Ultimate Game Idea!!!

[SinbadEV]

So I have this awesome game idea, who wants to help me program it?

I haven't really decided on anything concretely but here's the basic premise:

A Rogue-Like-Mud with a modern interface. (aka, mouse-driven, macros, images instead of text etc.).

[Gota]

Brilliant.
I can help test when the game is rdy.

[Teutooni]

images instead of text

((((

The reason text-based games have such depth is because text content is very easy to produce.

Have you ever played ultima online? It's basically a "modernized" (some would say downgraded) mud with sprite graphics and mouse control...

[hamsate]

More details please? Sounds interesting.

[Gertkane]

Teutooni - UO is not that similar to MUDs. Ultima Online was and still is (in its non-EA servers like UOGamers) a MMO focused on pvp, griefing, being a douchebag, being a dick against the system etc.

Anyone that sais he is going to slay some mighty dragons in uo is automatically considered a pussy gold whore by the remaining 99% population of UO, which is why this game is still one of the best after 200 years of being in existence.

[Auswaschbar]

S.C.O.U.R.G.E. is a cross platform, open source rogue-like game in the fine tradition of NetHack and Moria It sports a graphical front-end, similar to glHack or the Falcon's eye.The design of the 3D UI is an attempt at the best of both worlds from old to new: It lets you rotate the view, zoom in/out, view special effects, etc with the feeling of the old-school isometric games like Exult or Woodward.

[Argh]

I am not interested in a Roguelike, per se, but I might very well build a Gauntlet clone, when I'm done with other things on my current agenda.

[SinbadEV]

S.C.O.U.R.G.E. is a cross platform, open source rogue-like game in the fine tradition of NetHack and Moria It sports a graphical front-end, similar to glHack or the Falcon's eye.The design of the 3D UI is an attempt at the best of both worlds from old to new: It lets you rotate the view, zoom in/out, view special effects, etc with the feeling of the old-school isometric games like Exult or Woodward.

Yeah, from the sound of it it would be awesome... but just from looking at the screen-shots my stomach has been turned on the whole idea...

double-ick

okay... anyways, I've given up on the idea for now because they have obviously given it the old college try and it just plain sucks...

[Argh]

Scourge reminds me a bit of Mythos, which was one of first games I made art for. OK, Mythos with what looks like a lot of static structure. The art sucks, but that doesn't really invalidate the concept, imo, it just means that the art sucks and the engine doesn't seem to have been designed well from a visual POV.

Now, I would be very surprised if anybody here had even heard of Mythos, but it was a cool game.

It had endless dungeons, really crazy AI (for the day) with races that hated each other and lots of stuff going on that wasn't under the player's control.

Darn thing got plowed under by the advent of the PowerPC and the MacOS 8 or 9 (I forget) eventually broke it entirely, but it was a damn nice concept at the time, and I've never seen anything quite like it since.

[CarRepairer]

Teutooni - UO is not that similar to MUDs. Ultima Online was and still is (in its non-EA servers like UOGamers) a MMO focused on pvp, griefing, being a douchebag, being a dick against the system etc.

Sounds like my kinda game!

[TradeMark]

ever since i saw these stupid text based games, ive always wondered how stupid the makers were when they still use text symbols in the graphics (i mean after year 1980 when computers had only 2 colors in screens), even though they could replace them with real graphics instead without losing any performance.

i dont see how this idea is any special...

go grab some text based games source code and modify the rendering code to render each letter with own image of yours? and then youre done

[SinbadEV]

Alright, I feel like I'm probably not going to get any help on this from you people outside of advice and I really doubt I'm going to do anything myself without a co-conspirator...

But just in case I figure I'll paint a more distinct picture for you.

A Mud is a purely textual game... it's like a Multiplayer choose-your-own-adventure or interactive fiction game.

A Rogue-like is a dungeon-crawl game... it's like an endless version of the "combat encounters" in a 3/3.5 or 4th DnD or other Pen&Paper RPG.

Both of these approaches are typically rendered in a non-graphical way to both speed the content-development process and put the experience inside the participants minds.

The problem is that, for me, the draconian interface of these two experiences pull me OUT of the experience... and the ascii art, while symbolically representing creatures and game objects, acctually feels contrived to me... especially now, when we really have no excuse NOT to have graphics like a number of people have pointed out.


SO what I'm thinking is simple, symbolic graphics (either sprite or 3D, either would work, just a matter of choice)...



we might need some sprite-style graphics or we could technically use letter characters colors like the stereotipical

D = Frost Dragon

or simple 3D models or sprites.

The world would be Dwarf-Fortress Style 3D but you would be able to see as multiple layers simultaneously like in STonesense



The idea would be you would have a picture of the immediate are your character could sense... with a "fog of war" for unseen areas etc.

There would be a "descriptions" panel, such that if you are in a room there could be a MUD style description of the room and a mud style description of visible objects and creatures... when you are engaged in combat you would also see mud-style description of the action.

there would be a list of available actions (also associated with short-cut keys) displayed all the time (some would be nested like click magic then click the spell you want)... this list would include obvious exits, objects and creatures so that you could easily play the game just with this menu or the associated short-cut keys... one solution would be to label creatures in the room with numbers so you could attack by either clicking on the creatures image, the action menu attack command with that number or by typing "A 1 ENTER" or something like that.

All this "stuff" would be part of the client which would connect to a server much in the way that an MMO roguelike or mud does and all of the "Brains" and "Guts" of the game would be server side and one could envision a number of different games using the same client...

I have an idea for a grind + craft economy based game (like Fantasy Eve) but that doesn't really matter all that much to the game-client I've described here.

One of the cool things about my idea (to me) is that the server could very easily support user-content and such... with users acquiring in-game real-estate... building walls/tunnels and such through in game commands (perhaps doing so themselves early on or in Guild situations or though contracting NPCs or Other players who have the needed skills) and then applying descriptions to the constructed structures.

[CarRepairer]

Sounds cool to me. I too have been very interested in 2D MMOs. In the past I have written up documentation on ideas I had for these sorts of games. I devised systems that allow maximal freedom of player interaction and PvP while preventing griefing and cheese. Players should have the freedom to choose their actions and deal with consequences, whether good or bad while still enjoying themselves. I haven't yet resolved the issue of having persistent gameworlds coexist with instancing in a way that I like, but I still sometimes think about ideas.

[Neddie]

I may be able to help you with art assets. I haven't done sprite work in a long time, but it is my digital art basis.

The reason why we don't use art assets in MUD/Rogue-likes is because that adds orders of magnitude to the workload in development thereof. We use text and text colours to create proxies which tie into textual descriptions... these engage imaginations and allow us to represent a tremendous data set with minimal effort. Artwork requires we make one to one representations which engage, not symbolic creative processes behind basic visual identification processes, but contextual visual identification processes. We take imagination out of the equation.

[SinbadEV]

I don't think that symbolic representation is limited to ascii art... I think that there is a middle ground... because ascii art is ugly it detracts from my ability to imagine... I think coupling a simple graphical representation and intuitive interface with the otherwise positive aspects of MUDs and Rogue-likes will not remove the imagination from the equation... just like loading a tile-set into Dwarf Fortress makes it more playable for me.

[Neddie]

I've yet to find a tile set that improves the game. I didn't rule out the possibility of representational, improving sprites, but it is a lot of work.

[Gertkane]

Teutooni - UO is not that similar to MUDs. Ultima Online was and still is (in its non-EA servers like UOGamers) a MMO focused on pvp, griefing, being a douchebag, being a dick against the system etc.

Sounds like my kinda game!

Offtopic, but:

It probably is. The whole reason behind me still having ties to that game is that i used to get mad griefed when i had started, bought myself a house near mountains to mine and chop lumber. I had people camp my house, mutilate mine and my pack horse corpses... Now for quite some time ive just felt the need to even it out by being the griefer in that game.

Try it out.
Client download (free and legal):
http://download.cnet.com/Ultima-Online- ... 32238.html

Razor (utility to connect to non-EA servers, also legal):
http://www.runuo.com/razor/

After you install UO client, don't make an account in EA servers and don't run the game exe. Instead, install Razor and use it to launch the game (select UOGamers: Hybrid from the server list in Razor). Accounts are made automatically so you can start adventuring/getting griefed. If you like the open ended world, the limited dependency on skills (no classes, just main skills for pvp), the open housing (everyone can buy a house and place one if they find some empty space), guild wars, faction wars (conquer towns etc.) and just massive PKing (combined with the ability to instantly travel to pretty much everywhere this guarantees non-stop action).

[smoth]

So I have this awesome game idea, who wants to help me program it?

. . .

there is a lot of that around here. I find this sort of thing depressing.

[knorke]

I actually once started making a isometric tilemap thing, didnt really finish it though.

Far out man!

But I am sorry, the ultimate game idea would clearly be a game set in the slightly different 1970's and you cruise around in US muscle cars loaded with all kind of weapons, blowing up other cars. (The trick is that the physics do not suck)

[SinbadEV]

I actually once started making a isometric tilemap thing, didnt really finish it though.

Far out man!

But I am sorry, the ultimate game idea would clearly be a game set in the slightly different 1970's and you cruise around in US muscle cars loaded with all kind of weapons, blowing up other cars. (The trick is that the physics do not suck)

While the post was nominally sincere... the title itself was meant to be ironic... kind-of a self deprecating humor thing where I was attempting to absolve myself of the inherent noobishness of a post like this by indicating my knowledge of that fact.