Plan for John Connell
by John Connell · 03/02/2003 (11:08 pm) · 3 comments
After months of lurking on IRC and reading the forums and documentation, now seemed like the right time for my first plan.
Just over a year ago some friends and I decided to mod the Shadowrun MUD Awake 2050 after it dissolved. Long story short we did some great stuff with it and gelled as a team, but most of the Awake2050 team got back together and started Awake2062. With Awake back we had no reason to continue with ES, and started exploring other options.
A 3D game was the logical choice, and coincidentally almost all of us were involved in 3D games or mods already. So we started looking at engines, found CrystalSpace and Torque the only viable options, and settled on Torque (were you expecting me to say crystalspace! :D). I bought the SDK a couple weeks later (even though I'm a mapper, I wanted to show my support and who knows maybe I'll wake up with a smarter brain and code some day :D) and started testing stuff. After extensive testing and lurking in the forums it was confirmed Torque would be the perfect fit. So the last couple months we have been discussing, plotting, and planning, which brings us to the present :D
Emerging Shadows. "emerging" and "shadows" are often used to describe emerging from the shadows, or stepping out of the shadows. We wanted to flip the script on that... ES is a dark technopunk world where skyscrapers and ghettos cast long shadows, and those cast in them rarely escape the grasp. So Emerging Shadows gave the exact vibe we wanted, brought the shadows to life, all that.
ES will be another MMORPG, and the amount of MMORPGS in development recently didn't discourage us for one second. Most have excellent ideas, but lack the foresight in actual implementation to ever make it off the starting blocks. We think our team being well versed in MUD development and 3D gives us an edge over the average team hashing out most of these ideas.
ES is strongly shadowrun/cyberpunk/technopunk inspired, so if your familiar with any of those the learning curve is non-existent :)
The team consists of three programmers (two are still saving money for the SDK, but are active in planning), two mappers, one modeler, and one writer currently. After weeks of collaboration we are wrapping up our design doc, which will be available to anybody interested in the project. It is extremely thorough, full of original ideas, and has implementation methods for every idea discussed. The level of detail and quality of ideas will hopefully show the reader how committed we are to not only making this game but making it the right way. With any luck it will provide some insight on the team and how cool we are also :D
We don't/won't hype ourselves as a studio or give ourselves fancy titles, and we don't have a "leader" or "leaders". We are just some guys trying to make a game, that happen to be totally awesome and get along well. We all have equal input, and anyone who decides to join the project will too (after buying a round of beer :D). That's about it I guess, I'll leave you with an excerpt from the design doc on our economic blueprint. It paints only a partial picture because other topics show how this will interface and how it will be implemented, but you should get the jest :) Anyhow, here ya go:
"The megacorps have spawned an entirely new economy, not even monopolistic but oligopolistic. Over the previous three decades mega-mergers and acquisitions either through buyouts or brute force have consolidated 90% of world trade between less than a dozen corporations. Corporations have become so multinational that in reality they are nationless, and have grown more powerful than most countries both in military force and monetary might. Today you might buy a Wizbang
Just over a year ago some friends and I decided to mod the Shadowrun MUD Awake 2050 after it dissolved. Long story short we did some great stuff with it and gelled as a team, but most of the Awake2050 team got back together and started Awake2062. With Awake back we had no reason to continue with ES, and started exploring other options.
A 3D game was the logical choice, and coincidentally almost all of us were involved in 3D games or mods already. So we started looking at engines, found CrystalSpace and Torque the only viable options, and settled on Torque (were you expecting me to say crystalspace! :D). I bought the SDK a couple weeks later (even though I'm a mapper, I wanted to show my support and who knows maybe I'll wake up with a smarter brain and code some day :D) and started testing stuff. After extensive testing and lurking in the forums it was confirmed Torque would be the perfect fit. So the last couple months we have been discussing, plotting, and planning, which brings us to the present :D
Emerging Shadows. "emerging" and "shadows" are often used to describe emerging from the shadows, or stepping out of the shadows. We wanted to flip the script on that... ES is a dark technopunk world where skyscrapers and ghettos cast long shadows, and those cast in them rarely escape the grasp. So Emerging Shadows gave the exact vibe we wanted, brought the shadows to life, all that.
ES will be another MMORPG, and the amount of MMORPGS in development recently didn't discourage us for one second. Most have excellent ideas, but lack the foresight in actual implementation to ever make it off the starting blocks. We think our team being well versed in MUD development and 3D gives us an edge over the average team hashing out most of these ideas.
ES is strongly shadowrun/cyberpunk/technopunk inspired, so if your familiar with any of those the learning curve is non-existent :)
The team consists of three programmers (two are still saving money for the SDK, but are active in planning), two mappers, one modeler, and one writer currently. After weeks of collaboration we are wrapping up our design doc, which will be available to anybody interested in the project. It is extremely thorough, full of original ideas, and has implementation methods for every idea discussed. The level of detail and quality of ideas will hopefully show the reader how committed we are to not only making this game but making it the right way. With any luck it will provide some insight on the team and how cool we are also :D
We don't/won't hype ourselves as a studio or give ourselves fancy titles, and we don't have a "leader" or "leaders". We are just some guys trying to make a game, that happen to be totally awesome and get along well. We all have equal input, and anyone who decides to join the project will too (after buying a round of beer :D). That's about it I guess, I'll leave you with an excerpt from the design doc on our economic blueprint. It paints only a partial picture because other topics show how this will interface and how it will be implemented, but you should get the jest :) Anyhow, here ya go:
"The megacorps have spawned an entirely new economy, not even monopolistic but oligopolistic. Over the previous three decades mega-mergers and acquisitions either through buyouts or brute force have consolidated 90% of world trade between less than a dozen corporations. Corporations have become so multinational that in reality they are nationless, and have grown more powerful than most countries both in military force and monetary might. Today you might buy a Wizbang
#2
It will take alot of work and even more tweaking that we are sure of, but every game needs a strong niche and this will hopefully be one of ours :D
03/03/2003 (11:15 am)
Yah we don't want to take it too far, but the idea of a realistic economy is fascinating to us. Since even transactions between stores and the megacorps would be automated it will be interesting to watch where the money goes. It will take alot of work and even more tweaking that we are sure of, but every game needs a strong niche and this will hopefully be one of ours :D
#3
08/10/2003 (8:37 am)
I'm a writer...and a beginner C+ programmer. I have a fairly long background in GMing a Shadowrun world.This sounds like it could be pretty good once the documentation gets finished
Torque 3D Owner Gareth Davies
Actually having the economy affect the game sounds like a good plan. But i'm not sure it would add much in practice. But it would be a change to actually see the player actions influence the econmics of the world. There's a massive amount of data required to even nearly model this in real life... and as we know real life corperate economics is boring :)