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Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

mmoasteroids.com

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Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#61

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

citizenparker wrote: post #59
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…

Then again, some kinds of games cannot really be played alone. Multiplayer shooters for instance.

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#62

Post by onehp »

jhickner wrote: post #23
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…

There was another one called Subspace (now Continuum) http://www.getcontinuum.com/ . I loved the early days of that game. 1997-ish.

I spent hours flying round in that thing, one of the most perfect online competitive experiences I've had in gaming so far.

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#63

Post by saurik »

vikrum wrote: post #20
molsongolden wrote: post #19

The scoreboard has been hacked already!!!! Also, I'm not sure if I was regrouped with players who weren't signed in but after logging in with Twitter I no longer saw any other user pictures.

Hah! Yeah, we left the debug console open so you can play with it. It's a graphical debugger that shows the data updates for the game in realtime. Have fun: http://mmoa0.firebase.com/mmoaleaderboard0

You don't need the debug console, though: the database seems to simply be a shared scratch space, so anyone can just manipulate anyone else's state using the JavaScript API.

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#64

Post by jaredsohn »

mrgreenfur wrote: post #60
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.

Check out http://www.mmospacewar.com/. I made a few changes to mmoasteroids.com to make it behave more like the DOS version of Spacewar. Unfortunately, Firebase isn't available for another 1 day 18 hours 18 minutes and 10 seconds yet (http://www.firebase.com), so anyone who plays this will share the world and scoreboard with MMO Asteroids for now. (Hopefully this doesn't present a problem to the guy who created MMOAsteroids; there are already plenty of cheaters on there anyway.)

New features: warp (press 'z') and instead of instant death you have an energy which gets depleted by using thrust, colliding with other ships/bullets, and warping.

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#65

Post by jabo »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #61
citizenparker wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

Then again, some kinds of games cannot really be played alone. Multiplayer shooters for instance.

"Then again, some kinds of games cannot really be played alone. Multiplayer shooters for instance." > This specifically applies to Pixza because offering a single-player mode in any form would change the dynamics of the game - because it is essentially a two-team game.

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#66

Post by jabo »

damncabbage wrote: post #53
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?

There's a help button on the bottom of the page. We should make that more prominent may be?

Re: Show HN: We built real MMO Asteroids

#67

Post by jabo »

sodafountan wrote: post #57
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).

Should we make the help button at the bottom of the page more prominent? Or was the help text not very clear?
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