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UFO:AI Online

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vedrit:
And getting content is the real problem

Yatta:
"Making the good game a MMORPG" is the second idea that usually comes to mind to gamers, right after "add driveable vehicule, especially a tank !".

Well this does not necessarily means its a bad idea, but it is quite naïve. Well unless proven otherwise.
What would the game be like ? Everyone being a commander ? or a soldier ? How would mission be set up ? How would one chose to play a mission ? Is eveyone against aliens, or can you choose side ? People wont be able to change the time scale in the geoscape since everyone must play on the same virtual time - which has to be at least credible in regard to the battlescape time - wich itself isnt based on real time but time units ?

And most importantly : what would be the interest of it ?

Im pretty sure you can come up with a viable answer to that, and solutions to make a game design for the whole thing to work as an mmorpg, but just adding "-mmorpg" to a game name is not enough to call it a project.

And a last note :


--- Quote ---I have a server, I have a game engine, so all I need are the resources
--- End quote ---

You seem to forget that you also need code. As mmorpg would imply almost total game rewrite, and at least 20 times the ammount of the code already existing for network games.

Duke:
@vedrit:
There should be enough openSource game engines out there, BUT...
I don't think it's worth the effort.

Most of the people who love UFO:AI played X-COM *back then*. Those people have reached a certain age and simply do not have the time to play an MMORPG. And I'm pretty sure that they love UFO:AI *because* it is turn-based. You may want to set up a poll to figure that out.

If you want to attract young players who never played X-COM, the contents of UFO:AI is close to worthless. MUCH more eye-candy needed ;) Also, wouldn't the game be "CS, just with aliens" ?

@Yatta:

--- Quote ---As mmorpg would imply almost total game rewrite, and at least 20 times the ammount of the code already existing for network games.
--- End quote ---
IMHO that's exaggerated. The multiplayer mode already has the essentials for an MMORPG. Add some 10-20% to cope with the first M 'massive'. Add some more for the infrastructure thing (auto client update and such) if the engine doesn't cover that.
But also add quite an amount of code to create the addictiveness an MMORPG needs. That's where the '20 times' come in ;)

vedrit:
With licensince issues aside, I'll try to answer concerns accordingly and clearly.
The engine Im using is fairly well set up as-is, and the only coding (I can find a coder in the engine community) that needs to be done is fine tuning. Making a RPG online is simple. With anything (Even here) making any sort of game is hard. There is a reason why Im not coding. I use a GUI engine

You dont make MMORPGs to attact the older generation, who grew up with the origional X-COM. Its as you say Duke, they liked it as it was.

CS does not constitute a RPG. It falls into the FPS category. The determining factor, I think, is game play and goals. In CS, you run around killing people, sometimes try to blow something up or prevent something from being blown up.
In an RPG, there are things to explore, other things to do, and the story to experience.

Very good questions, Yatta. My first thought, which is as easily done and probably better, was to allow players to choose being alien or human. On each side, they would start as basic troops (Humans: Recruit, Alien: Basic of a few of the species), and as they progress, they choose specialty classes (Humans: Promotion, Alien: DNA engineering)

This game would be very PvP (Player Vs. Player), and so the missions would be, for Aliens, would be mostly group assault missions, assigned by local area leaders (How they acheive that position is up to debate), or defending bases or resecuring downed UFOs (Random event). Humans would mostly be defend population (Much like the game), defend bases, capture downed craft, and assaulting Alien bases.
If there is anything I forgot, sorry. by the end of this post, the box was bugging out, making typing difficult

Destructavator:
Duke is right - UFO: AI uses an engine based upon an old, out-dated one that doesn't perform with the eye candy and FX that you see in modern games that come out today.  I can't speak for everyone who came into this project, but I view UFO: AI as kind of a nostalgia type of re-creation of an older, but memorable game.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but I've seen reports of studies done here in the United States that show that over half of all American adults play video games, including many senior citizens.  The vast majority that are into the online multiplayer stuff though, especially the "massive" online world type of thing, are very young and aren't typically attracted to archaic or old-school types of games, especially when they can spend time instead playing some big-shot commercial, modern game with all kinds of fancy graphics and sound - which, by the way, take large teams of full-time artists working like mad to get the game published and out-the-door before their game is out-of-date and no longer potentially interesting.

Not only are you proposing taking GPL content into what sounds like a commercial venture, proposing making a game based upon an old DOS software piece that most gamers into the massive multiplayer scene have never played because of their age, and proposing having it appeal to such gamers with what is by comparison "old-school" graphics and sound, but it sounds like you hope for your proposed game to also survive and compete with a *TON* of competition, competition created mostly with modern technology not present in UFO: AI.

No offense, but from where I stand the chance of all that working is, well, uh, "not the best," to put it lightly.

Edit:  Sorry, my browser froze for a bit and hiccuped, I didn't realize you were posting at the same time.  I still think some of what I said is still valid though.

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