A MMOG That Could Have Been

Grimwell has up the first in a series of articles from a Massively Multiplayer game that underwent development but was never published. Entitled The Colonies, the game was intended to provide a massive world space where repercussions from player actions could be felt and maintained. From the article: "'It's been 500 years since 1957.' That phrase is what I've always used when describing where the game was to take place. 1957 was the hopping off point to a future that never happened, one that could be seen then. Today we see post-apocalyptic grunge with worn down leftover implements of civilization or we see high technology sterility. In 1957 technology was still magical and the future was an exciting place to be going to. So imagine 500 years post 1957 as seen in magazines like Astounding or in B-Movies of the period. That one simple phrase hints at the tone and style of the game. The name tells you the rest." Update: 06/11 20:58 GMT by Z : Added link. sigh.

Comments

Ummm. Sounds cool...

[millia]

but some linkage would be good?

Hello...

[eviltypeguy]

The article sounds interesting, but where's the link?

Re:Next up:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Hello, Doctor Fuckstain, how are you today?

From R'ing TFA, it seems that someone had a good idea for a game, in their opinion. That game wasn't made. The End.

Damn, that was great. Almost as good as the story about a Mac owner who bolted a hard drive cage to his G5.

What? A MMOG that wasn't finished?

[CrazyJim1]

I think theres as many MMOGs that weren't finished as there are 1% of the total population of programmers. I know I had 2 MMOGS that underwent development and didn't finish. One was being written before Ultima Online came to be.

Looking for funding?

[VStrider]

I'm going to to pick on his design goals.

1. Create a world in which the players had genuine effect on the worldspace.
   In all games, players have some sort of effect on the world. How far they can influence/affect the world and/or other players, is up to the designers. A player always wants to be able to affect the world substancially, though I don't think it's a good idea. It can have many unwanted sideffects, and could even turn away new unskilled players. Balance is more appropriate.
2. Create a world large enough that it would never feel small.
   Heh, good luck with that! Why do i feel that the design goals are not design goals but what a player wants to hear? This is impossible. The world will eventually feel small to seasoned players, no matter how big the world is. Even our real world feels small to people who travel alot.
   Also games that try to be everything to everyone are bound to fail. This is where game design comes in, so your game does *not* try to do that.
3. Enable game world interaction beyond the 3-d game client.
   Hmm, sure you could provide access through a browser or even through WAP. Many games have done that, and it didn't really make a difference for the game.
   It's a nice plus for a game, but rarelly the sole reason to sign up on one.
4. Encourage a sense of ownership in the player.
   A tried, tested and proven concept. Works for almost all games.
5. Develop a crafting system that would allow seeming limitless invention and creation of items.
   This is what every player will ask for before they play the game, and what every player will dislike when they play it. Sometimes players think they know what want, but they are mistaken. They will ask for unlimited options, because they forget the unlimited complexity that comes with it. Case proven with Masters of Orion 3. The game was so complicated, noone could play it.
   Plus, if your game needs unlimited options/items to be good, there is something wrong with your game design.
6. Develop a real money transaction system that would allow players to make money but never cause players to feel that they had to spend money to play.
   Is that ingame money or real world money? If it's ingame money, it's almost impossible to make players feel they don't really need it, since it will be a part of your game and one that improves gameplay. Unlikely that any player wouldn't want the resources he's playing for in the first place.
   If it's real world money, mixing gameplay with real world money(eg. pay £100 for your new sword +5) is a major game design failure. And one that will turn players away from the game.
7. Create a story arc that would lead naturally to expansion.
   Nothing new there. Some games work this way, some don't.

To sum up, I didn't see any real game design there, no concept art, no technology preview, no indication of what has been accomplished so far. All I saw was yet another "game idea". I don't doubt his desire to make one, however, game/dev boards are full of similar "I want to make an MMOG, I have a great idea, would you like to for me?" posts. Game ideas worth nothing until you actually have something.

Re:Looking for funding?

[Incoherent07]

If you go further down...

Let's also take a server and turn it into a world controller and have that controller distribute world processing tasks over a distributed computing network the size of Manhattan, the client computers. Done properly this has many advantages. There are potential pitfalls too, however at the time much of the research, implementation and testing of core systems to make this possible had already been done.

Wait a second... distribute computing over the clients? Oh, wouldn't we all like to be able to do that... unfortunately it's a security nightmare. And if real money is involved in the game, even one money dupe is extremely, extremely bad for you as a company.