Slashdot Mirror
Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game
An anonymous reader sent us linkage to a MMORPG [?] called
Arianne. It looks like crap, but it could be an interesting framework for a group of hugely ambitious and impatient artists and hackers not willing to wait for Diablo3. I also found it very humorous that they have a warning that the windows bins are infected with a virus...
[sings] "Hey, Arianne, what's your game now, can anybody play..?"
is the disregard for copyright considerations. "If you know the author [of this picture that I've used for my logo], let me know"? And maybe I'm wrong, but a few of those trees look like they were planted by the Warcraft II map editor.
If you're interested in this type of thing, you might want to check out Worldforge They're working on some pretty ambitious stuff (from text clients up to 3d clients.) Open source of course.
numb
ok so it may not be the latest bleeding edge 3d first person whatever... but at least there are some hackers out there giving it thier all! i'm not one to really put down CT, but man wtf are you thinking? i'm willing to be lots of time was put into what they have now, and since it is open source it can only get better. Next time you release an internet playable RPG let me know.
The fact they listed their alpha server only supporting 4 players worries me. With a massivly multiplayer game taking into account supporting hunderds and thousands of simeltaneous users has to be built in from the ground up. I don't think a game design liek Diablo, limited to 4 players, would scale well to a game like EQ and Asheron's Call without major changes.
The idea of a massively multiplayer game has been around for quite a while. Having a single world in which hundreds or thousands of people can interact is not *too* difficult, if you plan your programming carefully.
I spent about six months designing a project with a friend of mine that would do something very similar; It was an interactive online world in which anyone could participate. I found that the biggest issues that came up were the networking code, and the "action data" code (i.e., the information sent to the server describing what a person was doing). Both of these had to be tiny and fast.
We achieved some good working results, but then decided that the best way to do it would be to have a sort of distributed system, in which the processing was spread out onto the computers of anyone who was logged in. We did some preliminary work on this, and it seemed to get great results, but neither of us felt up to rewriting the damn thing as a distributed application, so we gave it up.
Aaanyway, my point is that if anyone is really interested in the subject, there's more out there than just this one. A couple of programmers could hack something together without too much trouble, as long as they are clever and creative. Too many game designers rely on legacy frameworks, instead of innovating.
Oh, well.... :o)
Got Rhinos?
My opinion -
:) Wonder what they did in 3 days...
:)
1) The graphics are primitive, but just because there are primitive graphics (to today's standards), doesn't mean the game will be crap. It depends on if the game is going to be "just another" roleplay/hacknslash game or if it'll have its own unique twist that gets people playing. It's too soon to tell.
2) Most things such as this start out small and primitive... look at Linux, it didn't turn into Redhat 6.2 overnight.
3) They're not professional, but they're not making any money at it either, so you can't really expect them to have their own domain name and really slick graphics on their website. For all intensive purposes, they're in alpha.
4) It's just too soon to tell how it will turn out.
5) Back in the days when muds were more popular, this is the sort of thing that people thought that someday would happen. It's probably easier to just create a text mud though, that's for sure.
What I thought was funny, off the website:
1)8-9-1999 Wednesday Miguel Angel Blanch Lardin
We start our work.
2) 11-9-1999 Saturday Miguel Angel Blanch Lardin
Arianne RPG 0.0.0 release announced.
After 3 days, they get release ZERO? A nothing release.
"To play in a server you have to be online and that the server to which you
connect is running, this should be ok, but as the server is not too stable it
can hang."
Whoops that would suck...
the danger of kids getting sucked in has existed for years. Those on the net a little longer than the latest hype will know about MUDs, and this could be a legitimate concern. but as for satanic??? sure, it's a picture of a pentagram. It's not dangerous, it's a five-pointed star. It looks nice. What I would think a bigger problem is the fact that most RPGs seem to stress that a god or set of gods exist. I'm not worried.. I would expect my kids to think a little for themselves. And yes, some parental supervision might be in order, but then again IMO all parents should have a clue as to what their kids are doing.
I would say in general that symbolism and imagery are good, they teach kids that things are not always as they appear at first glance, and many many books contain quite a bit of symbolism. You didn't really think Animal Farm was about animals on a farm, did you?
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Um, any reason the logo is of a pentagram and satanic goat. Just wondering...you'd think a standard medieval icon like a warrior or wizard or castle or something would do.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Just for the record I am a Christian so you will know where I am coming from. I don't really like it when people insult all Christian or use images or words which defame my religion but as much as I don't like it, they do have the right to "blasphemous" speech. You can not take that away or you take away free speech all together. They have every right to insult religions. They do not have the right to force people to listen to them though. If someone has a web page that says that all Christians should be burned at the stake, I wouldn't like it but because I don't have to go to that web page they have every right to put it up. This is a real slippery slope that can allow any religion, mine included, to suppress free thinkers and that is a bad thing. Unfortunately in the name of removing "blasphemous" speech in my religion many crimes against humanity have been committed. What you suggest must be avoided at all costs.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
Also take a look at AGE at:
:)
www.twilightsoftware.com/age
It's been years since I killed my MUD running on MudOS (which was written in lpc - WAY cooler than java - almost as cool as python).
I'm thinking of doing one again... anyone have any tips?
Please don't make blasphemy illegal, religions will just start suing eachother.
religion1 Credo: There is only 1 god
religion2: No there's not, there's 7 of'em. Blasphemy! you denied the existence of our gods! Sue Sue Sue!!
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
It is truly one of the most exciting free software projects I have been seen, the website is chock full of information, check it out at www.worldforge.org
This project is for real and is really going places. Its ambitious but its a testament to what is possible through the power of free software.
For more information you can also check out the irc server, irc.worldforge.org, #lounge.
Thanks, please check it out if you care.
kfort
If you take a look at the who we are section of their web site you will see that the vast majority of the people involved with the game and the web site are from foreign countries, in particular spain. Their grammer is very consistent with people who are just starting to learn english. English and spanish have substantially different sentance structure.
There have been great coders from many nations, and not just english speaking ones. Granted that the vast majority of compilers work on source code that uses commands in english, but learning what the couple 100 reserved words are, as well as the very consistent structure of a programming language is easier then learning the whole english vocabulary and grammer structure. How many adult native english speakers are still to this day confused by their there and they're.
I'm sure that with the infant nature of this project that the exposure that they will get from slashdot will result in an inflow of the number of people helping them out. Lets see how things look here in a month or so when the help they get from slashdot readers who become interested in the project has had a chance to make some changes.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
what occult. there is no occult. it's a shape, pure and simple. sure I have revealed myself.. as someone who doesn't believe in any gods. To the people who know me this isn't news. It's not something I try to hide. I appreciate the prayers though, as a gesture of compassion.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
If you're looking for a MMORPG to sink your teeth into, check out Atriarch. A spherical world, sci-fi alien universe, run on a Beowulf server, with a planned Linux release of the client software. *That* is a MMORPG to watch and get ready for.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Upon Realm of the Magi (ROTM), we have created a unique world that is filled with random encounters, hidden exits to many strange areas, and mystical quests that challenge the ability of anyone that wishes to strive to reach the Avatar level of the game. Over 200 player levels await those looking for some new excitement and exploration across our fully original world.
Future upgrades include dynamic AI NPC's with spellcasting abilities and 'Julia' bot like responses for helping new gamers and for quests.
If you looking for a place that really has a future in both ansi color text AND sound via Zmud client, then come by and take a look at us. We have been in development for over (3) three years and even wrote our own driver in Pike!
Webpage: http://stormbringer.sysconn.com/magi/
You don't want your kid playing RPG's? That's cool... don't let them. It's your choice how to raise your kids. I don't agree with the idea of trying to shelter them -- it only makes them more likely to rebel when, inevitably, they are exposed to the real world, and eventually they have to make their own decisions. I also don't agree that RPG's are bad (I played RPG's as a kid constantly, both computer and pen/paper, and I'm no violent sociopath). But whatever, that's your choice. They aren't my kids.
But what does that have to do with putting an age requirement or parental consent check on these games? Are you saying that _every_ parent in the world must agree with you? Or that other parents shouldn't be able to choose as you are? After all they aren't _your_ kids.
You are perfectly capable of keeping your kid from playing Ultima Online yourself, without an age check. Other parents can as well, yes? A parent who doesn't have even that much control over their children has far worse problems than RPG imagery, wouldn't you agree?
The enemies of Democracy are
We've certainly thought about it, but there are obvious problems when the source code is freely available. In fact, we're quite limited in what data we can send to the client. It's considered that only what would be available to the senses of the character should be made available to the client. This is one of the big problems. Some have suggested closed-source codecs, and others think that random chunks of data won't really be prone to abuse. It's a serious challenge for open-source developers, I'd like to hear suggestions.
;-)
:-)
We'd like to make free-to-play games where possible, and this makes resources especially scarce. Anyway, we have to work within our means, including annoying things like players who demand their characters survive sleep, work and disconnections.
Lots of fun problems.
Ven. Jhanrato
We really need a "slashdot" topic every two weeks or so, for this administrative stuff.
I hope the game is more "Massively Multiplayer" than the web site. I got in this morning when the article was first posted here, but every time since that I've tried to go back, the page is unavailable. Talk about being /.'d!
I sure do wish I had taken a look at the screen shots the first time.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.