March 2007
- [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Andreas Weidenhaupt
- [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Morris Cox
- [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Michael Hartman
- [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Andreas Weidenhaupt
- [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Michael Hartman
- [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Mike Rozak
- [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Andreas Weidenhaupt
- [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Damion Schubert
- [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Andreas Weidenhaupt
- [NEWS] Trident Games Prepares New Online Game Using Skotos Engine Shannon Appelcline
- [TECH] MMOG Design List Weston Fryatt
- [TECH] MMOG Design List Lachek Butalek
- [TECH] MMOG Design List Adam Martin
- [TECH] MMOG Design List Mike Rozak
- [TECH] MMOG Design List Weston Fryatt
- [TECH] MMOG Design List Hyrup, Darrin
- [TECH] MMOG Design List Morgan Ramsay
- [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work mud-dev-list@jaruzel.com
- [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work Lachek Butalek
- [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work Sean Howard
- [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work David Johansson
- [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work Lachek Butalek
- [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work David Johansson
- [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work Keith Dunwoody
- [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work Sean Howard
- [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Morris Cox
- [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Caliban Darklock
- [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Adam Martin
- [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rantagainst Vanguard reviews and rants) Craig Huber
- [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Morris Cox
- [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Jeffrey Kesselman
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments John Buehler
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jeffrey Kesselman
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments John Buehler
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Damion Schubert
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Tess Snider
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments John Buehler
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Adam Martin
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jeffrey Kesselman
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Mike Rozak
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jeffrey Kesselman
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jeffrey Kesselman
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jeffrey Kesselman
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Acius
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jeffrey Kesselman
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Mike Rozak
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Chris Richards
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments John Buehler
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Ling Lo
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments John Buehler
- [ANNOUNCE] Magic Study John Buehler
- [ANNOUNCE] Magic Study Mike Sellers
- [ANNOUNCE] Magic Study John Buehler
- [ANNOUNCE] Magic Study John Buehler
- [TECH] Randomly-generated Faction Names cruise
- [TECH] Randomly-generated Faction Names John Buehler
- [TECH] Randomly-generated Faction Names Johnicholas Hines
- [TECH] Randomly-generated Faction Names Lachek Butalek
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments John Buehler
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Adam Martin
- [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jon Leonard
- [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Sean Howard
- [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Morris Cox
On 3/10/07, Sean Howard <squidi@squidi.net> wrote:
>
> "Morris Cox" <morriscox@gmail.com> wrote:
> > That is what I'm really interested in. I suspect that a company could
> > make a lot of $$$ by building something like that and then selling
> > licenses to it. Releasing it as open source and for free would greatly
> > increase adoption;
>
> Man, I wish that were true, but I really doubt that it would be
> financially successful at all. In general, programs that make games don't
> sell particularly well - most of the time, they are pirated. I'd love to
> see a comparison between how many copies RPG Maker 2000 sold compared to
> how many individuals have actually released games for it (especially since
> it was never released outside of Japan). Stuff like Click n' Play,
> Multimedia Fusion, and even Flash enjoy a huge amateur development
> community, and yet are almost always pirated versions (Flash succeeds on
> professional adoption, not garage developers).
Adam Martin did list a few. Sadly enough, I do see evidence for what
you mean about the piracy. Of course, MMOG development kits/tools
aren't really that easy to find in the first place, not to mention
needing the infrastructure for development, testing and deployment.
> Likewise, open source engines are out there, like the Ryzom one and the
> Java whatchamacallit, but the problem with open source is that it is
> usually very unfriendly to casual experimentation. That's why RedHat makes
> money - it didn't invent Linux. It may it manageable for the end user.
> I've found most open source projects tend to get adopted only by the most
> hardcore techie, and those guys tend to be too competent with what's there
> to really use each feature "incorrectly" - and hardcore techies tend to
> lack a certain creative imagination as well.
Casual experimentation of anything computer/Internet related isn't
likely to be easy. HTML is pretty easy, but you'll need a program (for
validation) if you want to do XHTML Strict. I don't consider anything
to do with programming as being easy since you're not allowed to get
away with errors. You do make an excellent point. Easy to use
interfaces are a pain to make. The scale of a MMOG (let alone any
game) makes it all that much harder (a lot more interactions to
consider).
I do have a "certain creative imagination"; however, don't ask me to
do any graphics. :) (Okay, so my "certain creative imagination" tends
to have quite a geek slant.)
> I'm not saying that it couldn't happen, but it would have to be created
> under a very specific philosophy, much like Wikipedia (which is a terrible
> encyclopedia, but a successful communal project).
That would certainly increase the chances of success as it provides
more of a focus.
> > What would be better is a system that
> > would allow use of multiple languages so long as there was an
> > interface between them. One developer could use C++ while another
> > developer could use Java (or C# or PHP or XML, etc.) and still
> > interoperate.
>
> The newest version of Java has a built-in scripting language system, so
> one guy could use Python, another JavaScript, Ruby, Forth, Perl, and so
> on. It's a novel approach, but I wouldn't dare use every scripting
> language at the same time for one project. Once you know one or two
> languages, you can pick up a new one really quickly (one can start
> programming a new language in about an hour), so adoption is not a
> significant problem. However, a babel problem could slow the project down
> to a crawl.
>
> --
> Sean Howard
Cool that Java has that now. I do wish they would update it so that it
doesn't knock Vista out of Aero (even temporarily). Agreed that trying
to use a lot of languages would be a disaster in the making. The point
I was trying to make is that allowing the use of more than one
language might lower the "barrier to entry" and make it easier for
those who don't know the same programming language to collaborate.
--
Morris Cox
- [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Morris Cox
- [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Michael Hartman
- [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Jean, Yannick
- [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Michael Hartman
- [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Damion Schubert
- [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Jeffrey Kesselman
- Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] cruise
- Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] John Buehler
- Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] Sean Howard
- Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] Michael Hartman
- Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] Jeffrey Kesselman
- Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] cruise
- Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] Jeffrey Kesselman
- [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Jeffrey Kesselman
- [DESIGN] Turn Around Time On Experimentation (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Adam Martin
- [ANNOUNCE] What Makes A Next-Gen Game? Morgan Ramsay
- [ANNOUNCE] What Makes A Next-Gen Game? Lachek Butalek
- [DESIGN] Multiplayer interactive fiction Mike Rozak
- [DESIGN] Multiplayer interactive fiction John Buehler
- [DESIGN] Multiplayer interactive fiction Paolo Piselli
- [DESIGN] Multiplayer interactive fiction Mike Rozak
- [BIZ] Austin Game Conference Contacts? Jeffrey Kesselman
- [BIZ] Austin Game Conference Contacts? Daniel James
- [MEDIA] A good, hour-long news segment about Second Life Mike Rozak
- Combat Systems (was: Reasons for Play) Adam Martin
- Combat Systems (was: Reasons for Play) Adam Martin
- Combat Systems (was: Reasons for Play) Hudson, Thomas C.
- Combat Systems (was: Reasons for Play) Jeffrey Kesselman
- Combat Systems (was: Reasons for Play) Kerry Fraser-Robinson
- Combat Systems (was: Reasons for Play) Jeffrey Kesselman
- [Announce] CircumReality - A grahical MUD (kind of) develoment toolkit Mike Rozak
- Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Hudson, Thomas C.
- Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Jeffrey Kesselman
- Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Shannon Sullivan
- Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Dana V. Baldwin
- Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Jeffrey Kesselman
- Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Tess Snider
- Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguardreviews and rants) Richard A. Bartle