Contingency plan

[Owehn]

I thought the whole "contingency" idea was to find a way to get fan Ages into a multiplayer setting. That is, the contingency isn't that we're no longer allowed to use plasma, but that we're not allowed to set up a multiplayer game using it. (Correct me if I've misunderstood the idea.)

As far as connecting to Uru's storyline without taking content from Uru, that's a job for the other thread I think.

[tachyon'ni]

I tend to favor the Guild of Ideas in the same way I favor the Guild of Writers. I enjoy MOUL, just as I enjoyed Star Trek and all the Star Wars movies. But I didn't become a trekkie, and won't become a MOULIE. I suspect most of the people I met online won't either.

I am interested in what MOUL can become at the next level. I am very impressed with the quality of ideas expressed in this forum, even though I don't know where it will/can go. IMO we have only two real options: 1) CYAN regroups and returns to production; or 2) CYAN doesn't regroup either financially or creatively.

If 1) I'm good with that, but will wait to see what happens before committing to CYAN again. If 2) then either I return pretty much full time to my RL, or I join in and try to work with others to move the best of the MOUL concept to the next level independently of MOUL, with a different set of characters and a different story line and different technology.

There's lots of game writers and programmers working on financially profitable games. Those games end up on GameTap (not a flame at GameTap). MYST has been 'good' since '94' and is still seemingly 'good' with new ages, even without much improvement in the interactive aspect.

So, what to do??? IF 2) is the case.

Maybe at some point we need to 'formalize' the intentions of the post-MOUL group. My reading of the situation is that there will be fewer than 100 interested enough to contribute to the process, with another several hundred willing to test output and get involved as players.

I have a couple of ideas about how we might proceed.

Based on what others have written and shared, I believe we have an interested and capable pool of talent available that can create a game with the capabilities of MOUL, but at the next level, whatever that is.

This is the creative stage, so IMO all ideas should be accepted without criticism. A lot of these ideas have already been expressed, and perhaps Tai'lar can provide the organization as offered in this forum.

1. Describe what we like best abut MOUL; what to keep. Story, characters, IC interactions, puzzles; ages, etc.
2. Research other games, and create new possibilities, to determine what we would want as a story, characters, etc.
3. Based on 1 & 2, what we would want our 'experience' to be/do?
4. Research the cutting edge and beyond in technology available. Post Havoc and beyond...
5. Develop story line to include all elements, stages, interactions, in-scene experiences, puzzles...
6. My experience in RL says that an entity needs to be identified for this group, i.e. registered company name (RCN).
Why a company? Because the products of our efforts will likely have value that might tempt someone to 'borrow'
them, register them and then charge us for using them!
7. So, register/copyright/patent any property we develop.

The need for people, material, technology and so on needs to be determined. Costs need to be considered up front. I don't care how many are involved in developing and testing the material, but when it goes online we need to have a 'user fee' basis.

I hope to continue my involvement with the Guild of Ideas and Guild of Writers to see what is possible. I've just read so many exciting ideas that might enable me to enjoy the kinds of experiences I had with MOUL, without becoming a MOULIE. What is the cutting edge of what can be done with the MOUL idea, with or without the MOUL story?


_________________
vmorris
KI#01807516

"Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."
Sir Arthur Eddington

[Nadnerb]

Oh.

Well, the capacity for multiplayer is in fact an inherent abilty of plasma.. I would imagine that if we can use it, we can run it multiplayer in one way or another.. However, if Cyan does completely shut that idea down, (something I doubt will happen) then we do have an issue... Unfortunately, I don't think moving to another engine would fix that. Sure, we could run stuff that we made, and it would be online.. but if they don't want us on their "online turf" then chances are they won't like a separate online game with even glancing references to uru...

Oh well, carry on then.

[BAD]

I tend to favor the Guild of Ideas in the same way I favor the Guild of Writers. I enjoy MOUL, just as I enjoyed Star Trek and all the Star Wars movies. But I didn't become a trekkie, and won't become a MOULIE. I suspect most of the people I met online won't either.

I am interested in what MOUL can become at the next level. I am very impressed with the quality of ideas expressed in this forum, even though I don't know where it will/can go. IMO we have only two real options: 1) CYAN regroups and returns to production; or 2) CYAN doesn't regroup either financially or creatively.

If 1) I'm good with that, but will wait to see what happens before committing to CYAN again. If 2) then either I return pretty much full time to my RL, or I join in and try to work with others to move the best of the MOUL concept to the next level independently of MOUL, with a different set of characters and a different story line and different technology.

There's lots of game writers and programmers working on financially profitable games. Those games end up on GameTap (not a flame at GameTap). MYST has been 'good' since '94' and is still seemingly 'good' with new ages, even without much improvement in the interactive aspect.

So, what to do??? IF 2) is the case.

Maybe at some point we need to 'formalize' the intentions of the post-MOUL group. My reading of the situation is that there will be fewer than 100 interested enough to contribute to the process, with another several hundred willing to test output and get involved as players.

I have a couple of ideas about how we might proceed.

Based on what others have written and shared, I believe we have an interested and capable pool of talent available that can create a game with the capabilities of MOUL, but at the next level, whatever that is.

This is the creative stage, so IMO all ideas should be accepted without criticism. A lot of these ideas have already been expressed, and perhaps Tai'lar can provide the organization as offered in this forum.

1. Describe what we like best abut MOUL; what to keep. Story, characters, IC interactions, puzzles; ages, etc.
2. Research other games, and create new possibilities, to determine what we would want as a story, characters, etc.
3. Based on 1 & 2, what we would want our 'experience' to be/do?
4. Research the cutting edge and beyond in technology available. Post Havoc and beyond...
5. Develop story line to include all elements, stages, interactions, in-scene experiences, puzzles...
6. My experience in RL says that an entity needs to be identified for this group, i.e. registered company name (RCN).
Why a company? Because the products of our efforts will likely have value that might tempt someone to 'borrow'
them, register them and then charge us for using them!
7. So, register/copyright/patent any property we develop.

The need for people, material, technology and so on needs to be determined. Costs need to be considered up front. I don't care how many are involved in developing and testing the material, but when it goes online we need to have a 'user fee' basis.

I hope to continue my involvement with the Guild of Ideas and Guild of Writers to see what is possible. I've just read so many exciting ideas that might enable me to enjoy the kinds of experiences I had with MOUL, without becoming a MOULIE. What is the cutting edge of what can be done with the MOUL idea, with or without the MOUL story?


_________________
vmorris
KI#01807516

"Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."
Sir Arthur Eddington

Not to say I don't respect what you are trying to do, but I have some issue with the way this new Guild of Ideas is working.

First off, I will not be giving any of my ideas to this guild. I am a member of one guild, the GOW, and I will only give my ideas to that guild. Your guild, which by the name I would imagine is for creative people who wish to put their problem solving abilities to work, seems to only wish to collect and discuss OTHER peoples ideas.

That doesn't jive with me. It is one thing to collect information, and come up with solutions to suggest to others, but the only thing I see is evaluation.

Also I read some of Subumbra's posts on the MOUL forums and found them to lack insight, and depth. He sees the surface of the problems, but he doesn't delve into the actual causes or realities of situations. I apologize if it seems I am picking on him, but I don't want people believing that he and others like him have any idea what is going on.

That said, I do want to point out that I myself do not have any idea what is going to happen after April 4th. That's my point. People are making leaps of assumption. I don't want that to happen here. So far we have been very even minded about this subject. It is good to come up with some ideas for "just in cases" but to try to find a specific direction to say "This is exactly what we should do" is silly and wasting time.

This has all been my opinion so feel free to rip it apart. The only thing I ask is that we do not lose our heads about this situation. Thanks.

[Trylon]

And to amend Bad's post, I'd like to remind everyone that this thread is just a big Brainstorm session. All ideas are welcome, but no decisions will be made yet.

[AtionSong]

One suggestion that I will make, feel free to dismiss/dismantle at will. I started working yesterday with the Source Engine modeling and scripting tools. Let me lost some of the advantages:

1) Personally, I don't feel like Hammer is intuitive an editor as Blender, but I have heard that there are ways to import .obj and .3ds files into Hammer, and I'm sure with the intuitive minds that brought us PyPRP, there may be a way to work Hammer to directly import .blend files. Regardless of the intuitiveness of the program, it has a very strong functionality and range of uses, including many that Blender does not have.

2) Valve, the company that owns the Source Engine, is willing to license it for third party works (see here).

3) Many functions that were covered by PyPRP are already covered in the Hammer Modeler. For example, instead of positioning the link-in point object in Blender, in Hammer you select an "entity" and click in a location, and a person appears, signifying the "link-in" point.

4) Because Hammer was designed to work with Half-Life 2: Deathmatch and Team Fortress 2, it already supports online play, and integration is incredibly easy.

5) Hammer already supports ambient sounds (called soundscapes), triggered sounds, animated objects, items with functions (i.e. pressing buttons to cause things to occur), and more.

6) Hammer includes much easier ways to add things that take a while to do in Blender or PyPRP - ladders, swimming areas, lit skyboxes, and more can be created in only a few clicks.

These are the things that stuck out in my mind as to why Source might work as a good engine. I'm not sure if anybody else has used it, but it really is a fabulous set of tools.

EDIT: Here's a nice list of the features of the Source SKD engine. http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_Engine_Features)

[T_S_Kimball]

As interesting and feature-rich as Source seems, my concern is that Valve will not disclose the license costs; You have to undergo an NDA before you even get a quote. Bit odd, eh?

The main gist of the discussion here though is to stick to FOSS tools if at all possible - including the engine. Multiverse has an advantage in this respect, in that as long as you're not charging customers the Dev Tools are free. Plus, a former MOUL Community Manager (and There.com community manager who worked with the urufugees) works there.

I personally don't mind (or care) what the final toolset is for this 'Plan C' item, long as the project leads here are happy with it.

--TSK

[trucker2000]

There is another alternative for option C.

It's called the Torque Game Engine Already tried, tested and proven for years. It's the one I use to make games in. It's cross platform, (windows, linux, and mac) and there is already a port for mmo gaming. There is a python wrapper if you prefer python scripting over torques own scripting language. The only real problems we would have with it would be swimming and climbing. Those are things that some people are working on, but I don't know if they've been completed.
It's a thought. Beats building an engine from scratch.

[Aloys]

Source is a great engine, one of the best out there currently. But that is probably not our best option. Using it for free would mean that we would actually have to turn our game into a 'mod' for Half Life2. ie: people would need to have HL2 to play it. Which isn't great if we are aiming for a full stand-alone game.
And paying for the full version of the engine isn't an option either given it's very high price. (I don't remember the exact price, but for an engine of this calliber it's at least several thousands of dollars.)

Torque on the other end is very inexpensive, and has a good reputation. But I guess if we can find a totally free solution most people will vote for it. Also the lack of swimming/climbing support could be a problem; although I guess that will be true for many engines.

[Tobyas]

Source is a great engine, one of the best out there currently. But that is probably not our best option. Using it for free would mean that we would actually have to turn our game into a 'mod' for Half Life2. ie: people would need to have HL2 to play it. Which isn't great if we are aiming for a full stand-alone game.
And paying for the full version of the engine isn't an option either given it's very high price. (I don't remember the exact price, but for an engine of this calliber it's at least several thousands of dollars.)

Torque on the other end is very inexpensive, and has a good reputation. But I guess if we can find a totally free solution most people will vote for it. Also the lack of swimming/climbing support could be a problem; although I guess that will be true for many engines.

To license the Source engine, it would take in the realm of tens of thousands of dollars. Sadly, I don't think just forcing everyone to buy HL2, as it is a bargain bin game now, will work because an overwhelming percentage of the community has a knee jerk reaction to "games about killing" (which I think does a disservice to a very high quality game like HL2 that has a lot of character to it). Source would have been my first choice too if not for these problems as I have helped design some interesting puzzles in user created maps before. Also, I would like the ability to pick up cones instead of just kick them.