MMORPG on source... (Twilight War) Thread

Smiling Gator's Matthew Simmons talks about their upcoming Source Engine based MMORPG

Gamecloud.com

Well, i guess it proves all you anti- MMOSG (Massively Multiplayer Online "SOURCE" Game) wrong . I must say, from the screenshots, it looks pretty damn good. I'm interested in seeing where this goes.

Looks pretty cool. Had no clue with the coding talk about the souce engine though.

This is next-gen, right? I cant imagine running the source engine with thousands of people on current-day hardware...

ArChNeMiSiS wrote: Well, i guess it proves all you anti- MMOSG (Massively Multiplayer Online "SOURCE" Game) wrong . I must say, from the screenshots, it looks pretty damn good. I'm interested in seeing where this goes.

Now, I never said making an MMORPG on the Source engine is impossible, but there were alot of mod teams with inexperenced or no coders who had the same hopes.

I'm more concerned how loading works in this game. If it loads on demand or loads by zone. Not to mention how long the times are, what system specs the game requires, etc. Clearly the Source engine wasn't made for this and these guys might be putting more work on themselves unnecessarily by choosing this engine.

If they succeed, props to them.

Edited by (in order): RatoN, RatoN, RatoN, RatoN

It'll be zonal, but either way, I'm still not convinced you'll get a decent game from making a Source based MMO - sure it's doable, but how well will it run?

nope... does not convince me. source and mmorpg on a decent machine... simple no. you need to complete rewrite the network code and engine itself. and in that case you can directly write your own engine or use an FS one. :roll:

Dragonlord wrote: you need to complete rewrite the network code and engine itself

... Which they are doing. I get the impression from this that they are using source more for the graphical capabilites... the rest will be difficult though :\

This shit is old....
READ THE NEWS.
It's not a Happy New Year here at Smiling Gator Productions.

Unfortunately, the end of 2005 is also the end of SGP. Our committed funds have run dry and we were not successful in the hunt for additional investment. The websites and email will be disabled in the coming days, so this is our last announcement before we shut down for good. Thanks again to our fantastic forums community for all the support and contributions! We hope you find another project and give them the devotion and incisive comments we've enjoyed reading for the past 17 months

I was just about to write that.

Anyway, not too good that they stopped. Atleast they didn't stop by difficulties in the Source engine, but in the funds, so it's still possible to make MMORPG's with Source.

Heh, who would have wanted to invest in a crackball project like that in the first instance. It's not too surprising that they ran out of funds. Guess we'll never see if it would have worked though...

The makers, Smiling Gator, announced the 15th that they had continued work again, after being offered sponsoring by the company General Computers.

Rpgvault.ign.com

I think Mauritz just pwned ambershee...

Lol...how...interesting...

Smiling Gator 1
Ambershee 0

^lol.....

Well thats good news, we can see how this is going to turn out. It will answer the question that has plagued us for a while...can source run an MMO??

it'll bomb in the end (seriously)

ArChNeMiSiS wrote: Well thats good news, we can see how this is going to turn out. It will answer the question that has plagued us for a while...can source run an MMO??

it can run it for sure... it's only rather laggy

General Computers won't be able to justify keeping their development funded for too long; they're hardly the biggest and most badass financial presence out there. I think they're just desperately trying to pick up the pieces and get something out there.

Edited by: ambershee

^^ That's what happens to a lot of companies, though. They start off real small until they get that big break, eventually dragging on until they get that hit when all seems to be over.

Look at Squaresoft, and you'll see what I mean.

Yup, and they got bought out not all that long ago ^^

Developing a MMO isn't as costly as you might think, especially if they boot strap it. I think DAOC cost less than two million.. These guys have an edge here because they don't need to write their base technology and engine from scratch. They can spend that time and money on content...

-Scott

I 'm a little leery of that $2 million dollar figure. Quoted from the Mythic Entertainment FAQ at Imperatoronline.com

Mythic wrote:
The most successful MMORPGs (including Dark Age of Camelot) to date have several hundred thousand monthly subscribers. These type of games are created by teams that can range in size from forty developers to over a hundred developers. These games can cost over ten million to produce a AAA title and some games currently in development, are rumored to cost many times that.

Perhaps when DAoC was originally produced, it cost $2 million, but that figure sure isn't applicable today (and they've no doubt reinvested a rather sizable chunk of their revenue back into the game for alterations and content development, since I distinctly recall DAoC having a very rocky launch). The last "typical" MMORPG budgets figure I've seen is upwards of $30 million.

---

I don't agree that using Source is an necessarily an edge in development for an MMORPG. First, you still have to rewrite the netcode and add in tons of security features to make it hard to hack. Second, you have to license the engine (which adds to your cost, but decreases "some" of your development time). Add to this the limited mapsize, limitations on number of objects, plus the fact that the engine is optimized to render for a small number of players, all of which have to be addressed and corrected before you even have a functional framework to begin developing content.

I'd be much more likely to entertain the possibility of using Source to make a non-massively MORPG (i.e. Neverwinter Nights archetype) - that is a much better fit for the Source engine.

Icemage has pretty much knocked the nail on the head with Source - and as it has been mentioned in here before, the engine is so poorly optimised in terms of use for an MMO game, that it would take extensive development to rewrite large sections of it. The graphical section of the engine is complete, but the amount of alteration required behind everything else is phenomenal.

In terms of economics, $2 million is not a reasonable figure. Standard next generation titles are expected to have budgets of $20-30 million, and this is standard, not MMO. Not only that, they have to sell a LOT of units to make their cash back. I'd expect a next generation MMO to require a budget well into the $50-60 million range.

I've taken the courtesy of uploading a few slides from a lecture I attended a while back, aimed specifically on the economics of next generation games. It doesn't go into a great deal of detail, and doesn't focus on any specific genre, but you'll see what I mean if you look into it enough. Also, bear in mind, that when it says 'Next Generation' in this presentation, it was written a few years before hand - but it's still largely accurate.

Davidhunter.gamemod.net

Edited by: ambershee