Mad (or stupid?) project version 2013

[a_bertrand]

Hi,

This is not NWE related, not even PHP related, and it's way not yet a working game. Let's say it's some sort of prototype. It will please some and may annoy others or simply have the kind of "don't care" effect, anyhow I wanted to share with some here the current project I'm tinkering.

First the current prototype:

http://www.cubicverse.com

What can you do currently?

You can walk with AWSD or the arrow keys

press F3 to have a debug screen

long left press the mouse to dig

long right press the mouse to place blocks

you can navigate in a (really) infinite map (yes it's currently totally lacking interest)

you can click on the NPC near the start point

you can chat (press tab to enter the chat and esc to exit or click)

you can see other players (in real time)

there is a single pig walking around

you can enter the "building" and the roof disappear as well as the wall goes transparent

you can go underground

What is the goal?

The goal is to create a virtual world, RPG based, which offer both the content / quests you had in NEaB as well as the sandbox feeling of MineCraft, basically you will be able to have an area inside the virtual world which is under your own control and let you modify it as will, while you can walk in the whole world, visit other player areas as well as play quests / missions designed by the staff. RPG as you will have skills, levels and all the goodies you expect from a RPG. It is and will be a full multi player game, you can already see and chat with other players in real time, and you will be able to see the map modification (as well as it will be persistent), battle against the same monsters or even against other players in some areas.

Technology used

The code both on the client and the server side is 100% JavaScript... so for the experts it should be clear that it means Node.JS and Socket.IO (as well as some other node.js modules). Why? Because on the client side there is not much options beside relying on a plugin than JavaScript, and then, if you want to have a good cross brother web socket implementation socket.io seems to be currently the best choice, which means node.js on the server. There is also another advantage, you are able to share code for the client and the server as well as avoid to use 2 different languages. Yet, for me it's a first, and I don't know how stable node.js is...

Biggest drawback? The code is visible by anyone... the client side that's it.

Time frame?

The time it will take, sorry I don't plan to rush, I just work on my own speed and it will be ready when it will be ready if it will ever be.

Who participate?

For the code, and the art currently I'm alone. I do have beta testers and some people said they will participate with the story and the concept once I do have a bit more (for example persistence)

Frame work used?

Beside node.js and some modules on the server side, as well as socket.io used on the client side, all the code is from me. Why? Because jquery here would not offer much, and none of the JS framework I checked actually seems to really offer anything for this project. I also do like to fully know what I'm doing. I know, there is tons of JS frameworks and libs, but I don't want yet to test each and hope to gain something from one. Call me old monkey.

As always feedback, questions, ideas are welcome.

[Razor42]

Seems like an excellent idea and has real potential.

One thing... What's going to make it stand out from the crowd?

[KyleMassacre]

Like i stated before, this is a really cool idea and its pretty fun to just walk around and dig up holes haha

[lightning]

minecraft i swear

[a_bertrand]

Stand out of the crowd? Which one? I never saw such kind of game running inside the browser. And minecraft doesn't offer any true story / quests. So for me this is pretty much a unique game. Maybe I'm wrong here, but till yet I never saw anything like that.

[lightning]

its unique ill give you that, but its exactlly like minecraft but graphics ect, but in browser is sick i have to say, will there be like maps you can play or multiplier servers on the game

[a_bertrand]

No multiple servers => useless unless you have tons of players.

Maps you will play? As said it's a virtual world, currently you don't see anything interesting beside an infinite sized un-interesting map, but wait and that should be improved without talking about the fact players and staff will contribute to build it.

And the main difference is => Stories, quests and missions, things that Minecraft don't offer. Minecraft even if it's better in term of graphics (at least due to the fact it's in 3D), is basically a free wandering and sandbox game without much goals beside doing experiments.

[bluegman991]

I really don't think a sky pov suits your game. I would try either first person, or at minimum 3rd person with a pivoting camera.

I know you take pride in having the things you make 100% by you, and making the client side of your games browser dependent only. But I think you would be better off modding minecraft. All the things that you plan on adding to your game can be done by making modules for a bukkit server (custom gfx(tiles, characters), quests/missions, custom made skills and levels, custom monsters, interact-able npcs, player owned areas, you could even add guns and cars if you'd like). It would save you a lot of work, reduce the odds of failure, and comes with a large client base that would be interested in playing it. You could even sell a kit to turn minecraft into the game you want it to be.

[a_bertrand]

3D is not currently doable as true cross browser solution, so no I will not yet pick this road, even if its possible to switch over to it later on.

For a Minecraft mod? Why? That's certainly NOT the road I want to take, first the players must have Minecraft, and then it will not a browser game ;)

And which odds are you talking about? That it would fail? Sorry not an odd for me, in the worse case I will simply not finish the game, but in any case I had fun, and learned things, so no odds. It's not because the game I'm building takes some ideas of minecraft that it is actually minecraft.

[bluegman991]

My reason for suggesting a minecraft mod is because, I see no reason for playing a game like this over minecraft. Even if it did have quests and all the extras. You can always turn minecraft into an applet, that way it's still a browser game. :p Not saying I approve, but you could also set your server to offline mode so people who don't have minecraft could also play.

By fail, I'm speaking specifically in the sense of popularity and widespread of usage. I understand if your doing it as something to learn from, i'm just saying if it was something that you wanted to be played and used by many people, then you should think about my suggestion. If not, then continue as it will serve a great learning purpose and maybe later down the line you can make another virtual engine (besides NEaB) or game that is widely used/played.

[a_bertrand]

Well NEaB is maybe not as successful as Minecraft but was / is certainly quiet a success. Most if not all players of NEaB seems to be quiet happy by this prototype of mine and just for that it may very well be a success. Also, never under-estimate re-done projects: facebook is nothing new, it's like a mix of myspace and other web sites. Yet facebook worked out better ;)

We have here a different point of view on the project blue, I will not convince you, nor you will convince me.

[bluegman991]

To append to your "why?" Because the depth of a minecraft mod can be just about infinite, so you have little to know limitations. I haven't really looked but i'm sure people have made some simple quest system for their own servers. But, I think with the knowledge you already have, and the speedyness of your coding, that you could make a server with 10x better content than most other people who manage/run their own servers.

Edit: Since we have a differen't point of view, I for one still would be interested to see how great of a mincraft server you could make. Not saying you should drop this project but consider that as one of your next projects in the future.

Edited April 27, 2013 by bluegman991

[Adam_S.]

Woah, awesome project! Hmm... maybe you should use other virtual worlds for references and combine their features together to produce a new type of world?:)

[Octarine]

Impressive

[a_bertrand]

Well, let's see few things blue:

- Minecraft is written in Java, even if Java is MUCH better than JavaScript, I had so much troubles (stability bugs and more) with it that I dropped it many years ago. I don't plan to do anything with it anymore unless being a professional requirement for example.

- Minecraft is certainly very well spread, but way not as much as there is people with a computer (Linux, Mac OSX, Windows) and a browser. So... if you just think about the potential market of it, you would shoot for a market which is anyhow smaller and therefore you may end up having less customers (not given but nearly).

- Minecraft mods basically are limited by Java and the API Minecraft offer. I don't know if it's really endless but I would say maybe.

- If Minecraft die => your game would die because you are linked to it.

- If Minecraft change something in their API your game may need substantial work to keep working with the new version.

Overall, plus my own interest, and the fact I want to offer true web experience (no applet which are anyhow nearly dead beside for example for runescape) I will stick with my own project and idea. I don't say creating a minecraft server could not be interesting, but not for me.

[lightning]

i personally think minecraft is better but thats just me, but this game is "wicked"

[a_bertrand]

Minecraft is certainly MUCH better than my current prototype. Not only art wise (even if minecraft is on the low side of the scale), but on the feature set. Now would that say that an iso game is always worse than a 3D game? No. Games like Diablo are basically isometric games. Does that mean my game will be as good as diablo? Sadly no. Not only the browser doesn't have the capabilities (speed) to do all the nice effects, but my skills / time are way not enough to reach that levels.

Yet, I would say, an iso, sprite based game can be nicer than a poor 3D because you can have better animations, better models, and even effects which would be simply too CPU intensive in true 3D.

[Lithium]

hmmm... i actually... don't care!

[Djkanna]

Well, let's see few things blue:

- Minecraft is written in Java, even if Java is MUCH better than JavaScript, I had so much troubles (stability bugs and more) with it that I dropped it many years ago. I don't plan to do anything with it anymore unless being a professional requirement for example.

- Minecraft is certainly very well spread, but way not as much as there is people with a computer (Linux, Mac OSX, Windows) and a browser. So... if you just think about the potential market of it, you would shoot for a market which is anyhow smaller and therefore you may end up having less customers (not given but nearly).

- Minecraft mods basically are limited by Java and the API Minecraft offer. I don't know if it's really endless but I would say maybe.

- If Minecraft die => your game would die because you are linked to it.

- If Minecraft change something in their API your game may need substantial work to keep working with the new version.

Overall, plus my own interest, and the fact I want to offer true web experience (no applet which are anyhow nearly dead beside for example for runescape) I will stick with my own project and idea. I don't say creating a minecraft server could not be interesting, but not for me.

Generally speaking, Minecraft mods are limited by Java, Minecraft doesn't offer an API natively. :)

Not sure why people are comparing this very early development project, to Minecraft.

I agree Minecraft is indeed "wicked", but it's also pretty different to this one, although sharing a few of the the core concepts.

Nice to see it coming along A_B. :)

[Sim]

Question #1: What plans do you have for developers?

Question #2: Is this your own project or will be released such as neab and NWE?

[a_bertrand]

Let me answer 2 first: It's my project and will not be sold, or if sold, as a whole if I quit it. Doubt it.

Now let's answer 1: Plans for developers? About what? People helping me on the project?

[Dominion]

Honestly I think comparing this to runescape rather than minecraft is easier since it has quests, and a fair amount of the features you’re aiming for. Minecraft (or what little time I spent on it) has no story line?

As I have said before it looks like it has amazing potential if all goes to plan, however it’s a large project and would take a lot of planning for the features to work seamlessly. I’m also interested to know why you picked JS, and what happened to your former project nebularider as I felt that had a lot of potential to it.

[a_bertrand]

Nebularider was written in Silverlight, a technology created by Microsoft which would allow to write flash like things (and actually much more) in C#. The technology was nice and it was actually really a pleasure to write something with it. Yet, it was lacking a few things like a good equivalent of socket.io for bi-directional communication, and even more support for other platforms than windows. Sadly Microsoft killed the Silverlight after version 5 by basically stopping further the development and stopping any potential support for other platforms as well. For me this, and the bad .NET support on Linux is basically a show stopper.

I don't like much flash, which would be an alternative to JS for this project, yet would require a plugin (even if most users do have it). Flash is odd, and doesn't offer really the tools you would expect from a developer point of view (without saying you should purchase a license to develop it in the right way). JS is not a good language in my opinion, but it has the big advantage to run on any browser (with maybe a couple of tricks for compatibilities). JS seems to offer also most of what I need even if the speed is a bit on the edge.

[lightning]

guys if you dont like this, you really suck, because ive never seen a game like this playing in browser, this is just a start, and in a few years who knows may be on everyone computers

[a_bertrand]

People are free to not like it ;) Free for everybody to have their own opinion. I do honestly believe it has potential but as Dom said, it is clear it's a lot of work before being actually an ok game. Not the usual amount you invest in a hobby web game. But some of you knows me, I'm not the kind of trying to do the usual stuff.