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This is an
approximate roadmap to the places we'd like to end up.
Frankly, much of the timing and result relies heavily on
how fast we generate community involvement and upon the
sorts of people that have the time and inclination to become
involved. Check the news
page for the latest. |
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Develop
a MMOG and FPS |
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We are actively
searching for creative, artistic minds that
should be able to devise something better than the
typical spawn camp experience |
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Develop an exciting FPS that will help bring the canon
to life and to develop techniques, assets, and a team
to build the MMOG |
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Our current
focus: |
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Restructure and develop design doc for new MMOG
setting, FPS |
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Develop core system:
combat, weapons, skills |
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Develop core system:
Questing, NPC interactivity |
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Develop diverse,
engaging background with lots of potential conflict |
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Develop assets:
weapons, terrain/buildings, organic models |
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Our current
plan calls for a relatively slow implementation
cycle. It's important to us that our world be
detailed, innovative, and bug-free. |
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Share the resources we
build, help fuel the indie development community |
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Avoid big, empty
spaces that are there just for the sake of size. |
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Avoid big, empty
spaces that are there just to keep people online. |
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Stress involvement in
a real, functioning world. Relationships. Stuff
happens when you're not around... politics change,
mobs react, power shifts. Break eggs, make omelette. |
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Variety: Different
manufacturers for same item, different stats and
models. Modular, player built weapons. |
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Innovate questing that
changes on the fly. Stuff to do that isn't like
running a courier service. Targets that flee and
leave a trail, quests that change dynamically as you
pursue them. Automated story-telling. |
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Combat should
emphasize tactics, whether with hand weapons,
vehicles or spacecraft. |
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Include as many
user-adds as possible, maybe even player-uploaded
textures and custom object creation system. |
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Because the MMOG
is based on a constantly developing
shared universe,
it's a simple, natural process to build resources
(art, story ideas, and mechanics) that function for the canon,
the FPS, and the MMOG
interchangeably. If we're aware of where we're going
with things, some of it will "just fall into
place" (mmm... yeah... that's how it'll
work...) |
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Possible
platforms |
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Multiverse.
Early beta, alpha tools public. Pay structure
seems flexible enough to effectively and slowly
build a fanbase. Large, vocal community with active,
intelligent forums. Not bad pay scheme, good
"official response" time. |
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Realm
Crafter. Looks to be a potentially easy start,
though it may be more limited in modability. No
license fees or hosting. Custom script and Blitz
rather than python/lua/java... boo. Promising
resources. Good independently hosted forums with an
intelligent community hosted at MMOGMaker.com. Major
update coming. |
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Torque. Wow.
This is currently our favourite because of its
flexibility, power, and enormous community. Torque
would allow us to develop and spin off single player
games that highlight and stress various areas of the
MMOG systems. It is a full, mature stand-alone game
engine capable of far more than just a MMOG. |
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Build
and detail the Canon |
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More detail: Technology.
Flesh out how the universe works, current and
historical tech levels. Focus will be on that which
appears in the MMOG and which can be used as
resources in other games. |
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More detail: History.
Convey sense of a changing universe and how it got to
be that way. Focus will be on a dirty, abandoned world
in the Badlands. The look and feel will be sci fi and
somewhat apocalyptic with a definite mood. |
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More detail: Art. Art
illustrates, makes the background more tangible.
Makes the webpage look nicer, too. Focus on low-poly
art that can be used interchangeably as MMOG model
and canon art. |
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More
detail: Writing. Develop historic, background, and
atmosphere short stories to build the history and feel
of the setting as a whole. |
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