General Discussion

Hello,

I'm here to present you a new sci-fi MMO in development ( space and planet based ) called Infinity. I tried to send some news to mmorpg.com a couple of times before but didn't get any answer, so i thought i might give a try to the forums instead now.

Infinity is heavily inspired by the old classic "Elite" and its sequel, "Frontier". The goal is to reproduce a huge and immersive universe, composed of millions of solar systems ( all unique, and generated on-the-fly by procedural techniques, similar to what 64 KB demo coders do ) with dynamic orbits and realistic distances & scales. One of the main features is the ability to land anywhere on planets, using seamless & trickless space to atmosphere transitions. This effect can be seen on the videos available on the website.

Planned features include: action-based combat ( not character oriented, but done in real-time ), a dynamic economy, trading & scientific research, corporations, forming business & factories, player-owned stations & planets, cities, full PvP, quests & missions, a player-influenced storyline, newtonian physics with computer assistance, and more.

The game is roughly at 35% of its development, and is not planned to be released before end 2007.

More informations, screenshots and videos can be seen on the official website:
http://www.fl-tw.com/Infinity

Here is a small selection of screenshots:
(Note: these screenshots are a work-in-progress and many features are missing, like some special effects, vegetation on planets, clouds, cities, etc..)

The videos look awesome too.

wow, if they get the gameplay mechanics right Eve might actually have some competition in the Sci-fi genre

Those are very pretty screenshots.

I'm going to be critical here b/c I like to see you guys succeed, so here we go.

I saw the features page and you're proposing some interesting stuff that I'd like to see you guys pull off, but then I saw your development page:

* Generic 3D engine: ~70% (kernel, textures, scene graph, mesh/objects, shaders, etc..)
* Planet/Space 3D engine: ~55% (terrain, planet textures, starfield, nebulaes, water, clouds, vegetation, etc..)
* Astrophysics: ~55% (galaxy generation, system gen, planets heightfields, orbits, parameters, etc..)
* Newtonian physics: ~25% (spaceships physics, collision detection, flight navigation)
* Sound engine: ~10% (3D sounds and musics)
* Networking: ~25% (TCP/UDP, network protocol, login/out, databases, etc..)
* User interface: ~5% (user input, widgets, windows)
* Gameplay: ~3% (actual game logic)
* Content: ~5% (spaceships/stations/cities 3D models and textures, misc. 2D art, sounds & musics)

Those are some scary development numbers if you guys are already 35% into development. You've barely begun to scratch the surface of the development issues that'll drive your game design. When I look at what you guys are proposing for game features and how much development effort you've put into it, I walk away with the feeling that you guys don't have anything substantial to backup those propositions.

It's great to see this project shooting for a persistant universe. Please keep in mind that a persistant universe means that gameplay will spill over into the real world and will therefore need a support infrastructure.

Best of luck guys.

Wow...

Definitely going to check this out :)

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Originally posted by Cerrian

Those are very pretty screenshots.

I'm going to be critical here b/c I like to see you guys succeed, so here we go.

I saw the features page and you're proposing some interesting stuff that I'd like to see you guys pull off, but then I saw your development page:

* Generic 3D engine: ~70% (kernel, textures, scene graph, mesh/objects, shaders, etc..)
* Planet/Space 3D engine: ~55% (terrain, planet textures, starfield, nebulaes, water, clouds, vegetation, etc..)
* Astrophysics: ~55% (galaxy generation, system gen, planets heightfields, orbits, parameters, etc..)
* Newtonian physics: ~25% (spaceships physics, collision detection, flight navigation)
* Sound engine: ~10% (3D sounds and musics)
* Networking: ~25% (TCP/UDP, network protocol, login/out, databases, etc..)
* User interface: ~5% (user input, widgets, windows)
* Gameplay: ~3% (actual game logic)
* Content: ~5% (spaceships/stations/cities 3D models and textures, misc. 2D art, sounds & musics)

Those are some scary development numbers if you guys are already 35% into development. You've barely begun to scratch the surface of the development issues that'll drive your game design. When I look at what you guys are proposing for game features and how much development effort you've put into it, I walk away with the feeling that you guys don't have anything substantial to backup those propositions.

It's great to see this project shooting for a persistant universe. Please keep in mind that a persistant universe means that gameplay will spill over into the real world and will therefore need a support infrastructure.

Best of luck guys.

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Originally posted by Gameloading

Guys? if the website is not outdated, then this has all been done by just one person!

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I made the assumption that there is more than one person working on this b/c quite frankly any project of this scope and nature requires more man-hours and more skill sets than any one person can humanly do.

Of course if there is only 1 person doing the development so far, then that's another area of concern.