Sauerbraten M/MMORPG Full Conversion Mod

by Sauerbraten M/MMORPG on 06/21/2005 06:24, 54 messages, last message: 10/10/2005 22:20, 16458 views, last view: 05/18/2024 20:41

It Strikes me as odd, that we have the code released to the public, yet there is not one M/MMO Project started for this game.This is the Perfect oppertuinity and tool that we have to get a community project going to MOD this game into a total conversion.

This is the most mature version of \"cube\" weve seen yet.The Perfect 3D engine for making an M/MMO and yet noone has even said anything about it yet.I am going to launch a project to create an M/MMO based on the Sauerbraten Engine.We are currently using the latest version of the engine and are in need of coders.

Well, I have no coding experiance, but me and a friend will be creating the models and World. I would like any coders that have the ability to help us with this project,Please Contact Me Via AIM at Pbrisend or My partner Via AIM at nvrbored88.

If you would like to get involved in this project You can also reach me Via Email at Pbrisend@hotmail.com. Thank You and I hope we can get a decent M/MMO out of this.

I know its a difficult project and the engine is incomplete, but we would really appreciate feedback be it negative or posative.We would also like to know if anyone is interested in helping us model weapons and/or build the world.Keep in mind, this is NOT a professional project, it is just for fun!

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#1: wait for it...

by TOGoS_1u2kuhbui on 06/21/2005 07:04

I think it's a bit early. Wait for scripting and map linking and you'll have a much better idea of what we'll have to work with. Feel free to make lots of nice textures and models, though :)

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#2: stuff

by shadow592 on 06/21/2005 08:43

oh the textures and models will be coming trust me...
my 3d gallery http://photobucket.com/albums/v612/HIethan592/

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#3: Re: stuff

by tentus on 06/21/2005 15:03, refers to #2

interesting pics, 592. look amazingly high poly, would you mind putting some stats up for those guns?

to M/MMORPG- feel free to use anything out of my MOD, Cube Legends (that's mine anyways, i can't speak for the stuff i didn't make). I'm workig with the cube engine, so obviously there are some gaps and overlaps, but there's probably plenty in there you could use for your MOD.

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#4: my guns

by shadow592 on 06/21/2005 18:57

those guns are all around 1700 polys but i can just as easily cut them down. Especially if we had normal mapping. use like a 1000 poly model with a 6000 poly normal map. lol. those pics are just a small sample of my work

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#5: sigh

by Aardappel_ on 06/21/2005 21:01

well, there's many reasons noone has done it yet. First of all, making games on top of sauerbraten will be more efficient for everyone involved if we stick to the "sauerbraten future development timeline" (see other thread).

Second, because an MMORPG is suicide unless you have a large team of very experienced, and even more important, very DEDICATED, developers. Why do you think that someone with the deep experience that I have, that has helped architected highly succesful commercial games, and teaches people how to create games for a living, chooses to make a mere RPG over an MMORPG? Because I want to be sure I can finish what I start, and I prefer a succesful game over a failed start. Yet every 14 year old with no programming experience even, thinks they can do better than me. Well good luck. You will probably learn something with your imminent failure.

IF we were to be highly succesful with an RPG project, I am all for attempting a MMORPG sometime in the far away future. But that's a big IF.

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#6: saueRPG

by ssdd_darkstar on 06/21/2005 21:31

i've been thinking a lot about sauer and MMORPG, and i've come to the conclusion that if you want to make an mmorpg with sauer, you have to do two things:

on the coding side:
help develop sauerbraten in general, but at the same time focus on implementing (mmo)rpg related features that would get in the game anyway. this way we help sauerbraten _and_ pave the road for a sauer mmorpg. so the best option is to work on the main sauer source. later, when the code is sufficiently mature, a new gamemode (preferably) or a mod can be built.

on the art side:
start gathering and packageing art. these will probably be released separately from the main sauer package. it is possible that the 'official art' package will be separated from the binary/source releases in the future.

the best scenario would be the following: sauer will have a mmorpg gamemode (maybe a plugin), but if you want to play it, you need to download the mmorpg art. as the world will be dynamic, automatic downloading might be a feature etc.

anyway, if there are peole interested in working on mmorpgizing sauer, visit my site:
http://terra.dyn.ro/terra/

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#7: ..

by makkE on 06/21/2005 22:08

Oooh.. lower your goals, people, I think is what aardapple meant.

Why does it have to an mmorpg? An mmorpg requires a huge amount of time not only designing it, but also maintaining it (powerful servers, gamemasters, and some portion of that magic word "persistency" not to mention enough space for all the masses to dwell in.)

A simple, single player RPG is already a huge task compared to some fps-mod (of wich 990 out of 1000 already fail)...
So composing an RPG using sauerbraten is already a big, big thing..

You don´t want to have your planned mmorpg/rpg to have 4 weapons, 5 kinds of monters and 4 kinds of spells, do you?
Just think about the artwork needed to get a simple 3d-RPG (that can entertain nowadays players) to work..

You´ll need :

- a lot of weapons
- a lot of fancy spells (fx)
- a lot of diffrent monster models
- npc characters
- lots of additional items and world models

2d art (icons,menus and such) for all these, sound fx for all that

and last but not least, a good story, backround, missions, ai, scripting, a general concept, etc etc

So if you go for mmorpg, you´ll need additionally:

-a netcode that can handle it
-a lot of extra rules
-a lot more levels/maps
-a lot of time to take care of the community
-a lot lots more of bugfixing, because you will never know how people will exploit even the most harmless c-bugs...

@darkstar:

You idea might sound great, but take a while to think how much control (time, dedication and efford) you and your gamemasters will have to put into that project AFTER you have created all the code and artwork needed for it.
And the concept of letting players build the world for you.. forget it. As far as your concept goes, you´ll get 1 good building in 50 crap ones ;) Players want to play, not map...

And do you really think people (coders, artists) will get all exited if they see this:

"You can check our roadmap (link) to see how we're planning to do things."

and end up here:

"Current Status

-Website is up. Forum is up.

Roadmap

-Write a roadmap."

Oo
If you want to get artists and coders excited about your idea, you will need to show them some more (at least a good story/backround, some concept art and a general gameplay concept)...

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#8: Sauerbraten M/MMORPG

by Sauerbraten M/MMORPG on 06/21/2005 22:14

I agree With Aardappel.He Did Write the Engine, We will continue work on the models and world, continuing to update our engines.

When the time comes, Hopefully We can get a MMO.It is a really good idea,I really hope that when the engine is finished, MAYBE we could get Aard's Genius into helping MOD this.Because Of all the Extremely hard work hes put into this engine, and i thank you for that,I Know it is very possible to MOD it into a MMO, but only when it is finished.

I agree on all points above, We DO definately need a stable release.We also need something With an Engine and Default game.Because going through and recoding all the stuff you dont need and/or want is hell.But as I said Before, we will continue work on the project for fun, and IF and when the time comes, well already have all the content we want in the MMO.

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#9: candidate?

by >driAn<. on 06/21/2005 22:44

..

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#10: ..

by >driAn<. on 06/21/2005 22:44

*sigh

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#11: write a roadmap

by ssdd_darkstar on 06/21/2005 23:35

> write a roadmap
oh come on, i just got the site up :P
it _was_ temporary.

the idea was, short term goals for rpgizing sauer are relatively low, and the features i'm talking about would make it into the sauer source anyway, sooner or later. (eg map linking, inventory -- they're in the TODO)
i'm just prioritizing rpg stuff. i will contribute more rpg-related code than other stuff. this is my goal for now.

as for long-term, we'll see how it goes.

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#12: sauerpg

by ssdd_darkstar on 06/21/2005 23:57

fyi, i also think sauerpg should stick to "sauerbraten future development timeline" as much as possible. people interested in sauer/mmorpg will contribute to sauer and help it reach a stage where mmo implementation will not necessarily mean forking. thus, everyone will benefit.

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#13: Re: sigh

by Aardappel_ on 06/22/2005 04:39, refers to #6

well, you seem to be going on about "plugins" pretty much everywhere, and I believe I already replied to you about it. I do NOT think a plugin system makes sense. It would be diametrically opposed to Sauerbraten's goal of simplicity, because they add so much infrastructure (for a plugin to be able to "plug in" _everywhere_, you have to do a lot of damage to the source).

We will continue in being selective on what features to add and which not, and those that we do implement can be implemented as a coherent part of the current code and thus remain simple.

I do not believe in making things more complicated to be a good software engineering principle, unlike the majority of people.

There will be only one kind of seperation, and that is between engine & game. That will already complicate the engine, but it has to happen.

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#14: WoW

by Sauerbraten M/MMORPG on 06/22/2005 05:15

Gee, I agree with Aard again, plugins would take away the simplicity and damage the code, as it is, i said fll conversion MOD. Not plugin,lol.

AnyWays, the time will come, for now stick with the primary goals, i will still be working on models etc.

And Aard, Please dont let this forum turn into a fight, i hate it when that happens, because it seems to me like that is whats happening.If everyone begins fighting on HOW to do this or Whatever id appreciate it if you close it down.

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#15: Re: sigh

by Aardappel_ on 06/22/2005 05:31, refers to #15

well, then have a look how my engine/game seperation turns out.. you'll be free to make plugins on top of the game code, as that is the part that will get duplicated.

I'm not concerned with maximizing FOSS, as it generally doesn't work. I just want to accommodate people who truely contribute to the engine, such as eihrul and gilt. If I was writing this engine 100% by myself, there would be zero incentive to seperate engine and game.

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#16: Re: sigh

by Aardappel_ on 06/22/2005 05:45, refers to #16

There is no design. I do not believe in top down design for software. Keep refactoring and the perfect design will automagically emerge.

In practise this means there will be a gameplay class, of which there can be multiple in the engine, and one will be instantiated on engine startup. I will move code from the engine into this class with the following constraint goals:

- keep as much code in the engine (shared), and as little in the gameplay class (unshared)
- keep the interface between game and engine as simple as possible
- allow for the widest range of gameplay genres

probably in that order, should they conflict. Actual design of the interface, as I mentioned above, to emerge through refactoring.

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#17: Re: Pre-thoughts on the "gameplay class"

by Aardappel_ on 06/22/2005 08:09, refers to #17

they have to be part of the sauerbraten project, initially. This is because it is impossible to design the ultimate gameplay interface that will cater for all situations.

That means that after my initial efforts factoring out the FPS game, implementing the RPG game will cause additional refactoring in engine or game interface which needs to be modified in parallel with the FPS code. As time goes on these kind of modifications will exponentially decrease in amount, but will still be necessary.

Since people working on these game projects will be responsible for keeping the whole sane, I will restrict which projects go in here. Initially just 2 or 3 projects I presume.

The effects for all the mod makers which are not part of the core game group are not that severe. First of all the seperation benefits them tremendously already. Second, as thing calm down in terms of interface changes (which I expect to be after the initial start of the RPG project), upgrading an external project to the latest version of the engine will be relatively painless. Certainly compared to the current situation with Cube where a new engine means a complete nightmare to upgrade.

Enigma: what will end up in the game module will be slightly less than you envision. For example, the physics will be part of the engine, not the game. You will be able to modify physics parameters (player speed, friction etc), but not the base physics code. If someone fixes a problem in the collision detection, that should benefit all games equally.

And hey, remember that Sauerbraten will still be 100% open source. That means that its goal is not necessarily to allow ANYTHING without having to touch the engine, just as much as possible. Again, the goal is to support all the main projects the main sauerbraten contributors have in mind without having to fork the majority of code. A side effect of this is that the majority of external people wanting to make games can do so without touching the engine, but it is no guarantee.

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#18: re: mmorpg

by Flamie on 06/22/2005 09:30

what you are planning to do with sauerbraten (dynamic content, flexible world etc) for a mmorpg a group in sweden is up to doing and hasn't decided on what engine yet (I'm part of that group).

we are considering sauerbraten, but as of now it lacks a few things we need, so we might go with embrace & expand / fork.

If we'd choose to use sauer, we'll start helping out with the maplinking part at first, making it preload the maps that belong on each of the sides of the cube you are in (3x3x3-1 cubes) so that you can seemlessly walk between then without noticing any change.

After that we'd propose a change of minimum cube-size, to make it much smaller, allowing the content creators to model small objects such as vases, plates, books etc.

If you're interested in sharing ideas or just want to discuss you can reach me at roze@roze.mine.nu.

Perhaps it might even be beneficial to join teams (we are ~15 people active now)? (that is, if we share the same goals)

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#19: stupid question

by CC_Machine2 on 06/22/2005 20:06

i know this is a bit of a stupid question but what does MMORPG mean/stand for?

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#20: ..

by makkE on 06/22/2005 20:08

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

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