Originally posted by Turel_Azure

Really appriciate the feedback. 

 

My writing the idea is for the ability to communicate them.  Once I find a reliable way to protect them, I'll try and share them with people.  As for visual, I don't know if I alone can design what I want to do, as I have no programming ability....but maybe with the toolsets, since it is built on existing technology.  The real issue is that my design is starting with the core gameplay mechanics, and moving outward from that.  I'm not saying that story and setting aren't important, they are equally so, but a game isn't a game without fun gameplay.  And the core alteration of the systems I am going for may not be supported well by these engines.

 

I don't know though, so I will spend time checking it out.

 

Also, I'm not worried about money.  I know a bit about business working in management for 3 and a half years, and there are MANY business practicies that game publishers do not use that would do them a lot of favors.  Practices that would easily lead to more money, because MMOs are competitive, and all of that depends on how the customer feels while and after playing your product. 

 

And if I cannot make a small version, would a visual demo of the mechanics do anything?  I easily could make videos using 3ds Max animation tools to illustrate points on the systems.  I simply thought my ideas would flow better just by writing them, initially.

Here's what you need to do:

Create a document that clearly and definitely lays out what your game is in detail. Name it, even if the name is just a placeholder. Make certain the document looks and feels professional and get it notarized. Then have an NDA drafted in paper that covers your specific IP (intellectual property). Almost any business lawyer should be able to work this up for you and there are some websites you can go through as well.

Be absolutely certain of the laws in each state where investors/companies are based. Before you show anybody ANYTHING you make them sign your NDA in writing with a witness and have it notarized, BEFORE showing them anything. Once all that is in place only give out a few nibbles during your conversation or if you feel confident you understand the law and your NDA is actionable should they breach it then then speak freely. Then if that individual/s breech your specific NDA you have they're ACTUAL signature on a legal, notarized and witnessed document. Depending on state law your NDA should be binding since these things are used for just about anything.

If you have multiple-meetings with people then don't change any of your features or the title of your IP without re-drafting your NDA to accomodate for those changes. If you re-draft make sure they sign it and you get it notarized again before continuing. It may help if you have an NDA that's word to also bind -you-. So that they know you aren't going to go shopping around while in talks.

Also make certain your NDA is worded to make sure that if negotians for terms are ended then the NDA is still in effect.

Basically you want to make certain that anybody you talk to has signed a binding document so they can't stab you in the back. And if they do you want to be certain you can kick their asses in court.

If you're really serioues about protecting yourself you need to find a business lawyer.

PS: Incorporate yourself before doing any of the above. An LLC is all you need really, costs about 200-300 dollars. A corporate NDA has far more standing in court than an individual.

Actually, I may have a way around that (cheap, I know, but my father is a WA state lawyer and notary).  The LLC idea is definately interesting.  I think part of the issue is that it sounds like an NDA cannot be signed without a witness, which means trouble for sharing it over the internet, which is really a goal I have here.   I know I'm sounding like a jackass here talking about an idea that nobody's seen yet, and trust me, I want to back up my paranoia by showing you folks a good idea.  I just want to get to that point.  And I actually did give it a working title name already, thankfully.  Really good advice.

I wouldn't hang my hat on an NDA.  I know in my state you can pretty much only sue for damages, and if you are not making money,  it will be hard to "win".  

Good luck.

Even if it won't win in court, if it doesn't get completely thrown out most companies are content to settle out of court just to avoid the flak. It's the main reason they won't read or steal ideas in the first place. The only people that would blatantly rip you of are chodes from this forums that have no clue about how to get a game off the ground, nor will they ever find investors or survive the flak you could give them for being a thief. If a big time company is too afraid to steal from you, while a one-in-a-million dickface nobody who can't do anything with it would be likely to, then what are you afraid of?

Originally posted by GTwander

 It's the main reason they won't steal ideas in the first place.

The main reason no one would steal from him is because he has nothing worth stealing. That's not a disparaging remark about the person, rather a realistic assessment of the value of 'a great idea'.

The  only way to get a truely original idea down someone's throat is to die or cram it down their throat for a really long time.

Not sure what school you went to for game design, but they usually have a career services department that has connections to various studios. I don't know of any in Seattle that are hiring right now, but I do know Real Time Worlds and Blizzard North are hiring. EA is almost always hiring whatever positions Blizzard posts... it's some kind of sadistic competition they seem to have. Now I don't know how you feel about working with any of those companies, but it would almost certainly mean a move from your current location.

You might also start scouting around for smaller studios. They may not be hiring full time, but some might have projects requiring the assistance of a freelancer or 2. This is the easiest way, short of career services getting you in, to get "into" the game industry. Once you are there, it is much easier to find positions to get your voice heard about your game, than trying to do it from the outside. I know of a few in Orlando and Austin that are looking for Art Directors, and if you are willing to move to Scotland, I think RTW is still looking for one.

As far as the whole copyright issue, that's difficult without a marketable demo or some such. I would also recommend RealmCrafter, and your 3dmax to just create a very generic demo of what you had in mind. Use this as your demo reel, or part of it. Stuff like that is invaluable to HR people. Another good thing about waiting till after you are "in", is that you begin to learn where the sources of the money are coming from, so that when/ if that time comes that you want to start your own game, and need your own studio for it, you know who/where to ask for money to develop it. Keeping it too secret until that time though, can be counterproductive.

Working on a simpler 2d demo at the moment to show with the idea...the 3ds Max thing is nice to have, but right now it would just be an obstacle in showing the idea, not an aid.

Lynx, would you suggest waiting to finish the demo to show the idea, or just say screw it?  And what if someone does take the idea? :(

I don't think I've ever seen someone hurt by having a bigger portfolio.   If all you're doing is waiting for company responses you might as well make a demo, if you make something good you have something to show, if you make something that would somehow hurt you you've gained the experiance anyways.

You're also going to want to watch what you put into the written word since it gives everyone who's paying attention as much time as they want to think of a response or what you really mean.   For instance you asking: "do you think I should do this demo" can easily be warped into "I don't want to do anything I technically don't need to" or much worse.

edit:

the chances of someone taking the idea is slim(I've only heard of this happening once and only because there was "organized team" quality code/resources to steal with it,  needless to say both sides of the project ended up failing since niether side could recruit worth anything anymore).   to start with anyone who can act on your idea has their own, anyone who could act on that idea is probably under someone else, by taking someone else's idea you don't see some details that the creator does, all chances are your idea isn't nearly as original as you think, and no one wants to put up with random accusations.

I mean seriously even if your idea is a paradigm shift it's still not worth much without execution.   If you went around a year before pokemon came out and tried to pitch that idea nothing would have come of it not even theft, the same can be said for Mario and others.

Good ideas are a dime a dozen.

Man-hours, taste, hardwork..etc.. are more valuable and scarce resource.

I would run longer on this, but since my skill of english is really bad, I sould stop here.

I dont know much..lol.. but i would go with an LLC compared to a NDA. with what you were talking about earlier..

Originally posted by dimaryp

I wouldn't hang my hat on an NDA.  I know in my state you can pretty much only sue for damages, and if you are not making money,  it will be hard to "win".  

Good luck.

That is pretty much the problem.  Hard to show what you have lost.

Originally posted by Turel_Azure

So help me out with advice, if you would.  But don't try to stop me.  No one can, because I won't.

Well, there are basicly 2 problems with making a MMO. The first is funding, it costs a lot of money to make a MMO. Some games with relativly small budgets like Guildwars have worked but it still costed a lot more than a regular person could afford.

Secondly you need a great lead programmer. That is one of the things that makes a great game great.

But as for start I would reccomend you to make a small demo that you can present to possibly financers. Right now it is hard to find someone that would be interested in funding even a potential best seller but the economy will turn sooner or later and then youll have you nice demo ready.

It is of course logically impossible to prove that something can't be done, but it is very hard for a few amatuers to make a full MMO. There are examples of it however so it is not impossible.

But you need that ace lead programmer, the lack of someone like that is what made Vanguard to a failure even though the ideas were good.

Good luck anyways, I am very doubtful that you actually could make a MMO and live on it but there is always a chanse and we wont see it if you give up.

The only thing it costs to make anything is time and nothing else.   Money is just a medium of exchange, exchanges just happen to be the best way to get people to do what you want, And the only reason you need to exchange time(team) is to pick up skills that you don't have time to train.

________

 when you make a micro-indy-MMO that means you're going to make a lot of sacrifices just so you can see something in a short period of time.   Just to give you a perspective of how fast you need to work think of the longest time you've kept a very casual friend and ended up losing them without ever having gotten into a fight.   Now imagine a group a 4-5 people that aren't just friends but "workmates" without the extra incentive of say a paycheck.

A group of people working for "years" to achieve the great feat of an MMO just isn't something you will see in the unpaid indy sector or near that payline.

One example of a micro-indy group that pulled this off proper would be Pokemon World Online, the game itself was literally coded in a month(Granted they have done lots of changes and even changed thier first Visual Basic client to a Java one since release).  An exception would be WurmOnline which has been around for a forever, they'd even be something interesting to learn from to see a proper way to replace core members.

Originally posted by akjohn31

I dont know much..lol.. but i would go with an LLC compared to a NDA. with what you were talking about earlier..

An LLC is just a means of getting articles of incorporation around around your NDA. Think of it as adding "weight" to any NDA you have.

It's the difference between a corporation entering into an NDA with John Doe vs JD Enterprises LLC. Courts are usually more inclined to rule in favor of a corporate NDA.

Plus the NDA isn't there so you can ruin whoever tries to steal your idea. It's there so you can take them to court and drag their name through the mud. You might get some money out of them, but how much depends entirely on if your idea is in a proof of concept phase or in something like an alpha client phase.....and even then. If it's another corporation taking flak, as someone else said, would end up hurting them probably far too much.

As for wanting to post your idea on line....ehhhh....well, to be completely honest anything you "sign" online is hard to enforce. There is no actual signature from the person/persons, just a little ambiguous check box. And then they can always try to claim they never 'signed' it. If you have their actual signature on a witnessed, notarized document then there is nothing they can do to dispute that they saw and signed your document.

Of course this all really depends on what you post online. If you have a bare-bones client slapped together, no matter what form it's in, in order to show your concept in action then you have something tangible to work with. Having some words and sketches on a paper (ideas) and some stuff floating around in your head doesn't mean much to anybody, legally speaking. I'm not entirely sure how courts would respond to something like a scripted demo.

Such as if you created some models and a small little map and had them go through a series of scripted events as a demo, I'm not sure how much weight that has. Certainly more than some words on a paper, but less than a working client I'd think.

As a side note: I know you are dead set on making an MMO, but my advice is don't be afraid to get yourself and your idea out there.

If you have created a world and lore don't be afraid to put that into a smaller, working form first in order to see how people respond to it. I did story writing and editing for a PSP title, the company had been in talks with Sony about publishing when due to some people giving piss poor meetings funding fell through....not to point fingers or anything lol. Point though is they had started out with a bigger vision for the game, they wanted to make a ps3 or 360 version of their title.

Eventually they decided that scaling it back a little to fit it into the PSP would be a good way to get their foot in the door. The game concept had enough merit to get Sony's attention.

So if it means, for now, scaling back your idea to get your foot in the door then don't be afraid to do that. Get a title out there.

MMO's still aren't mainstream enough for most companies to want to risk money on them. And if they do then they are going to want it to be as much like WoW as possible.

Studios like Starvault and the guys making The Citadel of Sorcery are both indi, but everyone on their teams have years of industry experience. So they started companies, found investors, took out loans, are currently sticking their necks out.

MMO's, for the most part, are the kind of thing that you probably won't make back your developement costs on box sales. It takes months of steady subscribers to make it back. A lot of companies would rather make a way cheaper single-player game with online aspects and make their money faster.

Originally posted by Turel_Azure

I know I'm sounding like a jackass here talking about an idea that nobody's seen yet, and trust me, I want to back up my paranoia by showing you folks a good idea. 

You make an excellent point there.  But then you veered right back off the rail again.  Are you trying to say you want to "show" people your idea, but somehow you can't describe it to anyone - in even the most vague terms imaginable - without a signed agreement first?

Newsflash:  NDA's are designed to protect companies -- by not letting people know what direction they are heading in.  It's a way to prevent bad publicity and to (hopefully) limit corporate espionage.  They are not necessary to protect the interests of someone who doesn't even have a JOB, let alone any industry connections whatseover.

If you have an idea you'd like to discuss, then feel perfectly free to do so.  In the extraordinarily unlikely event that you actually express something that constitutes intellectual property, then copyright law will be more than sufficient to take care of it.  For that, all you need is ANY evidence that you thought of it first.  And even something as ephemeral as the possibility of tracing login and IP address info is enough to keep anyone from investing real money in an idea that could be sued out from under them.

On the other hand, if all you're interested in is keeping people from stealing your thoughts, then there are plenty of other places on the Internet to discuss that.

Also I would hope that you have more than one game penned, because the bigger and more diverse the portfolio the better chances of having your serious projects seen and thought about under NDA circumstances. I have maybe given about 3 near-full drafts in these forums already, and tons of bits from others that were put out as a resource to others on how to look at their own projects. I have about 36 game drafts at the moment, so giving a few of the junkers that are still pretty good can show off what I am about without having my heart broken by a thief. In fact a guy PMed me asking if we could team up on it, but I declined as I knew how unprofessional we both are, it'd never get off the ground. I would be hurt if he ran off with my ideas, but in the end he would just be proving he is not cut out for the business - and you can be sure I'd be a thorn in his side wherever I find that draft posted elsewhere. With a link directly to what I put up. I won't stop production or sue, but I will ruin credibility, and that is everything if you want a 'career'.

In the end, don't be afraid, but don't post your best work if you are sure it's the best thing ever, ever.

Just post your junkers and explain that they are not your best works, whatever worth they have can be considered your bare minimum.

Originally posted by Turel_Azure

Working on a simpler 2d demo at the moment to show with the idea...the 3ds Max thing is nice to have, but right now it would just be an obstacle in showing the idea, not an aid.

Lynx, would you suggest waiting to finish the demo to show the idea, or just say screw it?  And what if someone does take the idea? :(

I'd say that the biggest roadblock you have right now is the concern that someone will steal your idea. You have the ambition, the interest and what sounds like a reasonable education and background.

Here's my 2 cents... Post it. Take all criticism with a grain of salt. Don't be concerned with what people think of your idea, rather concern yourself only with how you can make your idea more engaging and more fun.

Anyone capable of 'stealing' and actually implementing it in a profitable product probably already has a thousand 'ideas' piled up in a library somewhere and yours is probably already among them.

Ok, before moving forward, there's a few things I want to make clear:

I'm not under some impression that submitting an idea simply in writing would be a feasable way of getting a foot in the door to some company that, to be honest, I might not even want to work for.

What I'm trying to discern is any semblance of a realistic path to get such a game made. Where to start, and where to go. If it's getting a job with some company and working a way up, fine. If it's starting my own company, developing something in the mean time with some colleagues and finding a source for funding...fine. What I'm looking at now is a path that includes making a demo of the concept (only one part of which I'm protective of), and trying to find ways of refining it.

Yes, it may be realistic to tell me, "give up your dream it will never happen," but it doesn't make you look helpful, it just makes you look silly, as I tried to iterate in the first damn post of this topic that such statements had no point here.

So on the to do list:

Present idea to the forum for feedback
Make a simple demo of the game for proof of concept (not even an MMO!)
??????
??????
Get plenty of money for development
Get game made
Happiness (and maybe profit, don't really care)

So I'm trying to fill in the blanks. How much time has to go by doesn't bother me.
And with that, I think I'll make a post of the concept.