   Summer's Moon Online - looking for dev team
Team name:Paddington StudiosProject name: Summer's Moon OnlineBrief description: Summer's Moon Online is an MMORPG currently in the VERY basic stages of production. work on it officially began today; June 7th 2006 however the documenting for it has been going on for quite some time now. Information about the game itself can be found on the forums.Target aim:Online retail...not sure if it'll be F2P or P2P yet?...Compensation: the only compensation that can be offered as of now is the pride and joy of succesfully creating an MMORPG. If it becomes P2P then pay will be dicussed depending on how development has been going.Technology: C++ is the only 'technology' that will be manditory. everything else will depend on your preferences.Talent needed:If you belive you have a telent that will be an asset to Summer's Moon Online then please feel free to apply! :) (I will ask for three sample piece of work by you to judge you on however, so be ready please!)Team structure:Team Members (by Alias) => Myself(Haanz VonFranz), Sraew, Breathofslain, Alucinor, Karnack.All the these members have been here from the start, however I've been the only one doing work so far! :P (documenting) Sraew is a good manager and a basic programmer, Breathofslain is a concept artist, Alucinor works with music, and Karnack is a webdesigner (however he'll be busy for a long time). I am a 3D Modeller and animator.Website:Official site:(coming soon...)Forums: http://www.summersmoon.msmds.co.uk/forum/Contacts:my e-mail: Ghiam.ko@gmail.comAdditional Info:I hope alot of you join! what I am REALY looking for at the moment is a programmer, a webdesigner, and a good concept artist. However, ALL talents are greatly needed and appreciated at the moment! :Dscreen shots coming soon...Feedback:constructive only please! :)   
  Your backstory's nice. I like it. Very visual, and would work very well as an opening cinematic.However, a nice setting does not an MMORPG make. You're going to attract a lot of flak if you don't have the technical expertise required to at least *look* capable of making progress with a project of this type. What tools are you going to use? Do you need programmers with experience using a particular engine? What target platform- windows, mac, linux? What format artwork do you need? You need to answer a lot more questions like this in your post to make a good impression. THEN you need to sell us the idea of your game.So: Technology - put in here the tools required (3DS Max etc), any engines you're using, your target platform etc. This is the lynchpin of an MMO project. In here you'll need to describe what you're going to do or use to make your MMO viable.Talent Required - put in here who you're looking for - 3D artists (list requirements) etc. Make sure there's enough information to discourage those who WON'T be able to help, but no too much to discourage those that MIGHT be able to help.;Quote:However, a nice setting does not an MMORPG make.Yeah. A nice setting is good an all, but what MMO projects really need are nice programmers.[Edited by - Radiostorm on June 8, 2006 3:05:22 PM];  @ Radiostorm...thats what this post is for! recruting people.@_winterdyne_...y'know what? i wanna thank you! first of all for showing me that i really should plan this game a bit more before i start asking for help, but i was thinking that because i don't want the game to just be my vision, i should get a small dev team toigether to help with the story and all that so it's atleast a couple peoples visions all together.and secondly i want to thank you for being so helpful and nice instead of flaming! :D :PAlso...well i'm not that experienced with making games. So i could use ALOT of help...and..if your not too busy?..maybe you could show me the ropes and give me soime pointers? not saying you'd have to join the dev team, ust help me out a bit?...maybe? :D:D?   ;A bit of advice Haanz...It's been my impression that people don't really want to help decide on what the game is going to be about when they join a team (otherwise they would form their own team and make it).  I mean that people REALLY appreciate when you have a very specific idea for your game and what it's going to be about.In addition, when you ask people "what kind of game should we make", people just get confused about what game is being made and lose faith in the project.I would suggest that you write as complete a design doc as possible about what YOU think the game should be like so that there is no confusion.  You can try to incorporate other people's ideas in the game as much as possible, but you really need a "central vision" to complete a project - something that can really guide people.  Like I said, you can change it to suit what other people want, but it makes people (and yourself) feel good when you can "see" what the completed project should look like.Oh, and, um... making MMORPGs seem to be really hard.  Be prepared for A LOT of work... (had to get that in before anyone else ;);  on the other note this is not a flame topic but i would like to point a few things out, not to be mean or crush your dreams/hopes but to let you peak at reality and face some facts. here we go!are you new to game design? if so mmorpgs are considerd the most gruling and hardest thing to do, why you ask well first you need a dedicated server where you have full control of and a t1 r t2 internet connections servers run at about 1500 USD second you need months worth of planning meetings design docs more planning and you need to figure out what makes your game differnt from every one else, your going to have to do hours and hours of boring code work, hours and hours of sound editing, hours and hours of poly models becuase remember a mmo never ends and people get bored, you will be making a world here wich means you will need thousands of poy models and maybe a years worth of work just on graphics. if you want to make a mmo because you want to be "god" and "loved" and famous and known then your barking up the wrong tree, people will hate you in mmo's you will always  do something wrong and piss them off that and the fact that you willbe soo busy fixing and working on the game you may not have any time to play and tell me the last time people praised any of the devs in eq2 do you know when people "loved" them? no go to the forums and all you see is complaining and resentment. do you know a thing about servers security how to run them? do you know how to open sockets communicate with other pcs? do you know the assembly code that may be needed? do you know exactly every little detail to the last hair of your game? these are questions you need to figure out most of these people here on gamedev spent there lives working on programming and games and look at what they make, what they are today took years of practice trial and error and plain dedication, now i know everyone of this era who has played a mmo wants to make a "free" one because it really hasnt been done before but the reason is that it takes soo much time and effort to make these games that in the end you need the cash to recoup or to even keep it running, now i have even wanted to make my own mmo and its still something i plan to do but i sill am learning more in game programming and computer tech and im perfecting my design docs and concept art to be ready for that day so i can do it and be dedicated and not get overwhelmed.... well im done for now i may come back and babble on more but i have to get back to work on my poly models for my mmo in th making, and right now its just me, when i feel i have a goof foundation and i am confident in my abilitys as a programmer i will start untill then i prepare. sorry for the ranting but im just giving you the hard truth.-stromham   ;Quote:@_winterdyne_...y'know what? i wanna thank you! first of all for showing me that i really should plan this game a bit more before i start asking for help, but i was thinking that because i don't want the game to just be my vision, i should get a small dev team toigether to help with the story and all that so it's atleast a couple peoples visions all together.and secondly i want to thank you for being so helpful and nice instead of flaming! :D :PAlso...well i'm not that experienced with making games. So i could use ALOT of help...and..if your not too busy?..maybe you could show me the ropes and give me soime pointers? not saying you'd have to join the dev team, ust help me out a bit?...maybe? :D:D?First, sorry for the long post, but there's a lot of ropes.I'll always provide help if asked. Having 'many visions' for any project (ESPECIALLY an MMO) is not a great idea. You will always get arguments and conflicts of ego. What is needed is a single, clear and absolutely arguable idea. By arguable here, I mean it can stand up to people trying to pick holes in it, ideally by disproving arguments raised against it. Once you have a concept you're happy with, show it. Let people rip holes in it. Find the flaws. Fix them. I put the Bloodspear concept out and about for its first airing in 2003. As a design it's ok. Has a few features that are not particularly suitable for a mainstream release (avatar maiming, very lethal combat, highly complex political and economic simulation), but it seems 'fun', and was VERY well received by all those I spoke / mailed to about it. Rope number one - solid concept.At that point I was hoping for an 18 month dev cycle (then I had a kid, so that went by the by in favour of as much self-employed work as I could muster) for a runescape-level product (simplistic representation, but reasonable underlying mechanism), with a tiered release (so I'd add areas as quickly as possible, whilst gaining finance from subscriptions). Rope number two - personal circumstances can and will disrupt a long term project. Not just yours, but anyone critical on your team.Since that point, the design has not so much expanded as solidified, and many mechanisms were separated out as 'generic to MMOs or RPGs'. These now form the basis of the Primogen project. Much of the original Bloodspear codebase (I had characters moving around on a tile based 3D landscape, and basic combat (text based) tests working) has been scrapped in favour of a more professional integrated approach. If we need the tools to make the game, we may as well make the tools saleable. Rope number three - look for financial leverage where you can - can you reuse things, license in 3rd party engines (some are free!)?This involves a massive amount of work in abstracting the representations and simulation heuristics needed not just for Bloodspear, but for any MMO, (and in fact some of the systems are appropriate for any game involving dynamically equipped characters). Rope number four - abstract for a principle of reuse at the design stage. Abstraction is not just something for C++ coders. Designers should know the principle and apply it. It saves much work later.Through this all the Bloodspear concept has remained unchanged. For 3 years. If after 3 years you can look at your design and not want to screw with it, it's probably pretty good. Better yet if there's still nothing quite like it on the market. Rope number five - you can only really evaluate your own work after your initial enthusiasm has faded. Be objective with your own work.Note that I say concept - the setting (place names etc) for Bloodspear is GOING to change. Partly this is a result of the change in prospective tools (meaning we have to plan the world's geography more around the mechanisms and trade routes that need to be in play to make the game work), and partly it's a result of the original codesigner wanting to use them in a novel. Them's the breaks - it's the gameplay that's important and that grabs people's attention. Rope number five - people come, people go. You'll need to adapt.When planning a project like this you need to be aware that it will run for YEARS. A professional MMO takes around 2 years solid dev time. By pro's. With pro tools. An amateur studio cannot and will not ever make the same quality product in the same time, without having access to sufficient funds to effectively become a pro studio. Indies can and do make *original* games though. We don't have the pressure of returning massive external investments ('cause we don't get 'em), so we can play with less proven ideas. Rope number six - you can't compete with the mainstream - look for another market niche. Hardcore roleplayers? An MMO designed especially for black, lesbian, unemployed single mothers with false legs and lazy eyes probably won't do very well in the market, though. Needing $1500 a month is bullshit. You can host a small game for much less than that. A large game for much more. You don't need hosting at all to start designing. It's the design that takes the time (lots and lots of it). Don't worry about hosting, worry about subsistence. Hosting is something you can worry about if your project looks viable and you have tech demo's up. Rope number seven - hosting is the *last* of your worries. Be prepared to spend a few hundred dollars a month for a reasonable (2-3k player concurrent) launch. Ensure your provider can ramp up your account (provide more boxes at the drop of a hat). Do this when you need to. Do NOT advertise heavily at launch - you'll only flood your servers and watch everyone quit. Start gradually.What you do need is a sound business mind though, and a way of giving your team some benefit from their work BEFORE the project is 'done'. It's a big investment, time. People need to be aware that they're worth something. You can do this through assigning work to those that will find it fun and interesting, and ensuring you specify things correctly (and firmly). 'Do us a character' is no good. 'Do us a character frame- we need 20 different components on it (list them), we need these animations (name them)' is more like it. Someone having to redo work because it doesn't meet spec is a killer. Rope eight - work professionally. Inflexible specs make for better time estimates, and more usable work in.The mechanics you've designed should suggest what you need from the technical side, which will suggest what you need from the art and audio side. Once you have what you think are 'solid rules' (play them on paper, yes with dice and stuff!) get a coder to look at them. Hell, send them to me if they're good - I am on the lookout for good rulesets and settings that can be developed using the tech my company is developing.I seriously wish you the best of luck with it - it's a nice concept and a great-sounding name.Edit: Ugh, just got back from the dentist and tried to reread this. It's a bit disjointed. Sorry. ;-)[Edited by - _winterdyne_ on June 9, 2006 7:47:52 AM];  Haanz, I wish you luck with the project. If you are new to game development and want to complete a project I'd strongly encourage that you go for a more simple game, that said, I have no doubt that you'll learn a huge amount from a MMO project wether its completed or not.Stromham, I wonder how much practical experience you have of indie MMO development?  Your warning is the generic line towed by the uninformed, I can see it's well meaning - but highly inaccurate.Quote:Original post by stronhamfirst you need a dedicated server where you have full control of and a t1 r t2 internet connections servers run at about 1500 USD- There is no need for any kind of dedicated server until you are testing with large groups of people. A personal machine and standard mid-broadband connection will happily host 10-20 people, give or take for your transfer protocolls. Thats enough for the dev team. Massive tests can be accurately simulated. That aside, dedicated hosting on unrestricted lines starts at as little as $40 for a medium spec box. Which will happily host 500 - 2000 people depending on your efficiency.Quote:Original post by stronhamyou need months worth of planning meetings design docs more planning and you need to figure out what makes your game differnt from every one else- This is no different from developing any other game. Even so, you are exaggerating the amount of work required considerably. I spent perhaps 50 hours working on the initial gameplay and technical design documents for Tearsol. However it is true that for MMO's there are many bases to cover in your documentation because they have myriad technical concerns which weigh on your gameplay design considerably. Having read Winterdyne's response I'll echo that the most important design work is actually done after the project is underway, incrementally tightening the initial concept.Quote:Original post by stronhamyour going to have to do hours and hours of boring code work, hours and hours of sound editing, hours and hours of poly models becuase remember a mmo never ends and people get bored, you will be making a world here wich means you will need thousands of poy models and maybe a years worth of work just on graphics.- This depends entirely on your game design. The customization of MMO's is entirely in the hands of the developer who has far more freedom and incentive to  use technical features to expand his games content, rather than artist flogging. Items can be created with random statistics and given different hues and sizes. Random terrain and environment generation are acceptable and there is no need for placement of individual enemies for general gameplay. Recently we are seeing (perhaps) a procedural renaissance, allowing vast worlds of nearly infinite distinction enabled by programming, not artists. If you consider the development of these features to be boring, then you are right to avoid MMO development.Quote:Original post by stronhamif you want to make a mmo because you want to be "god" and "loved" and famous and known then your barking up the wrong tree, people will hate you in mmo's you will always do something wrong and piss them off that and the fact that you willbe soo busy fixing and working on the game you may not have any time to play and tell me the last time people praised any of the devs in eq2 do you know when people "loved" them? no go to the forums and all you see is complaining and resentment.- I'm not sure what you pulled this opinion out of, but it's certainly not reality. In my experience people very rarely set about developing an MMO to rule  the community, it's usually just a vague sense of wanting a big world to mess around in - nuttin' wrong with that. However that design ethos does not a MMORPG make. So your point can actually be summed up as "Know your market and develop for it". For this you need market research, to give you a good idea of the desires of current and future players. Market research applies to all generas equaly.Quote:Original post by stronhamdo you know a thing about servers security how to run them? do you know how to open sockets communicate with other pcs? do you know the assembly code that may be needed? do you know exactly every little detail to the last hair of your game? these are questions you need to figure out- No they are not. That is why there are many members of a team and they each specialize in certain areas. Personally I have good understanding of network architecture but certainly could not write a threaded multiplayer server for thousands of clients. The more the designer/producer knows about the entire range of production the better, but it's not do or die. The most important skills a project lead can possess (specially in indie development) is excellent communication and an unwavering vision of the finished product.Quote:Original post by stronhammost of these people here on gamedev spent there lives working on programming and games and look at what they make, what they are today took years of practice trial and error and plain dedication, now i know everyone of this era who has played a mmo wants to make a "free" one because it really hasn't been done before but the reason is that it takes so o much time and effort to make these games that in the end you need the cash to recoup or to even keep it runningGamedev has a huge variety of skill levels, notably higher than those of many other communities [grin], but still a huge range from noob to guru. The power of this community is that it provides support for all developers, regardless of the game or application they are making and I think thats great. Indeed, look at what people are making every day by checking out the 'Image of the day' there's next generation graphics, there's mad technical demos, there's heart pounding action and gory as hell shooters, EVERY DAY. Err anyway, ah yes.. Free MMO's are just about the most abundant type of free game available, they are everywhere, and you know what? They make money. Check out the fileplanet MMO list, or pop over to runescape.com, battleon.com, eternal-lands.com, these are free services which are growing. Of course they have revenue streams, but free to play is a perfectly viable model.Quote:Original post by stronhamnow i have even wanted to make my own mmo and its still something i plan to do but i sill am learning more in game programming and computer tech and im perfecting my design docs and concept art to be ready for that day so i can do it and be dedicated and not get overwhelmed- Well thats great, but lighten up! It sounds like you've tried to get some help for your project in the past and got shouted down by horribly uninformed people. Please don't start using their arguments against other folks. It's true that an MMO project is a big undertaking, but let's get the facts straight before we start saving for those $1500 a month servers.   ;  ...Man...you guys are REALLY something! and i mean that in a good way! i've never seen people so nice to someone so nooby as myself before on a forum! especially a game dev forum!! thanks for all of the help! ...(that doesn;t mean stop giving it to me though! :P)First off, this...is my first game...but the thing is, no matter how many people flame me or tell me i wont finish this project i'll still work on untill it is finished! I'll most definately work on my programming skills during the development process, and probably make tiny games too, however this is my first official game and that's just how i am...which i should probably work on changing... :P Anyways, I'm really putting alot of time into the documenting of the whole idea. I think i've got a good idea so far ( i really like the name too! :D) but like winterdyne said, it could very well be just the beginning enthusiasm.I forget who said it now but someone said that the leader doesn't have to specialize in everything...well...uh...i don't know a THING about programming or hosting games. When you all were talking about servers, I know the basics, but i have no idea what t1 and t2 are or anything like that...and sadly...This might be the most embarassing...(hopefully you don't all lose faith in me and my project...) but i'm not actually sure what openGL is and if you gave me a test on engines i'd most definately fail it horribly.SO, I was wondering, because i like you guys so much! :P if either DogCity or Winterdyne could...explain a little about these concepts to me...I'll wiki them too so i get a little more enlightened, but when an actual person tells you osmething its so much better because you can ask them questions back and what not.anyways...if one of you isn't too busy?... Also Winterdyne you said you'd be willing to go over my rules too right? well...(here comes my noobiness again :S...) when you said rules you mean like combat rules and what not right? how much slash does against certain types of monsters and elemntal effects and stuff right?... and if i'm right about that then do economic rules apply as "rules" aswell?well! i better get documenting! Thanks for everything so far!! :D :D-HaanzP.S. is it to early to start modelling? because i get bored of documenting sometimes and modelling makes me feel kinda like god :Pjust wondering if I model stuff for conepts in SMO that are already concrete, am i going against any game development codes or rules or something? :P :D;  Well I didn't really help you all that much but glad you can take all stuff constructively, that's the first hurdle right there. I've spent time on other forums (not gamedev athankyew), defending the idea of indie development of MMOG's to people who have no problem with my specific project but seem to have this completely skewed idea of the challenges involved and so feel a need to voice some kind of warning about the impossibility of my task. So I've got kinda tetchy about the generic warning as it's just an assortment of self perpetuating myths really. Not that the truth is all that much easier to deal with, but it's an entirely different kettle of fish.Anyway I'm around to help if you need any pointers you are welcome to PM me. I'd suggest you go and dig around in the gamedev articles directory for some good beginners reference stuff. You could have a read of the Enginuity articles, but make sure you google for anything he mentions that you don't understand, it is by no means basic but perhaps a good document to build your research around.Check out the postmortems too. Some of them are awesome. The most relevant postmortem I know of is raduprv's eternal lands postmortem.Hay, and if we've been a help rate us up.. well not Winterdyne, I need to catch up with him [grin]. cheerio.   