Massively online space

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Hi everyone,

Well I have been wanting to do this for a long time but due to lack of
time and maybe creativity I haven't finished sorting it out, and Im
posting this with the hope someone will eventually have an idea
(message in a bottle...)...

The thing is that I wanna do an open source massively online game, Im a
Python and Java fan and I have some experience writing games, also I
have where to host it, the point is that I cant sort out some details
about the game and I'd like to hear ideas from creative people like the
ones in this group : )

I haven't decided a lot yet, but its basically a real time, massively
online, space war and commerce game. The "galaxy" is divided into solar
systems and you would "enter" to one solar system at time, you'd have a
screen showing the sun (or suns?) of that solar systems and info about
the planets. You're given a planet and from there you start improving
your tech level and so on, also you start discovering new solar systems
and sending ships to colonize / conquest / commerce with them.

Even though it seems complex it can be reduced to few things and few
graphics, still looking cool and fun. But there are things I cant
decide for example, how will population grow, what will be the
algorithm for it, what kind of planets can exist, how will you make
your population grow faster or more efficiently so you get more
money/resources, etc. So Im asking for ideas or suggestions or "that's
already done", "get lost", "dont annoy us", etc. I have written some
rules and described this better, if someone wants to look at it plz
mail me.

I know its probably not the most creative idea in the world (and its
not meant to be) I just wanna have fun and well eventually finish a
game.

Martin

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"Martin E. Zulliger" <mzulliger@gmail.com> wrote in
news:1127904666.649118.293190@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

> The thing is that I wanna do an open source massively online game

I would post yourself as the project manager and put it on SourceForge.net
which is a great way to get such things done.

The problem with the idea is the MASSIVE part. That automatically means
that you need to come up with new ways to achieve maximum variation with
minimum data needing transmitted.

I have a few ideas along that line. You have the random variables, changing
variables, locked variables, and the display images. We can have a lively
conversation on all of it but it would speed things up alot if you are
aware of the programming problems around randoms not really being random,
and seperately the R-G-B variables of graphic images

Gandalf Parker

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Hi Gandalf,

Thanks for your ideas!

Yes I have some experience about those subjects, I also have some ideas
to sort out the protocol part. Basically the game is synchronized with
the server at the beginning, then it'll be reporting only changes and
each computer would calculate (basically like StarCraft does) however
it doesnt need to be so complex as StarCraft since I think the best way
is to do it with a "mission" oriented approach, for example if you send
a ship, you'll assign it the mission to go to that planet and invade or
whatever, in that point you can do only two things, either wait until
it reaches that point or send it to another planet, but for example,
you dont control the precise position of the ship, you dont send it to
a concrete position in the middle of the space, you only send it to one
planet or another, so the ship will always be travelling in a straight
line from one place to another. We can alternatively create zones in
the middle of the space which would behave as "destinations" for
example space stations and so on, but the algorithm would be the same.
Collision detection would depend in the fact if we allow ships to fight
in open space or not, I guess at the beginning to make things easier it
would be better not to allow them. Later if the thing is working we can
analyze that one.

The game is divided initially in solar systems and planets, with only
one big galaxy. The action happens in solar system's level, but you can
see only one solar system at time, so there you will see the fights,
the commerce and changes, of course changes are happening in a lot of
solar systems but your computer is not aware of them (and doesnt need
to) when you click in another solar system, then your client will
download the changes and then it'll continue calculating new events.

Then as the number of users increase, we can create other galaxies,
with more solar systems and more planets. So the fun would never end.

About pseudo randomness yes well basically the server generates a
random seed and this seed is sent to all users within a solar system,
the battles and so on are decided upon this seed. The seed could change
every some period of time (but I dont quite see the point).

I have already submitted the project at sourceforge.net, hopefully they
will give us an answer tomorrow.

Regards!
Martin

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Actually nope, Ive just checked Eve's website. Thats what I call cool
artwork!

However I knew a lot massively online games and I didnt find any which
is quite what I mean. For what I see Eve is the closest to my idea Ive
found so far but well its paidware so this gives me a reason to
continue in this ship .

http://www.mpogd.com/games/massively.asp
http://www.mmhell.com/

Martin

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

I already have one, but thanks for the advice

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Ok now I see where you wanted to go. Yes naturally a lot of planets and
so on means a lot of info. However this is subject to a lot of changes
since the number of stored variables will change dramatically while we
continue settling things down. But anyway it can give us an interesting
idea of how much info we're talking about.

The first thing naturally is to decide which variables we're going to
store, so I'll start working this out and I'll tell you my ideas so we
can discuss it, if its ok for you.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"Martin E. Zulliger" <mzulliger@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1127904666.649118.293190@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi everyone,
>
> Well I have been wanting to do this for a long time but due to lack of
> time and maybe creativity I haven't finished sorting it out, and Im
> posting this with the hope someone will eventually have an idea
> (message in a bottle...)...
>
> The thing is that I wanna do an open source massively online game, Im a
> Python and Java fan and I have some experience writing games, also I
> have where to host it, the point is that I cant sort out some details
> about the game and I'd like to hear ideas from creative people like the
> ones in this group : )
>
> I haven't decided a lot yet, but its basically a real time, massively
> online, space war and commerce game. The "galaxy" is divided into solar
> systems and you would "enter" to one solar system at time, you'd have a
> screen showing the sun (or suns?) of that solar systems and info about
> the planets. You're given a planet and from there you start improving
> your tech level and so on, also you start discovering new solar systems
> and sending ships to colonize / conquest / commerce with them.
>
> Even though it seems complex it can be reduced to few things and few
> graphics, still looking cool and fun. But there are things I cant
> decide for example, how will population grow, what will be the
> algorithm for it, what kind of planets can exist, how will you make
> your population grow faster or more efficiently so you get more
> money/resources, etc. So Im asking for ideas or suggestions or "that's
> already done", "get lost", "dont annoy us", etc. I have written some
> rules and described this better, if someone wants to look at it plz
> mail me.
>
> I know its probably not the most creative idea in the world (and its
> not meant to be) I just wanna have fun and well eventually finish a
> game.

Have you ever played vga planets 3 or 4? Simple model there for what you are
looking for.

Unless you put some sort of artificial limit on the players, like only one
movable ship like in the Star Control games or the old bbs games like
tradewars or motu, then this sort of game bogs down rapidly. Try keeping
track of 100+ ships, 100+ planets etc and noone can bother with it all, even
in a turn based game. In a real time situation you better have a great
client software with lots of automation (not to mention what the players
forces do when he/she is not online) or players will be just buried under
loads of information.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"Martin E. Zulliger" <mzulliger@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1127904666.649118.293190@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi everyone,
>
> <snip>
>
> Martin
>

Get a job!

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"Martin E. Zulliger" <mzulliger@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1127952754.766102.303930@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>I already have one, but thanks for the advice
>

Then quit your job! And when you've done that, go back to my original
advice.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

In message <1127943754.852188.239870@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
Martin E. Zulliger <mzulliger@gmail.com> writes
>Hi Gandalf,
>
>Thanks for your ideas!
>
<Snip>
>
>Regards!
>Martin
>
You know about Eve, I take it?
--
John Secker

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"Martin E. Zulliger" <mzulliger@gmail.com> wrote in
news:1127943754.852188.239870@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:

> I have already submitted the project at sourceforge.net, hopefully they
> will give us an answer tomorrow.

Lots of info there but I dont see where you are serving the problem. Do
some math on the storage of your variables and you will begin to see that
massive mage means massive info. If you keep passing that info then things
bog down quickly.

When you start running into that, come back and I can toss some options
your direction

Gandalf Parker

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

In message <1127947700.328335.182620@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
Martin E. Zulliger <mzulliger@gmail.com> writes
>Actually nope, Ive just checked Eve's website. Thats what I call cool
>artwork!
>
>However I knew a lot massively online games and I didnt find any which
>is quite what I mean. For what I see Eve is the closest to my idea Ive
>found so far but well its paidware so this gives me a reason to
>continue in this ship .
>
>http://www.mpogd.com/games/massively.asp
>http://www.mmhell.com/
>
>Martin
>
That's why I mentioned Eve, it seems to have a number of similarities to
your concept. Good luck.
--
John Secker

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Yeah that's another point to sort out... well I guess we have a lot of
things to talk about...

At least now we're at sf.net!
https://sourceforge.net/projects/solarwind/
No website naturally but we're working on it.

I'll continue my posts there, basically for two reasons: 1) here Im
annoying people and 2) cuz I always wanted to keep a blog!!!

Thanks to everyone!