Torn City Similar Project

[infinix]

I am a full stack developer with 10 years of experience. I want a frontend developer to join me in this project because I will be focusing on the backend part.

I prefer volunteers willing to learn frontend frameworks. I can only pay maximum of 40 USD a month. 

The project will be similar to Torn City and the story will be:

All new players will be the first settlers on the rehabilitated island, and government gives aid every day, then settlers will start building the economic side of the game. Ofcourse crime will be present. Then items will be used, crafted, selling, etc.

The Game genre is Text-Based MMORPG on PC, Android and IoS platform. 

For interested or have an inquiry, kindly reply in this thread.

[gamble]

I have quite a few questions that'll probably help anyone interested:

 

-How similar are you looking to get to torn? A straight clone with some twists?

-What languages are you wanting to use?

-What architecture do you plan on using? MVC, Rest API, etc

-Are you doing web only or are you looking into apps for iOS and Android?

-Whats in it for the front-end developer besides $40/month max? Percent ownership? (Personally I wouldn't even offer this if I were you. It's one of those things where no pay is better than insultingly low pay)

[infinix]

-How similar are you looking to get to torn? A straight clone with some twists? Not a straight clone but the economy will be similar, it will be a player driven economy. I want players to survive in the island, survive, fight and lead by having tribes and tribal wars. 

-What languages are you wanting to use? I am open to frontend frameworks such as Angular or React. For backend, I will be using Node JS and Java.

-What architecture do you plan on using? MVC, Rest API, etc. I will be using Rest API and Socket for the communication between client and server.

-Are you doing web only or are you looking into apps for iOS and Android? I am also open to cross-platform but will be in the later timeline. I will need for initial version is a responsive frontend.

-Whats in it for the front-end developer besides $40/month max? Percent ownership? (Personally I wouldn't even offer this if I were you. It's one of those things where no pay is better than insultingly low pay). I understand it is insultingly low for others. But $40/month as an allowance instead of a pay. Instead of pay, I can share my knowledge on coding for the interested volunteer. I will also provide 20% of ownership and it will be fixed. I will also add a credits page to recognize founders who helps me build the game.

[Inveteratus]

Some other questions do arise; for example - you say you have 10 years experience, congratulations; but just how far forward are you with the project? For instance do you actually have a specification with wire-frames, clear definitions of the calculations necessary for say gym gains, or how combat works? Without these, there is a lot of core, internal leg-work to be done before you can get of the ground. Sure, you can release and "see-what-happens" which appears to be common in the Mccodes world, but I hope we've grown past that.

How about back-end data structures? It's all very well putting together a system (thinking of Mccodes here), that works, until you have more than 20 people playing simultaneously at which point the database grounds to a halt due to poor design. GL is better but still suffers from scalability from what I've encountered (feel free to correct me on this!). Caching? Job queues etc.? Yes it's a lot of open architectural stuff which I don't expect an answer for, but is of interest to the prospective programmer.

Angular? seriously? Okay, I must be out of touch (and not the first time). React? not my favourite by any stretch of the imagination, a few here who know me will attest to this! Rest API and sockets; okay I can get behind them, but then I'm much more of a back-end developer! Sockets do run into scalability problems quite quickly, Rest API's not so much; at least with a decent LB in front of them.

The offer of part ownership is potentially laughable, but then I've been in the industry for a while (>45 years); and few projects have survived to make this even a viable proposition. I'd hope that your abilities would help create a good working group of people who collectively can combine their efforts towards this. Looking back, I don't think I've ever had ""ownership"" of a site last past a couple of years while the admins drive it into the ground with poor management or just walk off leaving the site to the vagaries of it's users with no DB/code access.

The iOS, Android, PC bit ... hmm, there's some interesting problems with that mix. Graphics; don't they need higher resolutions - 2x, 4x, 5x? on iOS which introduces potential bandwidth problems assuming you are hosting this on any sane system (AWS, DO, RS etc). Both Android & iOS marketplaces require some sort of recurring payment just to be able to list; that's going to hurt billing unless you have a cunning plan for a .. and I hesitate to mention it .. "pay to play" or "pay to win" system. PC is easy enough - heck with speeds these days, it's possible to host demos and small sites from home not that I'd recommend it. Responsive websites get around the initial iOS/Android problems which may be a way around the iOS/Android marketplace pricing.

And that brings about the question on how the site generates income. Adverts (god forbid), pay to play/win, or are you bankrolling the whole system? I assume some form of bankrolling is in place to begin with - AWS/DO/RS + Github/BitBucket/Gitlab accounts and tool-chains. In the early stages of any game, donations seldom work as the product is not public facing, so the costs mount up. This has to be offset somewhere; I remember an individual here who ""hired"" programmers for a projected income, but was paying a massive amount for an highly over-spec'd development box.

I guess it would be useful to know your background as well; 10 years is a decent timescale with one language but these days, programmers need to be savvy in so many fields; there's potential for a lot of overlap which may not be desired.

I suppose finally Torn ... I mean ... why? Sure, I play, but by ""play"" I mean I log in once a day, read my messages, commit a few crimes, run a quick gym training session and bugger off. To me, Torn is a social club, with a lack of content. Oh and why crimes? Isn't the market flooded with crime based systems over cooperative play? So here's where you could make a massive difference; by coming up with something fresh; something no-one has seen before - and no, I won't ask you about it here as that's unfair to you.

Anyway, my best of luck finding a team to work with you.

[infinix]

Yes, thank you for another great response. I tried development on this project as a solo developer long time ago and I completed the initial version but it did not get players and obviously failed at first time. So now, I will start from fresh and open to any suggestions on the team members. I have so much to learn on the gym calculations, and combat flows. I understand that starting fresh will take a lot of time on Research and Analysis phase and I am willing to spend our time on it.

For backend architecture, I will also use microservices with workers and MongoDB for database. This will help on scalability of the system. However, I am not yet sure on how many RAM will it take each server for 50 players at same time since business & process flow is not yet finalized. I am open to any suggestion regarding calculation on this.

I am not into income, I just want to have a game that is alive and we gamers can enjoy. So I am planning to avoid Pay to Win. So I will go with donations on players and sponsors and pay to play on some contents. But I will bankrolling the whole system for the development until 1 year of production phase or until income is stable. 

My background... my first job is a full stack developer with NodeJS, Meteor JS, React JS, Knockout JS and Java focusing on communication system with SMS, MMS, Calls and VOIP features. This is from a US company and I am working remotely from Philippines for three to four years. One project I soloed on the company is a HR system with payroll, hiring procedures and document / file system. Then I moved to local company here in Philippines that is a subcontractor of a giant international manufacturing company as our client. I am focusing on the assets and specification management system where the products they manufacture requires complex specifications. My language here is Java for three years. Then I moved to IT international company, one of the top companies in Japan as a software engineer. I am focusing on the mobile application and database system of our client for a year with PostgreSQL and a React Native tech. Then I moved and currently working on the local company and focusing on their client's Web/Wap system with AngularJS and Java tech for almost a year now.

For something fresh, I am thinking of a survival on island instead. I will combine the idea of Divergent movies and Hunger games. And instead of gangs, I will use tribes and tribal wars. Crafting and Farming will also added in the game. This will make the economy drives. And one of the "not so focus or not so sure" feature I am thinking to add is modding. Which players can contribute to the game as "engineers". They build their own items with modification to stats and exchange of resources such as metals, silvers, bronze etc. 

I am thinking of this game will be made initially by 3 - 4 person. So I am open for backend and frontend developers. Hoping I can find someone interested joining my team here. 

[gamble]

9 hours ago, infinix said:

So I will go with donations on players and sponsors and pay to play on some contents.

I know you said this is just the plan for now, but right here is how you lose anybody's interest here to take on this project with you. PBBG games don't have pay walls for content. That's why people play them. Generally speaking on PBBGs everything can be earned through hardwork and grinding. 

 

The other issue with that is paywalls for some content tends to mean pay to win.

 

For example: an axe is only available in a pay to play zone, but the axe just happens to be the best item in the game. And if the axe isn't the best item in the game or worth the time to get nobody will pay. It's a double edged sword to have paywalls 

[infinix]

I am avoiding that kind of items. What I want to offer the players in the "paid content" is just for socializing. I am thinking of a parks where they can do various activities with rewards that are exactly same value if the player will stay in free location. 

 

Any other way you suggest for income?

Edited March 18, 2023 by infinix

[Inveteratus]

Personally, I'd forget income for the moment. Look to your design steps; there's a lot of problems that will need to be solved, a lot of content to be generated, some of which will no doubt lead to further problems and further content. Balances need to be sought to ensure that players cannot get too powerful, in-game currency needs to be carefully tended to prevent runaway economies and only after a lot of play-testing be it with beta testers or with spreadsheets will you see where adjustments can be made which would allow for real-world currency purchases.

Of course you then run into problems of how to charge. There's a lot of payment gateways out there, but on mobile's, especially iOS, I suspect you may run into restrictions; ie you may have to use Apple's own payment system. On Android there are probably less restrictions, and of course a PC/Browser is pretty easy going. You may have charge-backs, you may have players who expect items, facilities etc in return for real-money, you may have break-downs in communication between the player, the payment provider and yourself. You may even have server issues where players expect some level of service having ""paid"" to play your game. This brings in some basic but wise-to-have legal protection.

There was game I recall that held weekly gang-based challenges; the system relied on people purchasing some form of in-game currency which was used to further their gang's resources. The winner of the competition won either a small token gesture of real cash or occasionally some gizmo, the runners up received some of the in-game currency thus putting them in a slightly better position the following week. It worked extremely well; even a beginner could derive a lot of fun and occasionally some in-game currency if they took the time. Prizes went up quite nicely, I seem to recall iPods at one stage and prize money did reach into the hundreds.

So while it's possible, I'd suggest you work out the concepts first, get the first draft of the code in place; get it play-tested and balanced and then and only then should you look to developing an income from it. Sadly very few games make it this far but a few products do survive. Being careful with your design process, and continuous monitoring of the overall balance, is probably key to making something that can last. Best of luck!

[Dave]

On 3/16/2023 at 7:15 PM, infinix said:

I understand it is insultingly low for others. But $40/month as an allowance instead of a pay. Instead of pay, I can share my knowledge on coding for the interested volunteer. I will also provide 20% of ownership and it will be fixed. I will also add a credits page to recognize founders who helps me build the game.

I think you would struggle to attract a good front-end developer if you're only willing to share 20% of the game, and $40 a month. Most good front-end developers would be $50+ an hour, if not more, I also find it harder to believe the front-end part is only 20% of the work. Great back-end with god awful front-end makes the back-end awful too.

If you want a game to succeed you need to invest appropriately, I would suggest working out a fairer cut for the front-end aspect of this. Also for a game to be successful you need more than just developers, graphics, UX, illustrations, marketing, story writing and much more are required to make a great game.

[SwiftGameR]

I have been wanting to convert my Rc engine (Torn engine) very simliar to PDO remove all the shit (Sorry for my bad lanuage lol) and secure the engine properly as here is some major issues i spotted from a few files i looked at.

• Session Hijacking
• Xss and Sql Attacks
• It has minor security with not the proper checks.
• wraps mres around every $_SESSION['id'] (dunno why)
• Needs serious recode and arrays removed before the querys as not really needed.
• Like above all code and structure needs fixed.
• Crons don't run properly for companys some issues.

And thats not all of it so unless you wish to hire me i would re

Edited March 22, 2023 by SwiftGameR

[infinix]

On 3/22/2023 at 2:44 AM, Dave said:

I think you would struggle to attract a good front-end developer if you're only willing to share 20% of the game, and $40 a month. Most good front-end developers would be $50+ an hour, if not more, I also find it harder to believe the front-end part is only 20% of the work. Great back-end with god awful front-end makes the back-end awful too.

If you want a game to succeed you need to invest appropriately, I would suggest working out a fairer cut for the front-end aspect of this. Also for a game to be successful you need more than just developers, graphics, UX, illustrations, marketing, story writing and much more are required to make a great game.

Thank you for your input. 20% of the income will go to frontend developer. 20% will go to Graphics and 20% of the income will go to Marketing side. and 40% will go to Server maintenance. There is no percentage for backend developer (if only me). I believe it is a fair cut. 

[gamble]

On 3/17/2023 at 10:37 PM, infinix said:

. But I will bankrolling the whole system for the development until 1 year of production phase or until income is stable. 

I thought you were bankrolling it? Development would be graphics (this shouldn't be a continuous expense) and server. I marketing is part of making it successful and should be on you due to the front end person only getting 20%. If it's 50/50 then it's a joint decision. But since you own 80% it's up to you to make the game successful through marketing so that the other person doing 50%+ of the work for 20% of the cut gets paid decently, or they'll just leave.

 

That's just my opinion at least

[rockwood]

how do you make guarantee it will be make enough income for divide. we are noticing only torn game from years. in my view not only 1 ot 2 people can make a good one. in my view for a good platform "team effort makes successful" from first day you can't make profilt from anything.    my observation "patience and efforts works only"

[infinix]

I'm not sure how to guarantee it yet. but I will make sure that frontend will be paid for their hard work. I am also open for a suggestion on how to make it fair for frontend.