You might want to check out Garage Games at www.garagegames.com and look at their Torque Engine. It should give you some information on making your own game and the 3D requirements. You could also check out Multiverse at www.multiverse.com and see what they offer for making your own 3D MMORPG.

As for the amount of work, don't fool yourself. It's extremely time consuming. You have to balance game play with graphics which seems to affect just about every MMORPG out there. Also, seeing that you have touted your 3D skills, I would suggest you work very hard to minimize your polygon count and counter that with really nice textures to keep the video card requirements to an acceptable minimum so that you don't exclude people without the very best video cards.

Both of those sites though should help put you on the path you are wanting to go. They both offer resources and forums for looking for programmers/coders and the like.

Oh my lord, Amathe. Please get a grip on yourself. You're making yourself and us sick with your constant complaining. You've made your point over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over... ad nausiem.

Stop!

Simutronics has never given a firm date. They originally said 2005, then changed it to 2006, then changed it to 2007. Each time they explained that their date was only a guideline and that it would be released when it was ready. Blizzard did much of the same thing for World of Warcraft. This is also not out of character with Simutronics with their existing games, giving a very broad time for completion and sliding that date if the project wasn't ready.

I highly suggest you go 'play a game' Amathe and quit obsessing over Hero's Journey. I'm suprised you don't have an ulcer with that frustration you obviously show in your life over a game. You seriously need to kill some pixels.

Just my humble opinion.

Originally posted by gagaliya
WTF those guys are still using crt monitors for DEVELOPMENT?!    wow must be really strapped for cash....even the chinese gold farmers are all decked out with LCDs now 

CRT monitors are actually better for artists because they can be calibrated much easier. You have three guns to calibrate instead of a thousands of individual pixels. It's not that you can't calibrate an LCD, it's just more time consuming, takes more expensive equipment, and can go out of calibration much easier.

Originally posted by simu-steph
As far as ergonomics go -- my office is usually quite dark, with natural lighting.  We purposefully turn off all the lights in the art section because the artists request it.

As an artist, I can explain why this is.

When doing sketches and the like on paper, we generally like more light. However, when using the computer, heavy lighting, especially overhead florescent lighting, causes terrible glare issues and causes a lot of eye fatigue and headaches. Low and indirect lighting is much better for long term work on computers. Even eye doctors have recimmended it to my fellow artists to help stop the headaches.

The reason for this is the nature of the environment. The screen generates color by producing light. The brighter the color, the more light needed. Since the light is already being sent directky to your eye, you don't need another direct light source. If you are reading a piece of paper or drawing on it, you need the reflection of light to see what's on the paper. The screen is already producing all the light you need for it, so now you just need a small indirect lamp to see the keyboard and anything else on your desk.

I hope this clears up this issue for you. As an electronic production consultant for over 15 years, I've had to explain this very situation over and over again, so I'm quite familiar with it. It seems to contadict what we've been told by our parents growing up, but computers, and more importantly the screens, work differently. Once that's acknowledged, it makes perfect sense.

As foe HJ, I've been following it's progress for some time. I loved the article and share the same frustration about the lack of additional info, but that's just because of I can't get enough. Once the game is out, I'll be a very happy camper.

Having played Dragonrealms over a decade ago on AOL, and running up a huge bill, I was hooked. I was extremely impressed wtih the amount of detail that was paid attention to. The room descriptions we very well done, with every room having at least something to give it some appeal. Not a cut and paste, use over and over again, room description, which most MUDs were back then. They also paid a huge amount of detail in the history and mythos of the universe they created. It helped that they had been doing Gemstone for a few years already, but that showed me that they that drew on the successes of Gemstone and tried to correct some areas where they felt they could improve. They even had a classes that did not require any combat at all, the empath and the trader. This allowed so much more in playstyle it was amazing. They also had a combat system that was tough to master, but easy to play, and felt much more realistic and a static hit point system.

What was even more amazing to me was that all this attention to detail was also wrapped up in a true roleplaying atmosphere. Name conventions were monitored and so was roleplaying speech. While they weren't oppressive with their oversight, they did try and maintain a true roleplaying environment, something no other MMORPG that I've been associated with since has accomplished.

That being said, there were frustrations with the developers, something that I see happening with Hero's Journey. The main complaint was the changes/updates to the gameplay were slow. On top of that, the GMs were intentionally vague and refused to give any time frames. It was explained at the time that when they did give a date and due to various reasons, usually a real world issue with the coder (sickness, accident, etc.), the date slipped. So they began a policy of not giving any dates, not even vague ones. They simply stated that it would be in the game when it was in the game. During this phase, we would constantly badger the GMs and try various ploys to try and get some kind of time frame, all to no avail.

I can say though, that when the system/change/upgrade did make it into the game, there were rarely any times when they had to do much if any bug fixes. It usually worked the first time, without needing balance tweaking, and without the loss of playtime for maintenance fix updates.

For a year, I was a volunteer game host for Dragonrealms. I enjoyed it for the most part. I was able to help people in the game without giving away secrets or spoilers. I was able to deal with conflicts and help resolve issues both with the game and with other players. However, about nine months after starting, players became increasingly frustrated with certain situations which game hosts are not allowed to deal with. The problem even got to the point that even if the game host tried to help, it went for naught, actually creating more work for the GM who ended up dealing with the situation, mostly due to the player's attitude of being owed something instead of taking the game for what it was. This created a new policy that game hosts were no longer allowed to resolve conflicts, only to take notes and pass the problem on.

I had a serious issue with being nothing more than a note taker, so I left the game host program shortly thereafter. I still respected the GMs, especially since every single one was a volunteer and we not paid a cent, but did it because they loved the game they played. However, I still feel that some of the approaches of the GMs, mostly the policies, were inflexible and helped to seclude them from the players even more. On top of their policy of not giving deadlines, now they took on the job of resolving every single conflict, instead of trying to delegate the responsibility and training the game hosts to deal with that very issue.

Shortly after that, I pretty much left the game. I maintain an account, but much of the fun of the game was beginning to lose it's fascination for me. Some of the policies of the GMs were a part of that I'm sure. However, having played a few MMOs since then, and seeing that lack (on in most cases no) interaction between the GMs and the players, I've come to respect Simutronics for how they manage their games when it comes to trying to make the game an enjoyable experience. They aren't perfect, but when I heard about Hero's Journey being resurrected, I was extremely excited about the aspect of playing a Simutronics game once again.

That said, I'm worried that Simutronics might follow the model of other MMOs when it comes to a managed world server for roleplaying and GM/player interaction. It amazes me that so many MMOs claim to be roleplaying games whereas they are really games that are based in fantasy/sci fi settings, not roleplaying games. Even Simutronics on their own forums has hedged their bet on having a managed roleplaying server. But when you see some of the MMOs out there and look at the most stable communities, they are almost always servers that have more dedicted roleplayers.

This is a disturbing trend then. Simutronic's penchant for not being forthcoming with information and not offering deadlines for when something will be ready is based in history. By itself I would not consider it an issue, so I do believe Hero's Journey will see the light of day, but I am convinced it won't be in 2007. From my experience, whenever people felt something was going to come out, say a six month timeline, I always doubled it. The flip side was that when it did come out, it was right the first time. However, with some of the possible philosophy changes, going away from what made their games better than others and moving closer to the models of other MMOs, there is a real reason to be concerned that we may be dealing with the similar growth problems of other MMOs. The final release might be as buggy as most MMO releases. Having a ton of people carping about 'vaporware' might not achieve the intended result: a game we all enjoy playing. Instead, assuming they bow to pressure and rush the game, we'll get another bug riddenj MMO fiasco.

I doubt I would go to the extreme of calling Hero's Journey vaporware since Simutronics has never actually stated a release date. The date given here is an approximation by this website, not an official date from Simutronics. I'd much rather wait for a solid game on release than play a game that frustrates me and makes me not want to play. Hopefully their silence on this matter means they are not bowing to pressure to rush the project and are paying attention to the details, the same philosophy that made their text based games so popular and a cut above the rest. While constant updates on their site would be nice, it's not very realistic based on Simutronic's history, so badgering them here probbably won't do any good, at least I hope not.

Does Simutronics have some issues they need to work on? Yes, they do. While their MUDs are very good, they have an economic hole they need to fix, both in real world sales and in the in-game inflation issues. They also need to seriously address the roleplaying server option as many former Simutronics clients are asking for just that. Since there will be multiple servers, it would be easy to have just one managed roleplaying server. Ignoring that community would mean they aren't listing to many in the extended community as a whole, and that would be most worrisome indeed. While we should not expect them to bow to irrational pressure, they should be listening to their protential customers and attempting to make a game they both their players and themselves would be proud of. I certainly hope they also work on their in-game customer service. It's extremely frustrating when you aren't getting a response from the forums, it's even more frustrating when you feel you aren't getting the attention you need for your problem due to untrained people who have the time to help you but can't and then waiting for someone who are trained but not be available for hours on end.

To wrap this up, I hope Hero's Journey does see the light of day. I will be one of the first to play the game. I'll also be one of the first to let them know what's wrong and what's right with their game. I don't feel that the lack of communication by Simutronics is uncommon by them, and in fact is quite the norm. So, based on past history, I don't feel anything that's been done up to now is any different than what Simutronics has always done, so it doesn't equate to trying to label it 'vaporware'. But with any project, if they decide there's no money in the effort to be made, they will shelve it. That's reality, however you want to label it.