Jammer's Game Development Workshop.

[Jammerson]

This thread is how I intend to get input from the gaming community about how to design my future games. I will present my ideas about how I think the games should go, and it is your job to pick them apart, ask questions of them, and offer me helpful hints or your opinions. Thanks for your help in advanced.

 

[Jammerson]

The First Idea: (Space Game)

Total immersion:

In a standard MMO, you have little to no effect on the gaming environment. Such as with WOW, if you kill the Lich King he will be there tomorrow or however long it takes him to reset and you have officially changed nothing. The game pretty much pretends that you are not there.

My idea is that players will be able to interact with anything in the game, and that there actions will truly alter the way things are done in the game. Such as a space station being named after a heroic group of pilots, or when destroy everything that belongs to a certain group of NPC?s they are gone. You will go down in the game history as the destroyers of that group. Needless to say new content will constantly be flooding into such a game as quickly as it leaves it, but it will be based on what the players do, not some crazed pre-conceived story. If you want a space station, board it and take it over by force, buy it, destroy it and build a new in its place.

Tell me what you think of this idea.

 

[NeedAUserName]

The First Idea: (Space Game)

Total immersion:

In a standard MMO, you have little to no effect on the gaming environment. Such as with WOW, if you kill the Lich King he will be there tomorrow or however long it takes him to reset and you have officially changed nothing. The game pretty much pretends that you are not there.

My idea is that players will be able to interact with anything in the game, and that there actions will truly alter the way things are done in the game. Such as a space station being named after a heroic group of pilots, or when destroy everything that belongs to a certain group of NPC?s they are gone. You will go down in the game history as the destroyers of that group. Needless to say new content will constantly be flooding into such a game as quickly as it leaves it, but it will be based on what the players do, not some crazed pre-conceived story. If you want a space station, board it and take it over by force, buy it, destroy it and build a new in its place.

Tell me what you think of this idea.

This means you could finish a game, and when you do its finished for everyone... And having constant new content, would put any IT employees you have under constant 24 hour pressure.

 

[Jammerson]

This means you could finish a game, and when you do its finished for everyone... And having constant new content, would put any IT employees you have under constant 24 hour pressure.

The gaming world will be large, and it will also be expanding with new content. The game is also not going to be linear, meaning it will have no finish. It allows the players a sandbox that allows them to do whatever they wish. There will of course be certain rewards for completing tasks. It is however going to be mostly on the players to decide what they want to do with this new world, and how they want to shape its story. For a truly great game I will figure it out.

 

[NeedAUserName]

This means you could finish a game, and when you do its finished for everyone... And having constant new content, would put any IT employees you have under constant 24 hour pressure.

The gaming world will be large, and it will also be expanding with new content. The game is also not going to be linear, meaning it will have no finish. It allows the players a sandbox that allows them to do whatever they wish. There will of course be certain rewards for completing tasks. It is however going to be mostly on the players to decide what they want to do with this new world, and how they want to shape its story. For a truly great game I will figure it out.

You can still finish a sandbox game... And like I said before, you would need a huge IT team working round the clock to pull of a game of that magnitude.

 

[Jammerson]

Sandbox's such as the Sim's and Freelancer have a finish, or end-game. I do not intend on having one big finish. I intend on many achievements, and many small endings. The game will always continue on, but will always be changing, so it is not the same shin kicking battle with the same spider you killed not 5 mins ago. Yes this will require some IT devotion, but only to moniter player activity, the point of any program is that it can be made to do all your hard work for you and if it is designed well it can insert pre-programmed content based on needs of the environment.

 

[D_987]

Sandbox's such as the Sim's and Freelancer have a finish, or end-game. I do not intend on having one big finish. I intend on many achievements, and many small endings. The game will always continue on, but will always be changing, so it is not the same shin kicking battle with the same spider you killed not 5 mins ago. Yes this will require some IT devotion, but only to moniter player activity, the point of any program is that it can be made to do all your hard work for you and if it is designed well it can insert pre-programmed content based on needs of the environment.

Its great saying "I've got these ideas", but think about how complex that idea is. I doubt companies would go for the idea simply becasue the updates would cost a lot of money.

Think about this also:

. You always have extremists in MMORPGS. Look at how devote some WoW players are. This type of idea wouldn't be feasible to the casual player - as that clan would finish your update quickly and other players wouldn't be able to get a chance.

 

[Jammerson]

Yes, but all games that incorporate better then nintendo graphics are complex. As far as the extremist vs the common person dilemma, the hope is that the world should be large enough for both to be comfortable, and in the end you cant please everyone, you just have to pick a market, MMO's in general dont have the greatest appeal to casual gamers, and someday I will make a game targeting those left out of the MMO market.

 

[Anarchemitis]

This means you could finish a game, and when you do its finished for everyone... And having constant new content, would put any IT employees you have under constant 24 hour pressure.

Not unless you employ about 6000 workers.[/impossibly optimistic]

 

[TsunamiWombat]

I recall someone asked for flash game suggestions and I whipped out one that a few people liked. a Run N Jump, except instead of jumping on enemies to kill them you get a freeze thrower. Game mechanics can play with freezing enemies to make blocks, kicking them to send them into other enemies, freezing boss's bodyparts in the correct order to get at the meaty core, etc. The platformer Aqua Kids did something similar with water balls.

 

[D_987]

Yes, but all games that incorporate better then nintendo graphics are complex. As far as the extremist vs the common person dilemma, the hope is that the world should be large enough for both to be comfortable, and in the end you cant please everyone, you just have to pick a market, MMO's in general don't have the greatest appeal to casual gamers, and someday I will make a game targeting those left out of the MMO market.

Runescape is targeted towards "casual" gamers, and to be honest games such as WoW are universally popular, with millions of subscribers - I doubt all of them are what you would consider avid gamers.

I would go out on a limb and say that your idea is near-impossible with technology at this moment in time, and I doubt its going to be available any time soon. The best example of your idea is Second Life - but that has been a huge failure, they barley make a million "players", this is due to lag and the cost of the "game".

Your idea would not only cost considerable more, but would also require a fantastic Internet connection. You claim you will create a MMO, do you know anything about programming (looking for members for a 2D project I am putting together).

It would also help if you quoted me when replying so I am informed.

 

[Jammerson]

Runescape is targeted towards "casual" gamers, and to be honest games such as WoW are universally popular, with millions of subscribers - I doubt all of them are what you would consider avid gamers.

I would go out on a limb and say that your idea is near-impossible with technology at this moment in time, and I doubt its going to be available any time soon. The best example of your idea is Second Life - but that has been a huge failure, they barley make a million "players", this is due to lag and the cost of the "game".

Your idea would not only cost considerable more, but would also require a fantastic Internet connection. You claim you will create a MMO, do you know anything about programming (looking for members for a 2D project I am putting together).

It would also help if you quoted me when replying so I am informed.

I am new to programming, and creating this game into actual MMO form would be my last step. I am going to start out with a single player version of the game. As far as technology goes, the major choke points are currently in graphics, as far as internet demands it would require more or less the same as world of warcraft as only your input is sent and only graphic commands are sent back. True it can still bog down when it has to send graphics commands for a couple 1,000 players if they are all in one place but that happens in wow too.

So as far as the impossibility factor it isnt as difficult as all that. A game with constantly updating content will actually run smoother as it does not have to store all the games possible content.

The new created content will be using what I like to call the "interchangeable parts process". All content will be in part based on a variation of diffrent parts, put together in diffrent arrangements. It would take a while to truly explain how this process would work on a programming level, but i assure you it can be done.

I do not think to take a fresh game however and spend the time, energy and cost into making it an MMO, Warcraft knew they had something with the trilogy of RTS versions of Warcraft before bringing it to the table. I will do the same, I am actually working on the single player version of the game, with somewhat more mild graphics and slightly less options for starters. If it pans out well, then I will consider taking it to the next step.

Yes I quote WOW a lot, but it is best to model business theory after a success. I wont look a thing like it in game.

 

[Jammerson]

I am still interested in what you guys find to be pluses to space games, mmo's or just games in general. Not so much interested in questions about my ability to make games . Looking forward to your input.