chop down, will not appear again, and again, and again, and again - to be chopped down endlessly, to being sold endlessly - leading to slow and steady hyper-inflation.
I am aware of the problem, and possible solutions. This is not a matter of fact, or a matter of mechanics even.
This is a matter of balancing supply, and demand.
Of course the player decides both supply, and demand - but never will there be endless supply of anything that doesn't have endless demand.
I'd like to say, though, that having an actually infinite world is bad because it makes it hard to have a good distribution of player settlements over time. If you look at games like Xsyon and ATITD, they both had maps that were too big for the population when their latest servers opened, and this was bad for the players' gaming experience. New players will naturally spread out all over the place if they can, but they won't form communities well if this happens, especially if the game has no dungeon running mechanic to encourage people to group up.
So, it would be ideal to have the explorable map expand proportional to the number of active players.
And I've mentioned this "problem" as well - actually I'm surprised I didn't put my little "(semi-*)" comment infront of this feature when I posted the information here.
Imagine pubg circle, except reversed. Where bounds of the world get gradually expanded as needed.
But just to emphasize that this information, and much more that I have answered in this topic, is out there:
Also, since after I posted about limitations, it got me thinking and I fiddled with how the world gets loaded...
Might be relevant that none of this exists before-hand. This is generated runtime by server, once generated it is however persistent.
I'm not sure what are you asking?
Am I using pre-made assets?
Sure. I am trying to use my time efficiently, and as such - as little as there is visually, most everything is a placeholder.
Tree and rock models are premade - as is the character.
In fact - I plan to use as much assets that are freely available as I can.
Why invent a wheel?
Of course - random bits and bobs rarely fall nicely together.
I do plan to create custom models sooner or later. But I also plan to let players do much of the creative work themselves.
You might have gathered that players will build towns and cities - which will consist of buildings, of course. And building will be built with modular blocks. Allowing me to slack on modelling and giving the players more creative freedom to build something and call it theirs.
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However, I have written both client and server logic. Actually - there isn't much else to it.
A central server that is able to generate a world, syncronize clients and verify clients actions.
And a client that allows you to create an account and visualize the world in its current state.
I find it to be a good start for more to come.
I'm sorry, but I do not see any significant point to this.
It almost sounds like you're ridiculing me.
Why exactly 3 weeks? Written analysis? Umm.. but why?
But to be fair - I have played similar, and non-similar games for awhile. And yes I do take interest in games that are open in nature for some reason. So obviously I have looked around quite a bit. Not lately, to be honest - I don't really play a lot these days, but that gives me a chance to perhaps make a game of my own - as I am trying to.
Most of the games these days are either really bland to me or simply never done.
There are some games that spark my interest, but I seriously doubt I will find the inspiration and drive to actually play them and get involved like I used to with other games.
3 weeks is the minimum amount of time to get into the mid-game of an MMO, so I suggested it as a balance between efficiency and thoroughness. I have written reviews of MMOs in the past and if I didn't have at least 3 weeks I could only understand the beginner content, I didn't have enough data about the main game after the beginner stuff to write about it.
Written analysis is just good practice for research; it helps organize your thoughts, be standardized in comparing different games, and you can look at it months or years later when your memories aren't reliable any more. If you took a good college course in game design this is how they would tell the students to research source material before doing their own designs. It's a standard scholarly research method.
Doing a research would imply competing with someone, trying to one-up them.
But in this case I don't really see anyone to directly compete with this project. Sure there are similar concepts and ideas, but none are the same.
The scope of features and ideas are different in every other MMO that I am aware of at this moment.
Besides - I think I am aware of the general landscape of MMO's and what they have to offer. And sometimes it's good to have a fresh take on something, rather than to be inspired by something else.
As for myself - I'm not much of a standardized education type. In fact - I think it's inefficient - kind of force-feeding of knowledge in an uniform fashion which generally doesn't end up with innovation.
Like you said. No need to reinvent the wheel. Borrowing some of your ideas from other MMOs is a solid plan. Using other MMOs to see potential problems with the implementation of certain mechanics so you can avoid the same mistakes is also a solid plan.
You don't necessarily need to know all this stuff yourself though. If you have people on your team with a strong background in traditional (WoW clones) and indie MMOs they'll be able to say "That's already been tried and..."
It would be completely unreasonable for someone who just discovered MMO's to start designing one.
But like I said - I do believe I am aware of the concepts and implementations of many MMO's that have been released - both failed, and succeeded. I do not need to play every 'similar in concept' MMO out there for 3 weeks and write a paper about it.
Besides - that's also a reason why I'm trying to make the development community-driven.
I am open to suggestions and ideas. I am open to discuss and debate specifics.
It's not about democracy, it's about optimal results.
And I think I understand why, too. And Indie MMO project, with no playable demo, bare forums - I'd be extremely skeptical as well. I probably wouldn't participate in it myself.
I guess I was hoping there'd be more people who would like to discuss theories for a game of this genre - even if the project itself is not far along the path.
So instead of community-driven development I find myself constantly defending the very basic of components.
I would like to say though, that I'm not here to discuss if I should do this or not. Or if it has any basis for succeeding.
The project is live, and now public to a degree. This is not because of some stubborn fantasy, but because I've given it a lot of thought and I believe it can succeed, and I can make it happen.