Uberworlds - Mission Statement

[Faille]

Uberworlds is a community based mmo project.

The goal is to allow people with interest in creating an mmo to contribute to the project at their own pace, without the huge workload of trying to make it all themselves.

The increasing number of middleware development kits emerging should also allow for much easier implementation of ideas and allow people to get right into putting their designs into action.

Another aim is to make sure we can track everyone's contribution, so people will have a portfolio of actually implemented stuff that they can show prospective employers, their friends, or just use to increase their epeen.

Keep in mind this project is all about implementation. If you just want to talk and discuss general mmo ideas, then you can do in in the mmo discussion forum. If you have a great idea you post here, be prepared to put your money where you mouth is and implement. Hopefully we'll have people who will help you, and give you some feedback, but at the end of the day, you'll be the one responsible for your own ideas.


How this works:

tbh, no idea. Any and all sugguestions on the practical way to put into practice what I'm about to describe are greatly welcome. What I envisage happening though, is people using the forums to put forth their ideas and get feedback so iron them out.

Once they have a good idea of what they want, they'll put up on the wiki (coming soon) and create a sub project (on the project software, also coming soon). They can then list all the tasks that will be needed, art, coding, etc, they need.

There is the scope in the setting to allow for people to make their own themed mini mmo, but I would sugguest people start with small stuff in existing worlds before jumping on that.

The flip side is people who just want to do specific things like art and coding. They can look up the project list and see person a needs a dragon model, so they can do that and send it in to that person to use.

[Mist]

We should probably get some very basic polls up to cover things like genre choice especially.

[Tuco]

Interesting.

I don't really know where you're at in development of this project but I have a few basic questions from mostly a business side rather than a design one:

1. What engine will you be developing on?
2. What server hosting are you considering using?

Also, I'd suggest a thread where people who are serious about developing can post a resume/bio.

[Faille]

Good idea.

As for stage of development, right at the start. No engine has been decided yet, but I'm leaning towards Multiverse since I've been following it more then any other.


As for hosting, Uberguilds will host it until such time it needs somethign bigger or more dedicated. Can cross that bridge when we come to it.

[Requiem]

I don't forsee the need to ever host it off-site. Could happen, but doubtful. I have enough spare servers at this point to do quite a bit of that type of work. I will attempt to provide a centralized version control system or anything else along those lines if it's needed as well.

[Zuuljin]

So how does this work? We post new threads for idea's? Post idea's in this thread? More to come?

I'll lay down one concept I'v been thinking about, but will wait for the appropriate place and time.

[splok]

interesting to be doing this officially... i'm sure there will be mountains of stupid unless the moderation is super heavy (please), but if any community should be able to put something decent out there, it's this one

[xilsharn]

interesting...

[Braen]

Yeah I have some ideas for a guild v. Guild pvp system... maybe I can make them happen...

[Faille]

My personal opinion is to make the game focus on enjoyment of playing, rather then time invested. So people should play constantly because they enjoy it rather then because more time equals more power. So I want to avoid needless timesinks and crap like that.

[Braen]

Originally Posted by Faille

My personal opinion is to make the game focus on enjoyment of playing, rather then time invested. So people should play constantly because they enjoy it rather then because more time equals more power. So I want to avoid needless timesinks and crap like that.

Exactly. That is why, I believe, that DAoC had a great idea that they ruined. When DAoC was mostly about Realm Vs. Realm, it was a pretty good game with a loyal fan base. It's when they made ToA and made the game, grind out PvE content to get Master levels in order to be effective in RvR, that DAoC lost it's edge.

I have always wanted guilds to mean more than just being a glorified chat room. EQ2 had some great ideas but I want to take it further. I want a "Shadowbanesque" type guild system where guilds compete with one another for land, titles, trophies, glory and even the game world(s) itself.

My main idea I have been working on was created during EQ1 and seeing their deity system. Now, and then, all the deities are basically loot mobs and faction. I want them to mean more.

I created a system where individuals and guilds can align themselves with a deity and that deity would grant Spells/Abilities/Advantages/Disadvantages. I called it my SAAD™ System. I also wanted to take an idea from Black and White and use a NPC "Belief" system where followers of the different Dieties would do quests/tasks/projects that effected their belief in the diety you and your guild followed. This NPC belief would make your deity more powerful, therefore increasing it's effect on the SAAD™ System.

I also wanted to build a dynamic quest system that could create content, with or without active dev interaction, that would create quests based on local or global situations. For example, let's say you are a follower of an evil god. You go to yoru guilds temple and the Avatar of the god says, "go to soandso city and poison their drinking water" You have to figure out how you can accomplish this. Once done, the townsfolk will gain belief in your god as you have done this in his name. This adds to the evil gods belief.

Now conversely the quest system would react to this. and the opposing deities temples could give a quest to cure the poison and counteract the work of the evil god.

Anyway, back to thinking more about it... Let me know what you think.

[Tuco]

If I were you (Faille) or the person in charge I'd try to keep the first iteration of development just making the central hub with all the technology and players in a game, and once you have that I'd start worrying about making sub-universes.

As I'm sure you're aware, the problem most of these ideas face is people lose interest once they realize the incredible difficulty and time investment because they made their goals too high initially. Having a small scope for the first release of the game would mitigate that somewhat.

Also, having the platform built already will tell experienced developers that you're not making vaporware, and will attract a much better group of people to develop it.

[Nicjac]

In my opinion if you are serious about it, you should get a prototype running with some placeholder stuff. Have a single zone, basic characters implementation, a working chat system. From there you can expend, first get everything running perfectly in this single zone then start working on zone connections, etc...

[Vatoreus]

Another thing that would help is having different teams dedicated to different parts of your world. It may be a bit more difficult, but once you flesh out the central rules and how the world will work, all that is left is applying that to the different worlds.

A few of my friends and I are currently working on developing a Steampunk/Fantasy setting that we would like to translate into an MMO, perhaps this would be a good place to focus ourselves too.

[Dis]

The Asheron's Call thread got me nostalgic.

One thing I remember was the amount of month to month content Turbine would come out with the progress their storyline. Which apparently they had laid out well in advance before the release of AC. The engine? for designing and publishing dungeons was apparently very simple and easy to use. So following that premise, should the engine or at least from a design standpoint follow the KISS principle?

Edit: I forgot to expound on the storyline, is there something in place? or are you still needing ideas/writers etc?