MMORPG Poll

[robject]

For my never-finished Traveller Online, I chose to model the travel delay. A contributing factor to that was my own lack of time to spend playing; I might have a small chunk of time in the morning, and a few minutes during coffee break, lunch, and afternoon break, but probably no time in the evenings. Hence, time would flow in such a way that ~ 2.3 hours was the time it took to jump from one system to another; close enough to fit my schedule of work-breaks.

I usually feel like dusting it off and working on it in the Springtime. Hmmmm. Last year, I split the client completely from the database, and had a true 3-tier system. The client talks to the server via a text protocol, meaning anyone who wanted to could develop their own client in their language of choice.

I still have the link. The server's not up, so you can't run it

http://home.comcast.net/~downport/etc/tol/index.html

 

[Jame]

Originally posted by Jame:
I'm still waiting for Hunter to answer, nay, even look at, my PM...

I'm still waiting for Hunter to answer, nay, even look at, my PM...

 

[Jame]

Originally posted by Jame:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Jame:
I'm still waiting for Hunter to answer, nay, even look at, my PM...

I'm still waiting for Hunter to answer, nay, even look at, my PM... </font>[/QUOTE]I'm still waiting for Hunter to answer, nay, even look at, my PM...

 

[Jame]

Originally posted by Jame:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Jame:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Jame:
I'm still waiting for Hunter to answer, nay, even look at, my PM...

I'm still waiting for Hunter to answer, nay, even look at, my PM... </font>[/QUOTE]I'm still waiting for Hunter to answer, nay, even look at, my PM... </font>[/QUOTE]I'm still waiting for Hunter to answer, nay, even look at, my PM...

 

[dshaw]

Originally posted by whartung:
So, where's the multiplayer aspect to this? Is this basically a convoluted intersystem stock/market trading SIM?

Sorry for my late reply I have been out of town and offline.

The multiplayer aspect is that there is no real limit to the number of players connected to the game at any time. Everyone playing will be connected to the server through their browser, able to send chat messages around to everyone else playing.

You will be able to trade cash, cargo and objects to each other through the game interface.

Travel time will be quick between systems and planets because it is boring on a browser and tolerated on 3D games. Our goal is a fun game.

The game would be real time and use character expenses, such as starship expenses, ratioed on a per action basis rather than per time period basis. For example a jump normally takes 1 week so therefore a jump would cost a fraction (1/4 of a month) of mortgage, fuel, life support and crew salary costs for each one made.

If you have anymore questions post them here or message me.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I'm assuming that a group of players could band together to all be crewmembers on the same ship. What if one or more don't log in to play one night, and the other players jump the ship to another system. Would the characters of the players not logged in go with the ship, or stay behind?

 

[hirch duckfinder]

yes yes yes. unreserved yes. take my money and give me traveller.

 

[Morte]

I do wonder how many of the people voting for "merchant trading" really mean precisely that (sort of Railroad Tycoon in space), and how many mean "merchants who get to use their shotguns a lot then blow town in a Marava".

Might be worth a follow-up poll.

 

[Burocrate]

I have to admit, by "merchant trading" I meant buy/sell stuff for expenses while shooting, running, and/or stealing sophants/things. Does this make me a bad person...NO, just a bad person to stand next to.

 

[whartung]

The multiplayer aspect is that there is no real limit to the number of players connected to the game at any time. Everyone playing will be connected to the server through their browser, able to send chat messages around to everyone else playing.

You will be able to trade cash, cargo and objects to each other through the game interface.

Travel time will be quick between systems and planets because it is boring on a browser and tolerated on 3D games. Our goal is a fun game.

I'm still not clear on what the game is.

Fun doing what? Just trading? Pit(tm) In Space? Is this a solo game with a chat room? A bunch of folks sitting around a virtual table playing Merchant Solitaire? How do folks get together and Do Things, and what kinds of Things to they do?

I'm not trying to be myopic about How Things Should Work, but I am curious what the game does.

As an aside, I had a MMORPG "moment" last night playing WoW. One of the things that seperates the genre from other games.

I had hooked up with a complete stranger, helping them out with a quest to kill 3 monsters in a underground complex saturated with other monsters to get in the way.

We had fought our way in, killed the 3 targets and were fighting our way out when through the door pops out a Dwarf. Another player. Simultaneously, the dwarf /waves at me as I /wave back, because I've had a casual relationship with this player for several weeks and we recognized each other. We just keep crossing paths, and we chit chat a bit locally when it happens. We had teamed up only once before and he's not even on my Friends list.

But, nonetheless, it's like stumbling upon an old acquaintance while vacationing in Vegas or something. You walk out of someplace and Hey! There's Bob! What are you doing here...bla bla etc. etc.

Meanwhile, my companion is waiting patiently while we go through our pleasantries, because it's simply not really safe for him to go off alone, and not really polite to leave another behind.

This is the kind of thing that has nothing to do with game mechanics, quests, trading, hit points, etc. But because of the nature of the world, you easily set up these casual relationships with others, and it's nice when you stumble upon someone you know, particularly in a dark dungeon.

So, when I think MMORPG, I think of the social interaction that makes the game particularly interesting, and I was curious what you were thinking for your design.

 

[dshaw]

Currently what we are proposing is a browser based MMORPG, much in the style of Profiteer.ca, where the graphics are 2D or small animation since it is really a web page. Players would be able to "surf" the game with as many options of actions and interactions as in the Traveller RPG.

The limitations would be the 3D animated real time interaction as in WoW. I understand the cool social interactions that can occur in such games. We plan to offer that by the use of a chat system so that players can communicate and coordinate actions together.

Aspects of the game under development are Gun Combat adventures for people interested in Mercenary tickets, ground combat adventures and quests. Ship combat for people interested in piracy or into space travel and unfortunate enough to encounter a pirate. This would include ship combat actions based around piracy, anti-piracy, fighting Ancient interstellar equipment, all of these scenarios possibly ending in boarding actions and another form of gun combat. All elements from Traveller.

The other elements would include merchant trading, real estate ownership, infrastructure development on planets, becoming nobility and governorship of planets. Even starting your own colonies.

 

[Kayleb]

very interested.

 

[Jamus]

sounds fun

 

[JAFARR]

I couldn't wait to get Freelancer because the description on the box sounded liker Traveller. Instead it was just slightly advanced Elite once you got past the planned adventure. I had a roommate who got to the next to highest level in Elite and had about 80 more hours of playing time and still could not make the Elite level. I did not get that far because I spent more time in other activities. My point is basicly you could read the planet"s description but all you saw was the buy/sell & repair/upgrade ship portions of the planet. All you did in space was shoot things and try to survive until you got safely docked again. Freelancer gave you a little more to do, but it was still a far cry from Traveller. I want to see a Traveller version of "Evercrack" where you advance in skills and gain better equipment due to your past actions. Allow experience to be spent in a "mini-school" to gain or increase a skill vs. gain more hit points or whatever.

Got to go work time is here to fast again.

 

[slyen2002]

Hey! This is cool.... I thought I started a topic on this a while back. Dunno what happened to it or not *shrug* dosen't matter anymore. Like I said then: I like the idea emmnsly. However I wonder if the game would cost money to play or be free?

 

[marvo]

Originally posted by Klaus:
-snip-
Marrying space-trading to starship combat and on foot/in vehicle bits is the holy grail, methinks, when it comes to computer games.
-snip-

There's a game called Universal Combat that does all of those pretty well. It's also very open ended in that you can basically fly off and explore, pirate, trade etc. anywhere you want. You can find it as a budget title as it never sold very well. Part of the reason for that is the steep learning curve.

Each mode of transport has a different set of controls and there are a lot of them. I don't remember the company that made it but, if it's any help, they also made the BattleCruiser line of space combat games.

 

[Maladominus]

I edited my post.

At first my post was being pessimistic at the idea of a Traveller MMORPG because I believed that it's just a pipe dream that a few players here were dreaming of.

Then I realized that the original poster of this Poll was actually Hunter. And so I now realize that the Ancient Traveller Gods themselves are the ones throwing this idea about....

So now I change my mind.... to being in FULL suppport of any project or effort to push ahead with a Traveller MMORPG.

 

[Maladominus]

And if someone knows enough about MUDs/MUSH.... if you know of any powerful MUD/MUSH design tools that are flexible, powerful, highly scriptable.... please point me to that way, and I will investigate and research the possibility of a Traveller-based MUD.

 

[kafka47]

Now, that would be a truly lovely thing if it came about...I choose the Long Night Scout/Exploritory missions as everything can be accomodated under that rubric. Trading leading to world governing follow step-in-toe.

Hope that you can pull it off Hunter. With the ever growing sophisication of Computer Imagining, I would not be surprised just have to get a way to communicate what Traveller is all about.

Did you get that 2min commercial to proceed Serenity that I requested be place. :devil

But, seriously, there must be free places on the web or in magazines that we can get Traveller known to a larger audience.

 

[polypterus]

Being a programmer and a Traveller fan I've been thinking a lot about how to do a Traveller MMORPG. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter.

The first problem is the volume of data involved. The best possible scenario would be to implement hundreds (if not thousands) of full sized planets. At firsts this would seem impossible. However I believe there is a solution. Planets would be generated with fractal routines during jump time. With this system only a minimum amount of basic information would need to be stored for each planet. Planetary polygons would only be stored for active systems (those with players in them) and only at a rough level. As characters walked or flew around a plant, further fractal refinement of landscape, vegetation etc would take place. All polygon generation is done on both server side (i.e. the central controlling pool of computers) and client side (i.e. your computer). The server generation is required for the pathing and placement of MOBs. Client side generation (at a more detailed level) is just required for graphics. Since both sides have the same seeds for their fractal routines the same landscape, rives, cities etc. will be generated in both places and also when players leave and come back to the same area.

Cities would be generated from sets of standard building blocks again using fractal routines to select the actual combination of blocks used. For instance a basic block shaped building might first be selected with some number of floors. Then the layout for each floor would be randomly selected. Next the layout of each room on that floor would be selected. Finally a texture mapping scheme could be selected on a room by room basis or perhaps for the whole floor or building. This would all be done as a character approaches buildings, floors and rooms. The same system can apply to the placement of buildings and general layout of the city.

Rives can be done with rainfall simulation routines on the rough model of the planet when the planet is be generated during jump time. As with the rest of the landscape they are later refined during player walk around. Roads between cities can be done in a similar fashion using routing routines.

In this scheme MOB generation presents a whole new set of problems. They would need to be generated on the fly as players enter or leave sections of the planet. Routing routines (maze routers etc) would be used to control pathing. In cities NPCs can be generated in combination with buildings. For instance a small store would always have a sales person to help you.

One major difference between this scheme and current MMORPG design is the worst case CPU and memory consumption scenario. In MMORPGs that have dedicated servers to handle particular zones, the worst case is that all players are in one zone. In this scenario the worst case is probably that all players are in different zones because a zone would have to be running for each player. Therefore computing power would have to be provided based on the total game subscription. On the other hand, multiple instances of the universe would not be required.

Of course there are other issues like quests, skills, etc. However I think the game scale problem is the major hurdle and if someone could get over this they would be most of the way there.

I have some other ideas on how to implement starships and space travel but I'll leave those for later.

So now if someone will hire me for this I'll gladly switch jobs

Alaric