We have everything that is needed to create a great game.
1. We have a lot of talented developers
2. We have a rather mature engine
3. We have some tools and libraries needed
What is missing is content. As much as developers an d traditonalists like to claim that gameplay is all that matters, this is not true. You need, with almost all types of 3D game, to have good content if you are going to produce a product that will impress. This requires either talented artists, money, or a lot of time sifting and combining free stuff.
This game should use all the features offered by the engine and libraries found here
To me, this would be an aim for a set of tutorials. The aim of a game project should be to make the best game possible, using what that needs and only what that needs. Otherwise it is not a "real world" project and may in fact not represent best practice.
I wholeheartedly support the idea in principle though, it has often occurred to me that thing JME needs far more than documentation, features or multithreading is some more complete games.
No, it should not be a tutorial game, it should be a state-of-the art game. To start, we should first gather a team, and then we can discuss, what this game should be about.
IMHO, it should be an MMOG, cause that's the future of gaming. Should it be an RPG? Probably.
I don't know much about how to start a game project, but i guess this can be a rough schedule:
Create a story
Choose the engines, libraries and tools that are already existing (jME, JGN, MW3D,…)
Write some backend code
Create some assets (sounds, textures, models)
Write some frontend code
Every aspect of this project needs to be open. No private communication, no email, only public discussion, then everybody can learn from this project. So it would be sort of a tutorial project, but with the aim to create a real world game.
So far, if i understand you right, we already have 3 members: jedimace1, Alric, Vardamir?
I should start a separate post for this. Most people don't expect to find a game project in "jME Games". Also, content can be created while developing. I bet we could get some artists to help, and some game programmers around here can make graphics. After we get a good game demo(or whatever you want to call it, pre-alpha maybe), recruiting artist is pretty easy from what I hear. There is a large group of artists out there. I will post a new topic in general, if this is wrong please move it to the appropriate forum.
Mr.Coder, I am here now. Programming for 3 years. :D
Programming for 3 years, or GRAPHICS programming for 3 years? Hell, I've been programming for almost 3 years and I'm not even out of high school yet. Definitely doesn't make me very good at graphics programming (especially because I was told, in the beginning, that Java was too slow)
creating a big game (comparable to commercial games) in your spare time is almost impossible because it takes sooo incredibly much time.
When your in school or studying you think, hey, lets create a game, it sounds like a very cool idea and it is of course.
But finishing a game (where other people actually have fun playing it) will take years. Your school or study is finished at one point and then you wont have that much time to work on your game and its development process will starve.
Or other things like work or real-life will get in the way
Only very few games are ever finished, it takes patience and a lot of will to actually finish a big game.
Look at the development process of some bigger games in progress like hhexen or Radakan, JCRPG etc. to get a feeling of how much time and resources it needs.
I'd love the idea of a jME-community-developed game, but it needs some people who are ready to look after it even in 3 years from now. Because a lot of people will come and go.
I'd love the idea of a jME-community-developed game, but it needs some people who are ready to look after it even in 3 years from now. Because a lot of people will come and go.
No point on arguing how long it will take, I think it can be done in a month. But, I am willing to be one of those people looking into it 3 years from now.
Look at the development process of some bigger games in progress like hhexen or radakan, JCRPC etc. to get a feeling of how much time and resources it needs.
We are using jME. It cuts down the developing process a lot. Also, look at what Vardamir said again. It has lots more people then any of those game you mentioned.
Look at the development process of some bigger games in progress like hhexen or radakan, JCRPC etc. to get a feeling of how much time and resources it needs.
We are using jME. It cuts down the developing process a lot. Also, look at what Vardamir said again. It has lots more people then any of those game you mentioned.
... All the games mentioned also use jME. Redakan's current contributor list is some 10 people.. The past contributor list another 30...
I am not saying you should not go for it.. By all means, I would be very happy if you will get this done and finished. But 1 month.. Well let's see how this turns out
I don't want to argue over it will take though. It could be a month. I could be horribly wrong. Who knows? Also, 3 years is a little over exaggerating. But it doesn't matter. Let's try it and see what happens.
Hmmmm… A lot of suggestions. Why don't we redirect the discussion to the topic on it, and let this one die out(unless someone has something on topic to say).
I think finishing a game is overrated. The important thing is to have a good time making it. And not every part of making a game is fun. It's easy do the fun part and start a new project when you have to do the boring stuff.
…and don't say it is easy to make a game yet alone a MMORPG unless you've actually FINISHED making one.
I was impressed with Spirits when I first got into jme. The spirits engine looks complete from the demos. Once you're done making a game engine, you just add crap like levels and characters to make it "big."
if you are talking about Jadstone's Spirits (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CC7eFIzQi4), that was nothing more than a tech demo. No real gameplay, not much of a toolset...
I think you should start a small project, try to finish it and see how the guys in the team work together.
Then extending the small project step by step.
I completely agree with this statement. Start with a basic idea for a game and get the main functionality down.
The reason for this is to help prevent a project that gets a lot of work into it, yet never works. Try to make a "walking skeleton" - something that doesn't do a whole lot, but actually works the whole way through, and then build on that, adding details as you go. Plus, this will help with "changing requirements" - deciding you want to go a different direction, or add different features along the way.
On a non-technical note, it also helps build morale, as you should be doing small milestones, with "little victories" each time you finish one. I'm using something like this for my side-project, and it seems to help (working full-time on software doesn't always make me want to come home and work on a project!). If you want a crappy, single-person-team example, I've been keeping a TODO for each iteration for my project "Paper Mafia" on my site. I clean the public page after each iteration, keeping everything in my own Google Docs - which is awesome for teamwork, by the way. This TODO list is very general until the beginning of the iteration, when I do a little planning. After each iteration I make sure to do some cleanup to keep everything tidy so I can move on more easily.
In any case, I wish you all luck! I hope to see some screenshots and discussion as things move forward!
Well, the tech demo looked great. I'm not a jadestone developer so I have no clue whether they've finished area transitions, combat, or any of that stuff, it just looked like it was complete graphically.
