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Notch's next game is an MMO

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Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#221

Post by Cass »

nullflux wrote: post #72
cpeterso wrote: post #23

I was a developer for the ill-fated Perpetual Entertainment's Star Trek Online MMO (which was later sold and successfully launched by Cryptic Studios). Star Trek Online's #1 most common feature request from beta testers was "ship interiors." Players didn't want to play "WoW in Spaaaace " game. They wanted to play "The Sims meet Star Trek" and relive their favorite Star Trek TV episodes. That sounds like a pretty cool…

This really sounds like a game for hardcore programmers (16-bit emulation, "assembly in space" as h2s called it.) Minecraft is far more accessible: will this really gain nearly as much traction?

it will probably work something like electrical engineering you can do in minecraft: you never need to do it at all for the game to be fun, but if you want, you can steal a plan for an automated monster-trap from youtube, spend a few hours figuring out a simple one yourself, or go crazy and spend two years building a working cpu.

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#223

Post by freehunter »

tchock23 wrote: post #217
h2s wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the one thing stopping me from reaching 100% rabid-fanboy-mode about this news. We already have Quake in Space, WoW in Space, and Spreadsheets in Space: I hope this doesn't turn out to be "Assembly Programming in Space". This quote gave me hope: > A cloaking field, for example, might require almost all the power from the generator, forcing you to turn off all computers and dim all lights in order to successfu…

I completely agree, except I would extend this to say that all genres beyond space games should consider more "in ship/plane/building" type of interaction. For example, I've long wanted a submarine and/or battleship simulation that would provide a true feeling of being part of a huge ship, with players assuming various roles as necessary. Add a MMO element and it'd be just amazing.

Problem is, most things on a sub (et al) are boring. Clean this, cook that, monitor this, listen to that. You would have to constantly be under attack with only brief respite to repair your ship. Listening to whales, cooking with lard, and mopping the floors wouldn't make a compellin... actually, people pay to do menial tasks in MMOs all the time right now. How many chefs were there in Runescape, or dedicated crafters in WoW?

You might be on to something.

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#224

Post by groby_b »

pantaloons wrote: post #181
groby_b wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Given what Notch plans (2,000 DCPUs per machine - which is certainly doable), let's assume he's running a high-cpu instance (large) at Amazon for those 2,000 DCPUs. That's $500 per month for the machine. If he can't get that much money out of 2,000 players, he's doing it wrong. Assuming you allow for eventual instead of atomic consistency, and allow for loss of CPU for several seconds if an instance goes kabl…

Well a first person shooter engine only really needs an (x, y, look-at) tuple for each player, certainly putting thousands of players on one map is doable. You're dreaming. Assume for a moment a team of developers spend several months if not years doing infrastructure build-out to support the imagined CPU simulation system. Now they just have to implement the rest of the engine, the part powering the actual game, in…

> Assume for a moment a team of developers spend several months if not years doing infrastructure build-out to support the imagined CPU simulation system

Huh? A CPU simulation is not that complicated a task. If it takes Notch several developers and years of time, he's definitely doing it wrong.

> active and interacting with one another at all times.

Yes. That's a solved issue, mostly. It's a large task, but it's not an unsolved problem. (See e.g. social networking sites. Humongous amounts of people interacting with each other)

The point is that you'll need to make some concessions to the realities of large scale when it comes to the game design.

> the closest anyone has got to offline simulation is effectively "event queue and timer" and not for lack of trying.

Funny. And here I thought Havok just gave a talk on physics in MMOs. (GDC China).

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#225

Post by [deleted] »

tchock23 wrote: post #217
h2s wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the one thing stopping me from reaching 100% rabid-fanboy-mode about this news. We already have Quake in Space, WoW in Space, and Spreadsheets in Space: I hope this doesn't turn out to be "Assembly Programming in Space". This quote gave me hope: > A cloaking field, for example, might require almost all the power from the generator, forcing you to turn off all computers and dim all lights in order to successfu…

I completely agree, except I would extend this to say that all genres beyond space games should consider more "in ship/plane/building" type of interaction. For example, I've long wanted a submarine and/or battleship simulation that would provide a true feeling of being part of a huge ship, with players assuming various roles as necessary. Add a MMO element and it'd be just amazing.

[deleted]

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#226

Post by bdunbar »

tchock23 wrote: post #217
h2s wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the one thing stopping me from reaching 100% rabid-fanboy-mode about this news. We already have Quake in Space, WoW in Space, and Spreadsheets in Space: I hope this doesn't turn out to be "Assembly Programming in Space". This quote gave me hope: > A cloaking field, for example, might require almost all the power from the generator, forcing you to turn off all computers and dim all lights in order to successfu…

I completely agree, except I would extend this to say that all genres beyond space games should consider more "in ship/plane/building" type of interaction. For example, I've long wanted a submarine and/or battleship simulation that would provide a true feeling of being part of a huge ship, with players assuming various roles as necessary. Add a MMO element and it'd be just amazing.

After reading Niven and Pournelle's 'Mote in God's Eye' I thought a simulation of the MacArthur (a space-going battle cruiser) would make for a keen game. Captain types 'prepare the ship for spin, 1/4 g', screens flash, animated guys all over the ship jump into action. Twenty minutes later the ship is spinning, providing 1/4 g on the outside decks.

I have odd notions of 'exciting' I guess.

Adding the MMO element ... a warship depends on top-down control. The captain gives orders, and a lot of which involve turning valves, pushing buttons, watching screens. Hours pass ...

Okay - make the job exciting so players stick around. So when the captain says 'fire torpedo' there is a player there to load it up.

Sure it can be done, but how? A small fortune to the fellow who figures it out, I guess.

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#227

Post by Aissen »

One word. SpaceChem.

This looks heavily inspired by this indie game. In spacechem you must you use "chemistry pipe design skills", that highly resemble how you design logic circuts, in order to create certain molecules.

It also seems quite inspired with what you can do in minecraft with the redstone.

All that, but more open, pushing the limits. Not such a bad idea.

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#229

Post by mjmahone »

coopdog wrote: post #186
indiecore wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I see it as a "Well you got a bunch of gyros last pit stop. Pity they don't all link up to your guidance stuff" so you write a program to grab data from your gyros and headings from your heading input. You could still fly just fine using the default stuff but if you want say...constant attitude adjustment or the ability to have your ship not pick up unwanted spin you're going to have to deal with that yourself o…

Would be fun to have a market for functions (literally programming functions) Let the original author keep the insides secret, maybe the protection decays over time (say a year) Sounds a lot like copyright but sensible and the false constraint is only to make the game fun : P

Thing is, you don't need to copyright: you could have people actually looking at the code, and those who can program things are still going to be able to profit off it. You don't want to give people a monopoly in an MMO.

That being said, perhaps you have to buy physical disks to store the data on, which makes it slightly more difficult to virally spread a program. But like most information, once you have access to it you should be able to share it.

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#230

Post by lloeki »

curiousepic wrote: post #214
mattmanser wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just glancing at that essay it's pretty awfully written and repeatedly wrong. And my physics is extremely poo. Ever heard of a heatsink and then releasing it later? Decoys of simple complexity but same mass are as cheap to make as real ships of complexity? Nope.

You can start here: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/misconceptions.php

That's exactly what I meant with 'such as'. I couldn't find that link again, thanks.

I was more concerned about general physics considerations (inertia, etc) and scale (like intercepting stuff flying at 30000km/s).

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