   PLEASE DELETE I HAVE REDONE A BETTER THREAD [MMORPG Game I need your help]
  Ok before I get to the main chunk of this post let me just state this, I WANT all your feedback I would appreciate it so much I have been alone working on this idea from scratch in a notebook between classes to where I am now starting, stopping, messing up. I have had the abuse and spam left, right and centre, so I shut up until I could put up, granted it is not the best in the world...yet, but I have a dream, I want my game to be fun I hate point and click combat that has come of todays mmorpg be it CoH, WoW and such. I want to complete, maintain, and establish this project out there in the world for all to see, won't you help me do so? - SilentSiren.Thread title - I need extra members to join and help me lighten the workload to produce a new fun mmo rpg action game.Team name:Escalation - not a registered company name as of yet, but my brother who does Employment Law does inform me that the IP, and work produced by myself and anyone who submits their work, remains their own for 75 years or something like that.Project name: EscalationBrief description:Escalation is the product of over 2 years work by a extremely small team of game developers. We hope to advance this project to a spot of gaming history and would love you to come along for the ride!Target aim:Subscription, game will be free to play and download, but can upgrade account to receive premium features and benefits.Compensation:I admit I can not pay you as such yet, but am more than willing to share any profits made after expenses are paid like Servers etc.Technology:Window 98/ME/2000/XPPentium III 450 or better128 MB RAMDirect 3D compatible video cardDirectX compatible sound deviceBetter than a 56k to be on the safe side.Language used is 3D Game Studio's C Script it is like a watered down version of C but with near enough the same structuring of CTools used so far are 3D Game Studio, 3D Max, Real Viz, Irfan and Paint. Talent needed:I need Artists who can create a GUI and menu buttons for me along those lines of work, will be expected after a list given to design the buttons needed.Advertisers, those who know the in's and out's of getting a website 'OUT THERE' and members 'IN HERE'3rd Party Companies, this need a little explaining, basically anyone here on the forum who has their own business selling merchandise if you would be interested in sharing part of the game being designed or we could offer free advertising inside the game on 'billboards' if you would like to create Escalation items to sell and we would give you most or all profits just to help spread the nameModel Design, if you can create custom models or mod some to a tailored specification that would be great. You would be told a type of model to design, given a rough sketch then work on it.I am still in two minds admittedely over having a message board or not but if anyone has experience in this field and would like to host one for Escalation that would be great to.MySQL Database DesignerIf I provide you with a excel / cvs file it would be your job to maintain and keep up to date the accounts data, obviously this is about 2-3 months MAX down the line but may as well check now for people.PHP Web Designer, I have a site for the game already but what I was thinking is if it is possible for this person to integrate the MySQL database into the php page(s) so accounts could be created and added to database automatically.I believe that is it for now.Team structure:At the moment it is me and a school friend of mine we have kept in touch for nearly 4 years now, despite different universities. I, am a first year Computer Science Student with experience designing web pages, bringing up ideas to the table and figuring out how they will work and level designing. My mate and co-owner does 3D Design and helps me get the ideas we are working through into solid form. As you can see a pretty basic team, but we are trying and working hard and doing ok so far.Website:http://e.servegame.comContacts:taconline@msn.com for MSNrastatomcat@aol.com for AOLAdditional Info:I thought I would be considerate as this is quite lengthy of a post, short information on the game can be found via these links instead of pasting it all here.Short Story Setting - http://www.freewebs.com/escalationonline/about.htmFeatures/Planned Gameplay - http://www.freewebs.com/escalationonline/feature.htmAll Escalation screenshots can be found added to website gallery as time goes on at http://www.freewebs.com/escalationonline/gallery.htmFeedback:ENCOURAGING ONLY although please if you really REALLY think it looks like rubbish and you have nothing good to say, please, express yourself I want an honest opinion from you that is all that I ask, that and to please join my team if you can help hehe :).-SilentSiren[Edited by - SilentSiren on January 19, 2006 7:12:55 AM]
  May I request a brief description of how this game will differ from MMORPGs today?  What do you hope will make it stand out?  You mentioned not liking point-click combat, so I'm guessing you have some improved game mechanics in mind?   ;  Hello, SilentSiren.Great, you have an idea in your head. Now it's time to put it in motion, but you should study a few things first.First off, I hope you have the big bucks because making an online game costs millions of dollars. In fact, it doesn't just right out cost that much, it costs that much to just keep it running. You should look into grants or whatever your government might have to offer, or perhaps some kind of publishing firm. Study that now and try applying for funding after you have registered your company.You'll need a lot of people. It's extremely hard to run a project like this with just you and your friend. Also, it is most likely that no one will work for you for free. On another note, as nice as your subscription status sounds pleasing, it is not going to work. You'll need a crapload of funding to keep your game going. If this is just going to be a very small online game, okay.Online games are not a good start. Is this your first game? Just because you get an idea that might seem good doesn't mean you should jump into it with a friend and go "hey! Let's do this". You have to form, then brainstorm, then "norm", then perform! After that, adjourn. The five main business steps for working with a team. Planning is critical when it comes to these things. In fact, the planning process when you're starting something out like this (especially when starting a company) should take at least a year. Recommended three years.Great thing though, making a dream and working towards it. Hopefully you'll keep up this dream and stay motivated enough to finish it off. Go look at articles and study, study, study. Best of luck to you.[Edited by - Falkon Valkyrie on January 16, 2006 1:36:46 PM];  Well I hope to differ it from other mmorpgs by involving more player skill and less power levelling so to speak. For example in many mmorpgs' to craft items it is as basic as collect item a, mix with item b, and based on your skill in crafting you get item c, I did not want to mention games' in particular not sure if I get in trouble for that.I want to differ so in the game I making me and friend have discussed a system say for example you have item Scope and item Rifle and attachment kit, a slider bar appears that goes from left to right, you have to stop it dead centre the lower your skill (raises by certain amount depending how many times you crafted and how successful) the faster it moves. If you miss marker by loads you drop Scope and it is destroyed, get it close and it will have a slight accuracy increase not much though and will be able to zoom on targets but it will be slightly off, dead on and you got yourself a accurate rifle with zoom. I feel the whole process will be more rewarding to the player, makes it more fun to do, and when searching for a crafter you will not instantly go to the 'power/high levels' as someone, lower levelled could be just as good and willing to work cheaper as the person in real life is skillful. So its about bring the RPG character out into the real world so to speak so you choose who you are most suited to playing if it were life for real. All combat is in real time so far I added gun combat but need to add some more like raising/lowering target, a crossheir etc. I am packing up a mini client it is basic as heck, but shows I do have something as I do respect this site and its' members and would hate to let you think I am a kid with just a dream, trying to get it up by end of night (GMT) as I promised a few on this sites' chat. Thank you for quick reply post.(sorry for my bad punctuation I was rushing to reply back.)   ;  Thank you as well Falkon Valkyrie for that post, what you mentioned there I completely agree with and glad I was already taking the route you mentioned. The only part I have a little trouble comprehending is, why would it take millions? Surely the biggest cost involved for me with people connecting initially I am setting 600 as a target aim to work to before I get into company registering and such. I mean have I got this a little wrong I thought 1000 and more was considered massiveley multiplayer so if it is a case I got the number wrong then sorry. Back to what I was saying though A server costs £35 (erm about $60~) a month the one I am looking at with a 10mb/s connection, that would be more than enough for my initially figure estimate so £35 a month for 12 months is £420 for the year, can you please clarify where the millions comes in? If you read my topic which I assume you did, you will see that me and friend have been brainstorming and working ideas for over 2 years now and been putting together for last 7-8 months and now have a basic client to server connection with character choice basic as it is and combat, chat and bit more at their basic levels. I would love to hear more from you as I want this kind of replying, but I just do not see where the millions comes into it? Forgive my ignorance on this area.   ;  The costing millions usualy comes from the cost of development, if you are doing a fully 3d game, and hiring people, you will definitly need it.  If its a hobby and the big cost is going to be servers, you are CLOSE for a smaller game.  In reality, $60 will get you a VERY PATHETIC server, because you need a dedicated, even budget servers tend to be $100/year minimum + setup costs, still you are not far from it though.  With the action elements you are sudgesting , it would probably be more like 300-500 users could connect to one of those smaller servers, of course you could easily build from there.   ;Quote:Original post by SilentSirenThank you as well Falkon Valkyrie for that post, what you mentioned there I completely agree with and glad I was already taking the route you mentioned. The only part I have a little trouble comprehending is, why would it take millions? Surely the biggest cost involved for me with people connecting initially I am setting 600 as a target aim to work to before I get into company registering and such. I mean have I got this a little wrong I thought 1000 and more was considered massiveley multiplayer so if it is a case I got the number wrong then sorry. Back to what I was saying though A server costs £35 (erm about $60~) a month the one I am looking at with a 10mb/s connection, that would be more than enough for my initially figure estimate so £35 a month for 12 months is £420 for the year, can you please clarify where the millions comes in? If you read my topic which I assume you did, you will see that me and friend have been brainstorming and working ideas for over 2 years now and been putting together for last 7-8 months and now have a basic client to server connection with character choice basic as it is and combat, chat and bit more at their basic levels. I would love to hear more from you as I want this kind of replying, but I just do not see where the millions comes into it? Forgive my ignorance on this area.My apologies. I'm currently in school right now and haven't had time to view anything else, just this thread. I'm just using technical figures but I'm not really sure where your budget is coming in.I live next to a small third party game development company called HB Studios Multimedia Ltd. of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia (Canada). They have developed games across the world like Rugby 2006 and Cricket games, as well as Fifa Street 2 for the PSP. They're a sports game company and they're considered pretty small for a game company, and just setting up their stuff I believe cost around $1.7 million dollars, $500,000 which was funded by our provincial government. The CEO named Jeremy Wellard was awarded an Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year award and I believe he came from the UK with 12 years experience in the game industry. They're signed with Electronic Arts, a publishing company. Now, EA is giving them all of these programs to help them which cuts a lot of costs and still everything costs them over $1 million dollars.I don't know how technical your game will be but I know for a fact that if you want it to be big it'll cost big. Massively multiplayed online games are extremely expensive for the host. Some people have enough problems on a minimal budget hosting a website, let alone hundreds to thousands of people taking on server bandwidth and resources every second of the day. That will be long from now though and you might even be sitting in a Scrooge McDuck style vault counting every coin you have by then! Haha. That would be nice. Then you won't need to worry about costs, eh?Again, I might be totally misunderstanding what your budget is or how big the game will be since I just quickly skimmed through and tried giving a constructive response based on the fact that you want to create an online game with your friend (which is nice).Am I missing the point?   ;  AH I see now from you Falkon Valkyrie and you PaulCesar I can see that the millions comes in when you reach the masses like worldwide and set up a company, registered name, mass producing, water tight copyrights on all your work, franchise costs to operate under the EA name for example and so forth. More like PaulCesar said though my initial target is not millions of subscribers...yet, but more a capped mark of say 600 people I believe if I can keep it steady at that for a year or so I can get myself out there a bit. I did imagine my biggest worry and cost will be Server fees as in terms of software needed I have it all already. You mentioned having a server for $100 a year Cesar I think you may have meant $1000 maybe as you mentioned I would need a good one. I did do a lot of searching and calculated it as this.Off my own PC tests at moment with random location connections from US, Canada, England etc, I can sustain between 2-5 people on a good day as my connection upstream is only 256, downstream is 2mb/s but that does not come into it with server hosting. So I calculated that roughly each 100kbs will hold 1 person (as a little bit more data will increase as I add more and shift the code around a bit). I am adding bits to reduce data sent constantly like, data for movement is only sent to the server if a key has been changed/pressed so if they are standing still or still running after a frame, then no data is sent etc. Back to the sums, 100kbs per person so a 10mb/s upstream should accomodate about 100 people with no problems at all. So I only need 35 out of those 100 to be on a standard account costing $2/£1~ to cover server costs leaving approxiametely 75 members spare for profit or free account users. As for hosting the files/site, should I run out of site bandwith on my account, I can mirror the client of my pc as backup since AOL says I have unlimited bandwith (constantly download about 15gb a month and no cut off) so that is my back up, hopefully this clears things up keep the questions coming your helping me a lot:);  I think the millions come into play when you're trying to set up a mmo to serve 2000+ right off the bat.  Chances are that a hobby MMORPG would start out with a small user base, and as they get more income grow their game.  So I don't think the millions are applicable here, given that its being developed as a hobbyist game.I noticed you posted a couple of screenshots.  Might be a good idea to have a web page that serves out a bunch, instead of directly linking to it (so you can say, here are all our screenshots).Also, could you inform us how much of the game you have completed.  It looks like you have some gameplay screen shots there, are those running off a server?   ;  Hi Rycross I was Guest6###something thank you for finding my topic and posting I have updated the links to go to my Gallery http://www.freewebs.com/escalationonline/gallery.htmok in response to your question.On a basic level of could I put the game up, let you download it, startup my server then give you the thumbs up to connect, run around, chat, and shoot me deathmatch style (no missions etc) then yes you could.What I am actually doing now could be considered the icing on the cake, adding the nice GUI, attaching a free form camera controllable by mouse and not just a 'follow' cam, things like the crafting, vehicle use, building up the levels of the designs I have drawn up. Hope you get the idea basically the parts that make it the game, ideas and such are already written and prepared, granted more will be planned and written in at later date but for now Im just adding from the list I made, but it is runnable, connectable and to an extent of just shooting each other to death respawning and shooting again, can be done. Also for testing purposes ammo and health spawns on the ground, whereas in the main game you will have to buy/steal/find it yourself.And yes that was taken running of the server on my PC, pretty simple login at moment no password, choose a name, choose a character type out of 3, in you go and play, some bugs may be present granted but not major ones as of yet.hehe.   