Fractal Softworks Forum
Other => Discussions => Topic started by: Upgradecap on December 28, 2012, 05:07:57 AM
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Heh, well, i've been going around with this thought for quite a while now, and i just wanted to hear your guys opinions on this, and what can be improved/discarded in favor of something else.
I'll give you a blunt version of what the game would be like.
The game will be an arena-style game with vast arenas (not too big, but decently sized, approx.. 100-500sq km) with an all-out war between the two teams. There would be 3-4 factions featured at launch, each with their own unique set of ships and guns. The battles would be fought an array of different weapons, such as: Missiles, kinetics, lasers, anti-matter, ECM, ECCM, etc.
The ships themselves would be customizable, and you could add more weapons slots to an already existing ship, but if you exceed the tonnage limit of the ship, things will start to break down in battle, and you might not be able to repair them after battle, and might need to buy another component completely.
So, whaddya think? ;)
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Seems like a big job... Sure it sound awesome and stuff, but are you sure you will be able to actually dedicate the time and patience to make this?
Sounds good, go ahead if you can.
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Seems like a big job... Sure it sound awesome and stuff, but are you sure you will be able to actually dedicate the time and patience to make this?
Haha, yeah, i've already thought that part out, though. It does seem like a project i'm willing to work on, and invest time in.
Also, i forgot to mention that the characters will be controlled in an FPS manner, with the ships being fully rendered inside then. The command interface would resemble Guns of Icarus Online, where each player would take a certain position, but here, a gun can either be controlled from the bridge, or directly. If it's controlled by the bridge, then everything is handled automatically, but if that link is severed, and manual control is needed, then a gunner and a loader is required. The largest planned ship would be able to hold up to 150 players.
Also, there will be boarding. :)
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I like the idea, but you wouldn't be able to do this at such an early level
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Oh, not me alone, and most definitely not now. I was thinking of having this project after i finish college, to have something to strive for. I'd rather have a 3 or 4-man team working on it, myself included in the calculation, ofcourse. :)
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Anyone else that'd care to chip in? :)
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So, sort of like Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad and Planetside 2 mixed in? Interesting, I'd like to see that.
Speaking of a team, I've been doing mapping for Men of War since it came out. I could get a really nice map, if I'm given the time and ideas on what to make.
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RO:2 and PS2 with spaceships. The battles would be taking part in aerial battles between two groups of spaceships, each with their own crew, as mentioned before. Also, land battles may take part in larger citites, if there are any present on the map.
The first rough idea for a map i have is a terran planet, with fields, gentle hills and a major city in the middle. :)
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Have a look at the game Stellar Impact, you might be able to see what they've done right and what they've done wrong, and improve your game design as a result.
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heh, upgrade, you certainly don't lack ambition....
I like the idea, to be sure. But ideas are soo easy to come by these days.... Odds are you're gonna have to cut out a lot of things before the game comes to fruition....
I'm making a flash game right now (hence the [programming] threads) and I'm definitely feeling the pressure sometimes. There are things in your vision you'll simply have to leave out due to performance, budget, difficulty, and all that stuff.
But then I'm a one man team in high school so I guess you'll have a easier time...
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I'm making a flash game right now (hence the [programming] threads) and I'm definitely feeling the pressure sometimes. There are things in your vision you'll simply have to leave out due to performance, budget, difficulty, and all that stuff.
Totally know where you are coming from, though, i'm gonna go on KS (kickstarter), and then, well, i am after all, gonna have a team. Heh. :)
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Dude just buy some programers, make them make you your game and that is it ;D No seriously with game budget you have you could, totally, buy some small game studio. (hey did you know that THQ is on sale?)
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And where am i supposed to get that kind of money? It isn't an small amount, yunno.
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KS is a hard sell. I know someone who tried funding via KS and that failed miserably.
Even if it does work, people are gonna be having much different expectations than you are which combined with the sense of entitlement (they helped make it happen) can result in a bad community. Also god help you when you try to cut an advertised feature (which you inevitably will have to).
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People should realise that it's just an idea at this point, nothing practical has been done yet. Although, KS might make people entitled, it'd be one of the only ways to fund it. And, i'd have to make sure the community wouldn't grow bad, that's among the worst possible things that could happen.
I also do happen to know alot of people that have failed, simply because they set the goal too high, and don't advertise. Advertising is key, but also, no entitlement.
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Oh, and also, what would be the best way to avoid entitelism? :)
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I would recommend this (http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself.html)
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Ah, great.
I was thinking of having up to 500 player servers for the larger maps, but i don't know, is that possible?
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Sounds like quite the AAA game... Sounds like you will have to dedicate your life to this.
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Meh, dedicating my entire life to this isn't needed. Though, during development, perhaps, yeah.
And also, i mean, look at minecraft. AFAIK, there are already 1000 ppl servers there, so why not make it possible here too?
Course, then i'd have to sell the game for above 20 $/€, or 10-15£.
This is doable with a 4 or 5 man team, right? Over the course of 3-5 years?
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What previous games have you made/been involved in?
So far this sounds a lot like the frequent "How do i make an mmorpg?" questions we get in the newbie section of java-gaming.org.
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So far, two, though they have been minor/decently sized flash games.
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Sounds like it would be a combo of SW Battlefront II (the space battles) and PS2 which would be AMAZING. You could play defensive and man turrets or repair critical systems, jump in a fighter to intercept enemy ships, grab a bomber or shuttle and take the fight to the enemy. Would be a blast. I wants it now. :P
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heh, yeah, you'd actually be able to pilot fighters, onboard carriers. As for ground battles, i can't really say, i'd put it up as a stretch goal. :)
Cities would then have anti-ship cannons, to defend against ships that try to roflstomp groundforces. :)
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This is doable with a 4 or 5 man team, right? Over the course of 3-5 years?
basically.... no
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Why not? I mean, why wouldn't it be? Just saying no without any longer explanation doesn't sound like anything i'd take too seriously. Atleast, not for something that i'd seriously go on doing with.
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let's see, comparing this to PS2:
100-500sq km
planetside 2 is 192 sq km (right now)
3-4 factions featured at launch
planetside had 3 at launch
Missiles, kinetics, lasers, anti-matter, ECM, ECCM, etc.
more complex than most FPS, including planetside 2
with the ships being fully rendered inside then
The largest planned ship would be able to hold up to 150 players.
that's hard to imagine, there are GAMES made of smaller maps than this
and a major city in the middle.
it takes an ungodly amount of time and assets to render a city in enough details for an FPS, there's a reason PS2 had outposts and fields
I was thinking of having up to 500 player servers for the larger maps
where would you get those servers? SOE had 2000 players in PS2
All in all, again, sounds like an AAA game close to the scale of PS2.... AAA games aren't made by 4-5 man teams organised by a fresh college graduate with no publisher and KS-level budget
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@gunnyfreak You know, you gonna crush his dream... And good parents let their children make mistakes so they can learn from it.
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@gunnyfreak You know, you gonna crush his dream... And good parents let their children make mistakes so they can learn from it.
Unless there is considerable amount of money involved, sorry, but I have to agree with gunnyfreak on this
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hey... it's hard to waste so much time on your dream game only to find out that it can't be done.... That's how my first project went....
Hence, a far less ambitious flash game this time for me, at least get something done first, right?
advise to upgrade:
start with something less ambitious, like a simple, arcadey shooter or something... work your way up.
as far as I know you're still a few years away from the age you said you would start this, why not put that to use?
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Well, surely i will. And btw, minecraft, has 500+ player servers, hell, they have even up to 1000 player servers. And besidea, what is so bad about kikcstarter? I mean, I'm not going to try and raise millions upon millions of dollars, just enough to make the core game. Which is ship-to-ship combat. Ground combat would be added as an bonus, if that stretchgoal was to be reached. And why are you drawing refrences to PS2 only? This isn't going to be an FPS. Sure, everything will be controlled in a FPS-y manner, and ground combat would br made in a FPS manner, but the core is ship to ship combat. That's like calling guns of icarus online to be an FPS.
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Late to the Party but I think its very, very ambitious.
1. Skill - you will need good programmers, artists ect
2.Scale/scope- f me the maps will be huge, scale it back to reasonable levels and start small, patch it up like Minecraft and Firefall.
3. Money to get the people and assets you need money and shite tons, so KS will be slightly useful, maybe use money got from that to try and get investors.
4. Man power- you will need a lot more than 3-5 people, say 2-4 programmers, 3+++++ artists, servers people.
5. your making a MMO!!!- This is the hardest and most risk intensive type of game, so be realllllllly careful.
I hope this was constructive and helpful, most importantly run it like a business and still have fun and yyou should succeed (if the market wants it)
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It's not really that much of an MMO, though. Singleplayer training and matches might be a future too, though. I'd imagine it to tilt towards the scale of a smaller MMO, but still retain that good feeling, not just feel like something big and corporate. I'd like it to feel like the MMO World of Tanks or Warplanes. That kind of feeling seems good for me. :)
But yeah, i guess you could see it as an Indie MMO. :)
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WoT and WoA are huggggggggge they have hundreds of servers, but a indie-MMO would be correct in definition.
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Well, yeah. I wonder, servers can have 500 players on them, in a game like this?
Also, if we where to make it to the ground battles stretch goal, we might make the buildings raze-able. Since the ships are going to be modular, withe each component individually damaged, why not apply that to buildings aswell? :)
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Well, the idea is good, i'd play a game like that. Damn, i played the heck out of Battlefront 2 exactly because i loved those big space fights with fighters and stuff blowing up and lazors everywhere!
But.
It's a big project. And by big, i mean enormous.
Even scaling it down a bit, it's still a too big jump from your previous experiences, you need to take it slowly, step by step. :)
Some time ago I had an idea for a game, a "simple" RTS that would be used in my final exams in University. Since then I took a lot of steps back because i realized that i had neither the know-how (on this i'd like to say thanks to Alex, looking at how things like ships, skills and weapons are handled code-wise gave me a lot of food for thought lately :) ) nor the time for such a task. So i took out 3d graphics, real time and a lot of other thingies. Now at least i have a chance at making something out of my ideas in the next 2 years. Maybe.
I know you're excited for your project and you want to make something that will be remembered forever, but for each step forward you have to take your time and think. Thinking is the most important thing to do when you're developing: you may be a code-bender for what i know, but if you don't start thinking a LOT before everything you do you won't go anywhere. And while this is less true for small projects (i don't have to think for ten hours before coding a simple calculator) it is the most important thing for something like this :)
So, my simple advice is: take all the time you need. Learn, experiment, start from scratch for ten times, but whatever you do: never rush ahead of your possibilities. ;)
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I think i'm correct in saying that you aren't the first one to tell me that. And i have to say, yeah, you are correct. Never rush ahead and leave something bad or unfinished in your wake. So, i guess i have alot of time until then to gain experience. Hell, as of yet, i haven't even completed college. Haha, but i am nevertheless very ambitious about it, though.
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I think i'm correct in saying that you aren't the first one to tell me that. And i have to say, yeah, you are correct. Never rush ahead and leave something bad or unfinished in your wake. So, i guess i have alot of time until then to gain experience. Hell, as of yet, i haven't even completed college. Haha, but i am nevertheless very ambitious about it, though.
I thought I said that! ;D
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No one said making a game would be easy. :) I might take a course in college about game design, it's interesting and might be a fun and fulfilling experience. :)
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wow sounds great. too bad game design really isn't an industry at my place, else i would have studied that :\
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Soldier, you might wanna see this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmdGZk-fF98
not saying they're necessarily right, but it's probably worth considering
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That one was actually pretty good, gunnyfreak. Never actually knew that colleges did that, though. Oh well.
wow sounds great. too bad game design really isn't an industry at my place, else i would have studied that :\
I think you'd be kinda better off with modeling and texturing for games, seeing as you are already really good at it. :)
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Thanks for that. :) I was thinking about taking a more classical degree, then moving on the games industry. Not quiet ready to learn all the engines just yet, or even in three years. ;) I wonder what Alex or Ivalyo, David took.
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Thanks for that. :) I was thinking about taking a more classical degree, then moving on the games industry. Not quiet ready to learn all the engines just yet, or even in three years. ;)
Well, i was thinking of going straight for games development. The pro with the college i am applying to here is not that you just get to learn how to use other engines, and different ones, but you also get to learn on how to create your own ones (to a certain degree - no AAA title engines here, though ;))
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If you actually start something like this, please let me do some art ;D. I love doing art of mechanized things, but I'm not so good at spaceships. I might be kinda rusty though, but I just love drawing mechanical things, and detailing every wire and servo :D.