Community Project Mark 562

Business and Project Management Discussions Community & Volunteer Projects
#1

I’d like to get a community group together to work on a project. I have no preconception on the game, technology or medium - just that we need to make something thats actually going to cause a stir. Here in Java Gaming land we have a wealth of technologies around, it’s got to be possible by now to build something thats going to open some eyes.

I’m happy to lead and organise if that role can’t be filled with someone with more experience. It’d be good to get ideas together here and any volunteers together who really would be interested in keeping something like this going. Then maybe we could take it off forum a bit to flesh out what/where/how etc, finally coming back with something cool.

Art and content wise I’m sure we can get enough together from free or nearly free sources to get moving.

So, anyone interested, got ideas, or want to talk about it? Obviously, silence would be the worst result but at least would say something :slight_smile:

Kev

PS. Obviously I’m aware we’ve tried this before but I think it’s time to try again :slight_smile:

#2

I would try to help. I’ve been particularly bad about contributing to open source projects before, but I’ll try double hard to make a difference this time. I don’t have mountains of spare time but whatever I do have I could use for this.

#3

How about a space trading sim like Elite? Have a basic physics framework (like asteroids) & folks could contribute with ship models & AI, procedurally generated planets, missions, multiplayer, &c…

#4

I think a community driven RPG would be awesome. Not MMO… just an RPG. Hear me out, I have a different approach, I promise!

The reason I mention this is because it can provide a unique collaborative architecture. Think about it… some of the best times in a RPG is when you’re walking around towns playing their random mini games or participating in other ‘events’. This is also why alot of hobbyist RPGs fail (due to lack of content).

So all one would need to do is create the base framework… the bit that actually renders the graphics rendering, player control, inventory, etc. The framework could include something like a House object (which could be used to represent any house/building in a village, for example) that is MEANT to be extended to do… well, anything.

The community part would be where any developer can extend House or Building or whatever, and program any event they want (like a minigame). The game could provide some common currency that all events can reward to the user. After the developer finishes their House extension, they can upload it to the community… maybe provide an interface where a Village Mayor can place the new house, or something.

This keeps the core code pollution to a minimum, as all of the features in the game are pluggable by 3rd party developers. So you don’t have to worry about syncing the codebase to everyone and all that.

You can take this a step further and actually have the Houses extended via an embedded scripting language. This way a player can just wander around enjoying what the community has created, or they can develop their own minigame/activity without a compiler.

It might even be feasible to add a feature where a user can buy a plot of land with in-game currency they earned and start their own village. Maybe even have an in-game tile editor that saves everything to the global database for everyone else to download.

#5

[quote=“kevglass,post:1,topic:32769”]
The only thing that really would cause a stir
and would attract utter newbies, experienced newbies, and (other?) DirectX folks
and is doable by a ‘random bunch of unpaid coders’
and can be done in a limited amount of time, with instant results (for motivation)

…is an interactive demo. As a casual visitor, you wouldn’t have to spend an hour to get into the game, it would have superb visuals, lots of (ingame) scriptable AI processing random stuff. When doing nothing, the game would play itself. Something like a tech-sandbox where stuff just happens, and is fully pluggable so that over time, more stuff happens. Gameplay should be fun, and there shouldn’t be any goals.

It’s a lot more feasible than developing a ‘real’ game, which is under the mentioned conditions, likely to fail due to time constraints, not to mention the limited collaboration skills of programmers who haven’t got years of teamwork under their belt. It’s a nightmare to finetune all variables in a RPG, especially if nobody agrees about anything. A lot of time will be wasted on resolving conflicts.

Last but not least, most opensource projects only succeed, if there is a significant codebase to start from. A single coder, or a few coders, would have to do a lot of work upfront, then everybody else can jump in. It is very unlikely that a bunch of people, not constraint by reallife social rules, would reach consensus about a ‘base’ for such an open project, there are too many good ideas, and they probably wouldn’t mix very well.

I think that such a project has a chance, if it aims to be small, stays small but pluggable, until it is forked, at which time you reached your goal.

#6

I think the RPG is a pretty good idea. I tried doing something like that a while ago and something that I found worked well was putting in the level editor a place you can type Java code, then a simple tag based system that allows that bit of code to access game resources. Just use Javac on the code and put the generated class file in your class path, then execute that code when they enter that level.

This way people can very easily to anything. And since we’re all Java developers, it would be simple.

#7

I think it’s about time and I think Kev is the man for the job, count me in. I have been doing this solo for a quite while now and been wanting to try something collaborative. I had an idea a while ago about how to organize a community project. I say start with a week long project of something small (Tetris or Breakout clone). Once 1 week is up the project is done regardless of how finished it is. Then start a 2 week project that is more complicated and original building on what was learned in the first one. Once 2 weeks are up start a more complicated 4 week project and so on until you eventually start 256 week MMO project.
It’s a gimmick but one I think that could attract attention and stop the project from floundering. I think a dedicated website would be a good idea and voting system would be needed to choose the next project and resolve disputes.

#8

My 2 cents, since I’m definitely intrigued by the idea :slight_smile:

I think that art and content is way important. Only because it’s so difficult. I’d choose a game genre that does not require tons of content to be successful. I mean, we’re programmers. We get all hyped when writing frameworks, code bases and obscure libraries. We practially write our own “game engine” for each new game we write. But once it gets to content … It takes forever to produce anything of quality. And after a while it is annoyingly boring. So boring that usually a new game idea pops up, … and there we go again.

(Perhaps that’s only me though!)

Since there hasn’t been any real collaboration between the people before, one should perhaps start on a gentle level. It takes a while to get the feel of other peoples’ code too, and even more time to tie all the code together the way all participants envisioned it.

Look at World of Goo though. Such a simple game, but yet so stylish, so polished and elegant. I’m not saying we should go World of Goo 2, but its an example of an “easy” game that can get real cool if done smart.

#9

Yeah I guess you guys are right, we should start simple. Why not something like Mario?

Tetris, in my opinion, is way too simple. It took me 2 hours to make my own clone of it, and that was a couple years ago. At this point I could probably do it in 1. So getting a bunch of people together working on it for a week? I don’t know if it will last that long, unless we make it very un-tetris by adding a ton of extra functionality, like exploding blocks or something.

#10

The point is to get something finished/polished and start fleshing out the team dynamics for the later projects. I would actually prefer something more original but cloning something at least gives you more of an indicator of how close done you are at any stage.

#11

Sounds cool.

Im not fussed on the concept, but would like to work in a group with someone who sets realistic dead lines.

I also like the idea of an RPG, (not MMO).

Heres an idea (Along the lines of woogleys post):
The player who walks around a penny arcade (in 3d for the 3d programmers).
The player could play any of the minigames (for 2d/3d programmers).
would be nice to setup a way that people could port there mini games into the game.
From there the game can expand to a RPG plot, or just finish as the virtual arcade.

but yeah, dont really care on the concept would be nice to get involved with a group project.

#12

Sounds like a good idea, I’d certainly be interested lending a hand in one area or another.

Solving the problem of lots of distributed developers would be tricky, I think woogley’s on the right track with something like an RPG where everyone’s not stepping on the toes of all the other developers all the time. Perhaps something online-aware (not a multiplayer game) where each developer could have their own chunk of land to create their portion of the world. Chunks could be defined by the url at which they’re hosted, so when a player reaches the exit you could link to a friend’s chunk or to a generic hub. Groups of developers could collaborate and make a traditional rpg which spans multiple chunks that they control. So a bit like the web but in RPG form, with lots of pages created by lots of different people but all cross linked to create something bigger than the sum of it’s parts.

#13

I disagree, I think you will just end up with something like Second Life. I personally would love to see a community developed, compelling, fun, complete and above all thematically consistent game rather than a patchwork RPG. I think it is possible if you have strong leadership (I reckon Kev can do it) and apportion work correctly. I say get together at the start of the project and as a group set a very definite goal as to what you want. Come up with a full list of required Objects and Resources and distribute them amongst members according to capability.

#14

Yeah, the patchwork nature of Second Life did cross my mind. I’m sure there would be ways to avoid that with some structure, conventions or similar (part of the problem with Second Life IMHO is that it seems to be very unfocused and trying to cater for lots of different audiences).

Or some other idea. I’m just thinking out loud here. :wink:

#15

I would really like to work on an RPG. I’ve never been able to actually finish an RPG of any size before. I made one small one that was actually complete. I did the artwork myself, and it didn’t turn out very well. It seems like I can never get artwork for some reason.

But what about the battle system and so forth?

The minigames might be fun, but I’d really like the core game experience to be fun too.

This is kind of what I’m getting at.

Does anyone have a 382-page storyline lying around? We need something like that if we’re going to make an rpg.

Or we could make an engine that comes with a bunch of monsters, encounters, maps, etc. and a map editor so that people can make their own maps or play random maps.

A Mario-ish game would be fine, but it would be better if it had something that made it actually different from Mario. Not just another clone; we already have Secret Maryo Chronicles for that.

Honestly, I’m not sure how much code I could realistically contribute to a community project, and I don’t understand too well how it works. I think I would like to be involved with such a thing just once, even if it were only in a minor role.

#16

Just for the record…

I’d love to create a turn-based space conquest game, in the spirit of Master of Orion 1 & 2 (among others). It would need rule and formula tweaking and annoying amounts of balance, but it need not require the amount of art and storybased content that other games might.

Of course, I’m a RPG junky as well, I just don’t see it as a first project… For me, it requires too much of the things that I find really hard to produce at length.

#17

+1 from my side for this.

Loved MoO and Galactic Civilizations and would welcome something like this.

@RPG:
Maybe we could call it AsIfThereWereNotEnoughRPGsOutThere?
Seriously, how would ‘ours’ (I sadly have no time to get involved :frowning: ) stand out from all the others?

@Topic:
Games I would make if I had the time:

  • Gauntlet-Style MMOG (but more like GW were you pack up 4 people and head out into the dungeons) this would also work with consoles that support java as the interactive level would not be that high. Possible other themes such as Zombies, Aliens, Mechs or whatnot.
  • MMOG similar to Starfleet Command
  • MMOG similar to the X (X2, X3) games where you can also build factories and stuff

But with my son I would now think about making child compatible games.

#18

Elite or an RPG seem to be the general gist? Some general questions:

a) Do we want a framework that allows us to work together but indepedently?
b) Is copying something else but with enhancements ok?
c) Is online-multiplayer-realtime the only thing anyone will get involved in? Would something where you can share via the net but without the added complexity work for people?
d) Content - I know at least some people here are actually reasonable artists as well as programmers. Is that going to be enough? If not does that shape the game idea

Things like 2D/3D/Theme/Tech can wait til later.

For me:

a) I really like this idea. As Riven says community projects normally fail unless there is a reasonable amount of base code in place before the community dives in. Me (or anyone else) can happily put this together as an initial release and let everyone dive in.

b) Copying an existing idea is fine by me as long as it make Java games development look frickin awesome. Jake2 did a great job of this.

c) I think the world is tending away from the traditional multiplayer and toward intermittent net connection games - mostly because of mobility. That doesn’t mean we have to go that way of course.

d) Recently I’ve asked for advice/help from several Java developers in this community with respect to art and been amazed at their actual capability. I’m very much of the opinion that we have the talent in house. However, there are things like content packs that can be bought for small sums of money (I might even sponsor that) if we get somewhere worth going.

Oh, and I’m really glad to see that people are interested. It’d be interesting to hear what the goals of getting involved would be also so that we can tailor the project and the structure to meet them. Completing something bigger, learning about different coding styles, getting involved with a project without having to commit too much time… etc.

Kev

#19

Another reason to “clone / enhance” an existing concept instead of going all adventurous on first project is that it is generally pretty hard to convey a single unmistakable idea or concept across cultures and boundaries. It takes alot of effort and experience to stay on scope, and making sure that everyone understands what you mean. So for a first project, I think it would be wise to begin with a basis in something that everyone knows of, so that there’s no misunderstanding in the foundation, so to speak.

#20

Random thoughts:

a) Some kind of minimal framework would be a great help I think. Distributed teams are hard to organise so since we’ve got lots of programmers it makes sense to expend some programming effort to make working together easier.

b) What Addictman said. A clear, common goal is a must for a project like this, otherwise everyone pulls against each other and nothing gets done.

c) I’d prefer something single player myself, because there’s a lot of hidden complexity in anything multiplayer. Past experience tells me that you’ll have a bunch of programmers writing single-player style code, and some poor sod with the role of online programmer frantically running after them trying to pick up the pieces. Online-aware however is much more reasonable (things like web intergration, sharing of characters/content/etc. and still gives you that community feel.

d) I always find content to be a problem, so I think it’s worth picking something that doesn’t require an entire mountain of art to work. I guess that suggests:

  • games where the quality bar for graphics is lower (eg. games like Civ, or RPG games where animation is usually very simple, and have lots of reuse of the same art)
  • games where most of the art is procedural (Elite?)
  • level driven games which reuse a small core of art (The Incredible Machine, Lemmings, Little Big Planet)
  • picking a style that’s easy to make art for (abstract vector graphics like Geometry Wars, or pixel graphics like Frostwinds).