Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#51

Post by jabo » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 6:14 AM UTC

Question: How do you bootstrap an MMO to reach a critical mass of players so that the environment sustains itself?

A friend and I built this MMO game called Pixza (http://pixza.com/lite) and we're finding it incredibly tough to bootstrap the ecosystem. The problem is that since it is an MMO game, it's not enjoyable with a few players. So after every wave of publicity, traffic comes in sporadically which does us no good. If all of the traffic came within a frame of 20 minutes of starting a game, I'm sure the game will explode. I've seen it happen during play testing with friends and family.

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#52

Post by h2s » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 6:54 AM UTC

milkmiruku wrote: post #47

Please can you make it scale to for a 1024*768 resolution? Thanks. I found it great fun dog fighting with another when it's a bit quieter. Annoyances were someone hacking the controls and setting a ship to move across the screen shooting a great number of shots directly left and right that moved in a wave straight up and down the screen, wiping out all players in its path. Trying to move ahead of this often didn't he…

    > Please can you make it scale to for a 1024*768 resolution?

Mmmm. Doesn't fit in my 1280x800 screen's viewport either, which is a very common size.

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#53

Post by damncabbage » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 9:57 AM UTC

jabo wrote: post #51

Question: How do you bootstrap an MMO to reach a critical mass of players so that the environment sustains itself? A friend and I built this MMO game called Pixza ( http://pixza.com/lite ) and we're finding it incredibly tough to bootstrap the ecosystem. The problem is that since it is an MMO game, it's not enjoyable with a few players. So after every wave of publicity, traffic comes in sporadically which does us no…

Just some as-I-try-it feedback:

1) What am I doing? 2) Oh, okay, right. I move the blue blocks to make a "B". 3) Okay... Why am I doing this?

I'm not sure what the game /is/, or why it's a challenge, or why it's any fun at all. Could you explain it a little further, please?

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#54

Post by bfilmheld » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 11:22 AM UTC

In similar news I created a MMO Snake, you can try at http://bfilmhelden.de:8080

My backend is running on Go - Would be really interested in what firebase is exactly. Looks like it would make this much easier.

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#55

Post by colomon » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 12:06 PM UTC

This is very cool! What would push it over the top for me would be the ability to start a game of it with my friends...

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#56

Post by dmd » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 12:54 PM UTC

mayop100 wrote: post #37

minikomi wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game.ship.scale = 10;

hah. very nice! Figures HN'ers would find this immediately.

Seems like this is rapidly becoming antisocial behavior for all those NOT in god mode, though.

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#57

Post by sodafountan » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 1:28 PM UTC

jabo wrote: post #51

Question: How do you bootstrap an MMO to reach a critical mass of players so that the environment sustains itself? A friend and I built this MMO game called Pixza ( http://pixza.com/lite ) and we're finding it incredibly tough to bootstrap the ecosystem. The problem is that since it is an MMO game, it's not enjoyable with a few players. So after every wave of publicity, traffic comes in sporadically which does us no…

I had similar issues, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. You need some sort of primer visible to people know what they're supposed to be doing. Other than that it looks pretty intriguing, I like the nice clean graphics and from what I can tell it's a pretty novel idea (although, as mentioned, I don't know what the point of it is yet).

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#58

Post by sodafountan » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 1:32 PM UTC

I would definitely lower the inertia, it's not very enjoyable when there's such little control over what your doing also there's a bit of lag but that's to be expected with the influx in traffic. But other than that it looks pretty good, nice job!

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#59

Post by citizenparker » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 1:34 PM UTC

jabo wrote: post #51

Question: How do you bootstrap an MMO to reach a critical mass of players so that the environment sustains itself? A friend and I built this MMO game called Pixza ( http://pixza.com/lite ) and we're finding it incredibly tough to bootstrap the ecosystem. The problem is that since it is an MMO game, it's not enjoyable with a few players. So after every wave of publicity, traffic comes in sporadically which does us no…

> "The problem is that since it is an MMO game, it's not enjoyable with a few players."

I think this is your problem. All of the compelling virtual worlds I've been part of have some hook that works on the individual. If you doubt, log into one of the old classic MUDs like LegendMUD (http://www.legendmud.org/) or Blood Dusk (http://mud.dusk.org/). They're still compelling when you're alone in the world (and these days, that's pretty likely).

I think it's perfectly legitimate to say your product is better in groups. I would hope so for something calling itself an "MMO." I think it has to be compelling by yourself to some extent though. I'd argue that every major virtual world from WoW to Second Life to even Minecraft has provided this.

What's even better is that when you have that action that is compelling alone, the second person into your virtual world sees that person being awesome and then desires to join in. You open yourself up to getting a "First Follower" effect, in other words.

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#60

Post by mrgreenfur » Tue, Apr 10, 2012, 2:16 PM UTC

jaredsohn wrote: post #12

The problem with calling this Asteroids is that there are no asteroids. :) This reminds me more of an old DOS shareware game called Spacewar ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY5qHe2VadA ), which was also multi-player although that game also allowed turning on gravity and warping (I see a comment mentioning warping in this game but I don't see it in the command list.) This was one of my (and my friends') favorite smal…

I came to say this exact thing. Please make this one into an MMO next.