My edited posts: Please accept my apologies.

[Blister]

My edited many of my original posts: Please accept my apologies. I have gone over many of my suggestion posts and either trimmed them down, or in some cases removed the content altogether. To everyone who took the time to reply to these posts, I would like to sincerely apologise for hacking the original topics up. Some of them were multi-screen epics and took a substantial amount of reading and consideration on behalf of the repliers. I left many topics in place in only the barest form, sometimes reducing them to only the topic post title. This is why. I realised that for many years I have been yearning for something in an MMO. I don't like 'churning' and trying out something else, only to abandon it all and start again with something fresh. I have done this repeatedly since I left Ultima Online after almost three years of very enjoyable play. Many of the friends I made in UO had been playing for five and six years. Had I not taken extreme exception to the shift in focus 'Age of Shadows' introduced, I would be still there too. I read back over my posts in the suggestion boards and thought, ?Gee you carry on sometimes!? I had every intention of only posting for one week and then leaving the suggestions board, but somehow, the posting became more enjoyable than the game is currently (for me ? just a personal thing). Then I imagined some people thinking, while going over some of the more lunatic suggestions, ?Well if you don't like it, then why don't you write your own game.? And then it hit me. ?WHY BLOODY NOT!? I won't be so tacky or naff as to promote it here, but thats exactly what I intend to do. I understand the total grind it can be; I worked on single player game for years before that finally got released, and I know the emotional roller coaster they are. However, I decided that if my options are to return to my old jobs of tech support, quality assurance and system administration for someone else's product/environment, OR, pour that energy into something very personal, totally self indulgent, and utterly doomed to failure and personal backruptcy, then GO FOR IT MATE!!! Thank you.
Ps: Does anyone know where I can find some information on ?Male Menopause? please? [6]

[Henry Redacre]

Blister, I wish you all the luck in the world on this. It's a major, major endeavour, and not something that can be done easily, but with dedication, it *is* possible.

I do have to admit, I really enjoyed many of your ideas, and I liked being able to use them as inspiration and building blocks towards a lot of the things I got around to mentioning as well. I have to admit, I'm bummed that you'll be keeping your ideas to yourself now. [:)]

Seriously though, if you truly do intend to put something of your own together, then I wish you all the good fortune in the world with it, and hopefully I'll get to hear about it, or better yet, see it flying off store shelves someday.

Thanks for sharing your great ideas with us for awhile. It's been a pleasure reading about them.

~ Henry

[Thorgat]

Have you at least worked in an Emulator team for one of the MMORPGs out there? This needs "only" the server since the client and protocol are already known. And I understood that you go for a MMORPG as well.

There are very dedicated and pretty good teams of people out there, that do the whole thing from scratch, server + client and it takes many years when people work in their spare time and the lead is good in catching talented people and holding them motivated - or can you afford to pay people?
Not only that, the hosting gets a major issue for most already in early alpha, people run for free stuff and only few stay and test seriously = much wasted bandwith and costs. And you need to throw people at it to test network layer and find load problems at least.

I don't want to depress you but fear you have no idea what you are up to,really. o.O

[Henry Redacre]

well, really, something can be designed, and put together to some degree prior to getting into the level of involvement youre mentioning Thor..

granted, im not saying *everything* can, but it is possible to put together at least a few aspects of the overall game design, and then begin to do the "Dog & Pony Show" for investors at that point.

By no means is it easy. If it were easy, we'd have as many MMOs as there are websites on the net. But, a person with enough talent and know-how (or a group of persons) can still put together preliminary aspects, and then show those aspects to possible investors.

For sure, there's more to making video games than most anyone thinks (its the details that are deadly really), but thats not to say it cant be done by a motivated and skilled individual (or group of individuals)..

~ Henry

[Poony666]

Sidenote - UO: It was pub 16. that it started to go downhill in my opinion.

Omg you had better appologise better than that, I mean how dare you cut your posts like that, so selfish, jeez.....you call youself human?!

I wish you the best luck on your "mission", maybe (if you suceed to some degree and this whole thing isnt just a line) as you grow it will make you appriciate the hard work that has to be put in by the staff here and with other games, i think alot of people need eye openers on how hard it is toget and keepa game up and running nevermind tryingto please everyone on a scale as large as this, its impossible, thats how hard!

Oh and here, for Male Menopause. [:P]


(Oh and btw if you dont understand anEnglishmanssarcasm/sence of humour, you may not wanna read my post)

[Blister]

WHOA!!! :-) Thanks for the replies: Here goes with the responses. (Sorry ½ way through a bottle of scotch atm) Henry I do understand 'some' of the challenges. I worked, for about five years on the ?Gunman Chronicles? game. This was substantially constructed by people via ICQ that had never met. This was an agonising experience for 'some' of the following reasons.
Mistake:
We changed game engine three times. This caused a massive amount of remaking the wheel we had finished repeatedly. Lesson:
Never design outside a common, easily exportable format, .3ds, .dxf, .png, .wav etc)
Mistake:
So many good ideas happened after starting that extensive rewrites were required to incorporate them. Lesson:
Never, never, never start a project until its finished. I won't start openly recruiting until every single aspect of the game is complete as a text description, voice representation of a sound effect, and short video clip, etc. You can't 'forget' this, it's in the compulsory fields on the submission form. It's a house of cards effect. If you can't physically act out in a room of players with mock game interfaces/menus/actions on cards (with the video camera rolling to review), and play the game AS the server (reporting/acting out every action/interaction/event/result, or say ?thats not possible?, and WHY!) then don't start building it. If you CAN stand in a room full of DnD players for a few days and survive, you're ½ way there : ) example: Models Models: Every stance and animation sequence defined, every performable action, every interaction between models (weapons, other players, furniture, mounts, death sequences, world objects and defined in the database of objects), sound effects required, particle effects, one offs (?what happens if you slip down the cliff and get wedged between a rock and the cliff half submerged in a lake and the 'chompies' attack you??) specified, (this list goes on ALMOST forever, but it must be done)
Mistake:
COOL! Game X just did this. Lesson:
Big, fat, hairy deal. Monopoly didn't change because 'theatre sports' became the vogue in trendy pubs for a few minutes of world history. If you don't have a belief your game is 'finished', then don't start building it. Thorgat ?Have you at least worked in an Emulator team for one of the MMORPGs out there? ? I've set up and played in a few (Wolfpack and Sphere (UOX et al) for UO, L2J for Lineage 2, and one or two more), but I'm not ready to start implementing ANYTHING yet. I haven't finished the game you see. That's six/twelve months off. When I DO get to preliminary testing, it will likely be in a telnet MUD, to see if the maths is working, and running simulations against stored database procedures and in a spreadsheet : ) I am aware of the incredible amount of work being done (see sourceforge.net and look for games), but I have no intention of letting technology dictate an implementation of a concept. That's the wrong way around. There are many client and server options around, and there will be many, many more by the time this game starts looking for a home away from a cardboard mock up interface and a bunch of University students looking for a free keg : ) As for investors, BAH! Lets get a 'finished' product before looking for someone to invest in the mundane and already fully specified process of it's manufacture. Poony666 ?Oh and btw if you dont understand an Englishmans sarcasm/sence of humour, you may not wanna read my post ? You are British, I am Australian. There is a reason we backpack with Kiwis, Canadians and the Irish : ) Post like a ********** please : ) I do have a small realisation of the amount of work, soul, and emotional drain put on game developers. I know their full visions are rarely are put before us, as they are so frequently inflicted with the 'from my mothers' womb untimely ripped' syndrome. I also know that the introduction of the worlds most sinister and De Sade of all game histories ?Insane Computer AI's? was put down before his birth due to a ?I think it needs more girlies in it? decision from a game company minion (forgive me Shodan, you are the mother of them all I know, and I yearn for your third birth into glory). I am hoping to get a bulk of the work out of the way before letting some fat, bloated, parasite, clueless, toad eating, sycophant, leech starts re-vomiting an idea it licked off the floor during a 'lunch-time-wankers-club' meeting. These sort of decisions need to be left for discussion and negotiation over the ?carbohydrate modified Chicken Caesar and overrated French wine soirées? essential to gain the trust, funding and ?respect? from investor groups. See, I've done it before : ) Once again thanks for your input. It's all positive. For the moment, in the words of Goddess Grace Jones 'AUDIENCE DISMISSED'
(please come back though : )

[Poony666]

Well good luck and all that stuff, If you ever need people to test it, give me a shout = P

ill be sure to critisise it to hell and back = P

Oh and add in a few pointless suggestions ofcourse.

[Larch_Order]

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