Out of the frying pan, into the fire

Well, this is my first blog on game development since I started roughly 8 months ago. This first post will simply be a 'this is me, aint i special' post. I'm a seasoned software developer and have wanted to make a game for a very long time. I want to make games for many reasons, but the top two would have to be: 1) I absolutely love every aspect of games. 2) I'm getting sick of business development and working for 'the man.'

I've been coding pretty steady in TGE for the past 8 months and have a real good understanding of TorqueScript now. I'm seasoned in C++ so that never held me back, and now that I'm pretty good in script, it's full steam ahead.

I'm currently working on two projects. The first project is becoming pretty well known around here as the MMOKit. I'm one of the developers on the MMOKit at www.mydreamrpg.com. The MMOKit gives TGE a MMORPG framework to get started making MMO's faster. It has many features already built into it with constant development to add new features and fix bugs when they pop up. I'm very excited about the prospects of the kit and can't wait to get in new things such as the in-game player mail system I'm currently working on.

The second project probably should be called the 'first project' as it holds most of my attention. As you may have guessed, my first game project is an MMORPG. Yes, I know, I already picked out the rope I'm going to hang myself with but hey, when I do something, I do it big! ;) The working title for the game is Forbidden Dawn and is based in the dark ages. Players will be able to choose from vampires, werewolves, mages, and mortals (who hunt the other 3) as playable races. It's a profession/skill driven system like Star Wars Galaxies ORIGINALLY was. I can't reveal any more than that about the project, but we're roughly 45% finished with the code.

I serve as the team lead and lead developer on the project which has three other developers, three artists and a composer. I've compiled a 60+ page design document (not including appendices) for the project detailing every little bit of information that will go into the game. If it's not in the design document, chances are it's not something we want in the game.

I can leak a little information about the sound design however. The sound design for the actual music is going to be set up as a multi-layer design. There will be a main layer that always plays when music is playing, and then a second layer that is specific to the activity/situation the player is in at the time. Together this will make up a very dynamic and ever-changing sound system. The player will rarely, if ever, hear the exact same music twice. This will allow for a more custom experience as well as the ability to take a few hours of original music and make it sound like four or five times that amount if not more. We have a very talented composer that I'm really glad has joined the team.

Exciting times are ahead for us. We have a development cycle of 2 years to get to a closed-beta stage and another year after that of beta testing, QA, and bug fixing. We're going to be very strict on ourselves as far as how we plan the development cycle. If we don't get it in by the time beta is scheduled, then it doesn't make it period. Maybe this is good, maybe it's bad, but we're gonna give it a go.

It will be the end of the year before we get a website up and start showing demos and such, so don't hold your breath on that ;)

Well, that's about it for my first blog. Time to get back to my day job before my boss adds garagegames.com to the damn filters ;)

Jonathon "dishmal" Stevens