Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

pcgamer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 253 posts

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#201

Post by jokoon »

walrus01 wrote: post #54
jokoon wrote: post #4

Its totally possible to make a large online game with proper procedural generation of geometry and sharded servers for zones. It's a bit of work but it's doable. Games are not about content, they're about multiplayer experience. Online games don't need content or scenario or background. A game without story is a software product. Not saying this is not a scam though, but real of the old gods proved it was possible to…

> Games are not about content, they're about multiplayer experience. The amazing success and critical acclaim of single player games such as Horizon Zero Dawn, the Metal Gear Solid series and the Deus Ex series, among others, might make you reconsider your position on that.

I was talking about multiplayer games.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#202

Post by jokoon »

kevingadd wrote: post #35
jokoon wrote: post #4

Its totally possible to make a large online game with proper procedural generation of geometry and sharded servers for zones. It's a bit of work but it's doable. Games are not about content, they're about multiplayer experience. Online games don't need content or scenario or background. A game without story is a software product. Not saying this is not a scam though, but real of the old gods proved it was possible to…

"Games are not about content, they're about multiplayer experience. Online games don't need content or scenario or background." With a few notable exceptions, this is literally not true. Just do a survey of all the big money-earning PC MMOs or phone games. Picking a random result from page 1 of the google results for "best selling MMORPGs" - I'll place their list here and comment on it: Guild Wars: (I worked on this…

Comparing with the best AAA sellers is a strawman, and I don't see the point comparing those with one that is being incubated.

Minecraft is a good example of a game that has almost not content but sold amazingly well.

> Anyone familiar enough with the market knows this. It's okay if you don't, but I would hope investors would do their research before handing money to another "games startup" that's doomed to fail.

The "market" cannot predict innovation or success. This startup will probably fail, yes, but ycombinator is a private initiative and it matters to give the benefit of the doubt. I agree about possible nepotism, but I still believe in what I said about procedural generation and hand crafted content. Hand made content is crazy expensive, and I really think that procedural generation is a good solution.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#203

Post by iEchoic »

coldcode wrote: post #58

I know what building an MMO is like, having worked on one 10 years ago that was already 10 years old and still exists today (small audience though). Building something like these people are talking about requires more $ than a Marvel superhero movie to get anywhere. We could manage about 100 simultaneous players visible to each other in a reasonable time but no more; the internet is not fast enough to manage more tha…

I remember regularly participating in real-time battles with over 200 people on Dark age of Camelot, 20 years ago. Did they do something special?

Some examples:

https://youtu.be/lkl_fAjmLmA?t=38

https://youtu.be/7_BNNteCtCU?t=48

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#204

Post by Aeolun »

kleinsch wrote: post #57
dvt wrote: post #8

I've been following the DreamWorld saga on YouTube for a hot minute now, mainly because I find it so interesting how they got through the YC vetting process when I myself have applied twice (maybe 3 times) and I also know plenty of people -- brilliant, motivated, entrepreneurial folks -- that applied many (many) times as well and were rejected (YC is mega-competitive after all). IMO, it's a bit insulting to the strug…

Yea, I’ve found it interesting reading about YC companies from this batch that include: - A scam MMO - Terminal autocomplete as a service - A Splitwise clone - An app that puts your next meeting in your menu bar (for $10/month!) YC gets 5K+ applications/cycle, accepts 1-3%, so they rejected 4500+ companies for these?

Didn’t Oculus sound just as crazy when it was conceived? As far as I know the founder had barely any experience with hardware. Just a glorified gamer.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#205

Post by fulafel »

fooey wrote: post #106
MattieTK wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was part of the exciting suggestion of the original Stadia trailers: with the entire game and all the interactions happening in Google datacentres, you would only need to receive a rendered version, and suddenly all this would be possible. Of course none of that has happened and Google folded their games studio, which is par for them, but does go some way to reinforcing this point that there's a reason this stuf…

Stadia isn't magic though, it just runs on whatever random GPU they have lying around. It was never going to be better than what you can build yourself.

This is counter to their published information, and also would be throwing away console style homogenous hw advantage for no upside.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#206

Post by j1elo »

Hello71 wrote: post #155
setr wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think graphics rendering is really the problem — worst comes to worst, you just reduce graphical fidelity — and regardless, rendering 300 AI characters roaming around is clearly doable, and it’d be the same with viewing real players. It’s a client-side problem, and doesn’t have to really scale much with player count (Stadia’s main pitch was that you didn’t need high end PCs to play AAA games — not that it wou…

> Runescape was basically turn-based and ran like 1 turn a second actually, runescape still has 0.6 sec ticks. it has become part of the meta-game to input commands at exactly 0.6 second intervals for optimal efficiency, and is basically mandatory for high-level pvp combat. https://oldschool.runescape.wiki/w/Tick_manipulation https://runescape.wiki/w/Tick_manipulation

> (the run trick) works by first standing on a square before a trap, and then running across the single square that has a trap, in order to end up on the other side. Because running causes the player to move over two squares in a single tick, this causes the game to never consider the player to be on the trapped square.

This is like Programming 101 for player position updates, to avoid them running or jumping through walls. A classical novice mistake. I'm surprised to see it in such a mature game.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#207

Post by _qzu4 »

kleinsch wrote: post #57
dvt wrote: post #8

I've been following the DreamWorld saga on YouTube for a hot minute now, mainly because I find it so interesting how they got through the YC vetting process when I myself have applied twice (maybe 3 times) and I also know plenty of people -- brilliant, motivated, entrepreneurial folks -- that applied many (many) times as well and were rejected (YC is mega-competitive after all). IMO, it's a bit insulting to the strug…

Yea, I’ve found it interesting reading about YC companies from this batch that include: - A scam MMO - Terminal autocomplete as a service - A Splitwise clone - An app that puts your next meeting in your menu bar (for $10/month!) YC gets 5K+ applications/cycle, accepts 1-3%, so they rejected 4500+ companies for these?

I lost a lot of respect for YC when I realized they invested in a startup that sold laundry detergent with a manly scent. The founders I think were from Stanford.

So yeah, I don't think they are nearly as good as they say at judging startups. I believe a lot of it is based on signaling from founders and already successful startups applying.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#208

Post by devit »

coldcode wrote: post #58

I know what building an MMO is like, having worked on one 10 years ago that was already 10 years old and still exists today (small audience though). Building something like these people are talking about requires more $ than a Marvel superhero movie to get anywhere. We could manage about 100 simultaneous players visible to each other in a reasonable time but no more; the internet is not fast enough to manage more tha…

A contemporary broadband connection can manage way more than 100 simultaneous characters.

You only need to send an updated position and direction on every frame, which can fit in 10 bytes (16-bit screen space fixed point coordinates, 3 position coordinates + 1 orientation + one 16-bit animation/action ID).

With a 100mbps connection you can send 160 KB per frame at 60fps and thus support 16K characters.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#209

Post by tyrex2017 »

YC never claimed to have a perfect selection process. I wouldn’t hold them accountable for the teams they pick based on a business plan and a 10 min discussion. Its just a good guess.

If they doubled down on the team after demo day, then I am with you.

Compare this with hiring. I have heard successful people say they do get 1 in 5 hires wrong, even after a process which is 10x more thorough.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#210

Post by clappski »

devit wrote: post #208
coldcode wrote: post #58

I know what building an MMO is like, having worked on one 10 years ago that was already 10 years old and still exists today (small audience though). Building something like these people are talking about requires more $ than a Marvel superhero movie to get anywhere. We could manage about 100 simultaneous players visible to each other in a reasonable time but no more; the internet is not fast enough to manage more tha…

A contemporary broadband connection can manage way more than 100 simultaneous characters. You only need to send an updated position and direction on every frame, which can fit in 10 bytes (16-bit screen space fixed point coordinates, 3 position coordinates + 1 orientation + one 16-bit animation/action ID). With a 100mbps connection you can send 160 KB per frame at 60fps and thus support 16K characters.

100mbps is much much faster than a the majority of consumer broadband connections, I don’t think that’s a particularly realistic figure. Don’t these games have to support a lowest common denominator type speed rather than a fantastic one? I’m not in game dev so not sure if there’s ways to get around things like that
Post reply on HN