All Posts by Resin213

 They are using UT3 engine, it will scale to systems, so the trailer was shot in the regular game engine on a pretty nice computer, I've seen the specs posted but don't know off hand, this might not be how it looks on your  computer. Unless you have a fairly new gaming setup. They have been pretty forward with all this info if you decide to go look it up. :)

 While Beta testing has yet to begin, it looks to be the best Full Loot  Pvp Sandbox MMO in production IMHO

 How about something like an iron golem. A suit of haunted armor that can either fight beside you or merge with the player. Maybe give it some poltergeist characteristics including levitation.

Once you put dragons in its kind of hard to top that.

 Yes! Thankyou. I was begining to think I was losing my mind. 

Now off to craft my submission.

 About a week ago I read a contest for creating mobs in a fantasy game. I thought it was on this site, but I can't remember the MMO name now and haven't found anything with search. Maybe I just suck at searching. They had a link to their own forums so people could post threads as their entries. Does this sound at all familiar to anyone?

Thanks for any help.

 Thank You!  This looks perfect.

Ah- I just found Google's Sketch up too. If anyone else is interested.

 I'm looking for 3D freeware for macs, or at the least for very cheap, for teaching to middleschools. A simpler program is probably better, I just want to give them the very basics of what 3d design means. Any recommendations?

 I think alot of sandbox games could do more to point and guide players to different features of the game.

A game, even a sandbox, should have a flow and not require hours of research just to figure out what you want to do. You shouldn't have to worry about early decisions locking you into a definite path either, I'm just saying there is a middle ground where quests become tools to introduce players to sandbox elements that they may then either pursue or not. It doesn't have to be all one way or the other, and the best games aren't.

Originally posted by tikboi
well thats really a long story huh. ill try to illustrate some things. do u hav any samples? 

Just what is in my sketchbook, which I've now edited into my sig. 

 Have you looked at this link already?

http://www.devmaster.net/engines/

I was checking out their site:

http://www.naturalmotion.com/endorphin.htm

It seems awesome to me. GTA IV is using it, they have multiplayer but thats along way from MMO.

Could this be used for an MMO, would it be too huge, kill ping? What would it take for this to happen? Is there anything in MMO world, or on the horizon similar to this?

 Johnny Lee made a nice 3d headtracker from his Wii remote. For those of you who haven't seen this already here is the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

If you added to that an acoustical element such as this:

http://legacy.wolfire.com/soundpaper/index.html

I'm refering specifically to the video at the end of the page, about acoustic occlusion, but the whole thing is pretty interesting.

How freaking awesome would that be?

What are the pitfalls? Is this already being done? Why not or by whom? Would this work in an MMO?

I want it! 

 Don't forget your claim jumping miners, chinese immigrant forced railroad workers, and fancy pants gamblers! Oh, and lots and lots of whiskey!

 Its kind of two birds with one stone as well, at least if player housing is also something you desire. Just the fact that some people could enter some buildings would go a long way in creating the illusion that the buildings are more than simple objects or set peices.

It would be neat to see these become embroiled in quest/event plot lines somehow as well. Perhaps enemies could follow you home, or your building could be burned or otherwise attacked/destroyed.

 Plasuma makes some good points. Not that I would discourage anyone feeling up to it from trying, but it might not be the best starting point.

The part that really intrests me the most is the story-telling aspect. The difficulty of the format is its greatest draw and both requires and allows aspects of story telling that no other medium does.

Designing a game so that it can tell multiple stories to the different people who play it. IMO the story begins with setting and gameplay. The setting gives you the premise and the gameplay is how each player interacts with it. I think it is foolish to think that making a sandbox type mmo alone equals content. People want a compelling world in which to interact. Having a good compelling backstory is essential, and then giving the players a means of interacting with this story in a meaningful way is the trick.

I read an interveiw with Alan Moore, he hated all his comics (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, League of Extrodinary Gentlemen, etc.,etc.) being made in to movies because he thought that they were really made for comics and leveraged that medium, and thats how he wrote them and wanted them. Kind of the same idea as saying Dostoyevsky's The Idiot would not really make a good 90 minute movie or video game. It would be neat though to see people really take advantage of this MMO, and the public come to understand game designers the way they do directors or writers .

Lol, I digressed

 Adding NPC crowds with AI is a long dangerous road, with great chances for a more realistic world, but equally great chances for failure. Take Oblivions NPC AI for instance, they really tried for something more than the usual, but they skimped on the voice actors and people tended to hate them. Assasins Creed had some really cool crowd dynamics. I would really start weighing the cost/benefit with them, unless were imagining games of the more distant future played on next generation hardware. The player housing seems much easier to me, as it could be mostly instanced, but I'm not really a technical person so I don't really know.

 Thanks!

I just found this third person game after reading up on it on Rock, Paper, Shotgun:

http://wolfire.com/games

While I had never considered anything to do with extreme ninja rabbit violence, the overgrown ruins they are sporting in their Overgrowth artwork are spot on what I was thinking about for my cities (with the addition of tides). In their first version they have a weapon/fighting/stealth/and jumping control system that I thought was very intuitive and exactly the type of stuff that I would like to see implemented in an MMO.

 I totally agree. In my completely imaginary game all players choosing a city as their starting point would automatically get an apartment and an initial quest: pay the rent or your out on your ear!