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Build Your Own MMOG
yebb writes "CNet reports about a company called Multiverse that has just begun beta testing of its platform for creating and integrating online virtual worlds. They are allowing developers and companies to use their online framework to expedite development of online games. Their network is free to use as long as you don't make any money from it's usage, but they also provide open source client applications to use or modify as you see fit." From the article: "'The business model is long-term,' said Richard Bartle, one of the pioneers of online games and an editor of Terra Nova, a leading Web site about virtual worlds. 'Although Multiverse's software will help speed up the to-market time for companies, it's still going to take developers ages to create content.' While Bartle is cautious about Multiverse's business model, he's fascinated by its potential."
This is nothing new. http://www.byond.com/
Their games are for Win* users only. I'm out.
Mind Booster Noori
Sadly, I understood that and I've never played that game.
SWG = Star Wars Galaxies
CU = Combat Upgrade, which changed SWG in large ways, making it incompatible with previous versions. This led to pre-CU servers being made for people who preferred the old way
NGE = New Game Enchancements, which did much the same thing in terms of splitting the userbase.
I read too damn much gaming news.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
If you take a look a TomeNet, you get a MMORPG open engine. The sad thing is, you must go to the forums to learn anything about it because the website isn't updated often.
TomeNet is a roguelike multiplayer online rolepaying game based on Tolkien's work. The single player game is also getting closer to version 3.0, with a revamped game engine (open, with source code available). Great game and great community.
Animoog.org
Yeah, like for instance Planetarion, a small browser-based game with absolutely no advertising, which grew from 0 to 200 000 users in a couple of months.
Seriously, word of mouth is and remains the main way to recruit new customers.
Just make a good enough product and your customers are more than happy to do the advertising for you.
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
I could be wrong, but doesn't Neverwinter Nights and Second Life already let you do this?
Second Life
Look into Neverwinter Nights, and the soon to be coming sequel. With this game, you don't exactly have to "roll your own" they give you access to the same tools the game's creators used to make the game. But even with that, it takes a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG time to create your own adventures. However, there is also a lot of fan-made content out there that you could make use of.
There is an MMOG somewhat like that already: <URL:http://www.there.com/>.
If I recall, it's something like $12/year.
0x68ADA2CC
Half-Life certainly changed things. The game showed that FPS didn't have to be run, shoot and shoot some more type games. It was a thinking man's game.
Another game, though greated underrated, is Deus Ex. It used the Unreal Engoine and introduced gamers to the world of Cyberpunk and to a form of gameplay that didn't revolve around hosing down room after room with bullets. It was also an RPG of sorts, though it wasn't the first RPG built to play like a FPS. That honor goes to The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall which used the Quake engine.
More innovative use of popular modern day engines can be seen in games like Splinter Cell which used the Unreal Tournament 2003 engine, and the MMORPG Lineage uses a highly modified Unreal Tournament 2003 engine.
Quake 3: Arena wasn't much of a game as compared to Unreal Tournament. UT offered many more gameplay features and better bot AI, but the Q3A engine itself was a decent graphics engine. It was used to make games such as the Medal of Honor series, the Call of Duty series, the critically acclaimed Star Trek Voyager Elite Force and its sequel, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein as well as Enemy Territory.
Now Warren Specter, the mastermind behind Deus Ex, is going to use the Half-Life 2 Source Engine in a new game project. Not to mention all of the real-world training sims that are in development using the Source Engine. One of them trains surgeons. Its the Source Engine's astonishingly good physics modeling engine that makes this possible.
Oh, and lets not forget America's Army, the game that doubles as a recruiting tool for the U.S. Armed Forces. It was built using the Unreal Engine and has been upgraded to the UT2k4 engine recently.
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
You mean like so many text-based MUDs have done since forever?
I remember playing a MUD in the early 90s where when you hit the max level you could plant a dungeon somewhere (just connected your dungeon to an existing room node) and write object oriented code to implement monsters, puzzles and treasure. I always figured it would be a good way to teach OO design since it's a lot easier to think of a monster or a magical scepter as an object with attributes than it is to start with abstract data structures...
Anyway, like all games, MUDs have had a large drop in the ability for users to affect them as the graphics and detail went up. Back in the day everyone could easily make levels for Lode Runner or Wolf 3d without any training or learning curve. Nowdays you need a degree in 4th dimensional geometry and several days of free time to make a good FPS level, never mind a virtual world...
It sounds like you might want to check out Secondlife (http://secondlife.com/).
While not exactly an RPG, it is versitile enough to let you create your own little fantasy subworld and invite other people in for some leveling up on orcs and trolls. While I don't play it, I'm thinking of signing up sometime soon, it looks pretty fun.
Obviously.
Scrolling through the comments, I see:
1. People who read about a similar universe in a book.
2. People who think this is a new great idea.
Seriously, guys, anyone interested in a collaborative freeform 3D world should have already registered an account at Second Life. It's been out there for a couple years already. The client *is* a 3D modeling tool, everything from clothes to massive Klingon spacecraft are built inworld. You can build anything you want in one of the sandbox areas if you don't own land. You can attach scripts to do almost anything to almost any object; everything from animating a sculpture to running a store or party game.
Second Life is now free. That is, you can register, have an avatar, get a weekly stipend, build anything you want, but you can't own land. No excuse not to try it out. One hint: turn off local lighting to speed up the framerate, Second Life is CPU-bound.
Our server software is written in Java, so that gives you some flexibility with your server OS.
And as I mentioned in a different thread, the client that's in beta right is WinXP, but other platforms are on the roadmap. We are a bunch of early-days Netscape folks, so we've been pretty committed to the cross-platform thing for a decade or so.
We'll be posting more info on our tech specs at our site in coming weeks and months. You won't have to be an early developer on our beta platform to find out the important details.
--Corey
Corey Bridges
Exec Producer, Multiverse
http://www.multiverse.net/
I am glad somebody mentioned Second Life. I was about to when I found this post. Yes, the graphics performance needs some work, but the freedom of content creation in unprecedented and more than makes up for it. One link that readers of this article may find interesting is the Second Life Games Wiki which details some of the games that have been created in world.
Nevermore.