Uhm, be prepared to read a long post lol, but this will give you the needed insight on what we are, what we do and what we need :)
First of all, let me introduce myself: my name is Michiel 'Mike' Hebben (you can just call me Mike), 20 years old, and I am both co-founder and lead programmer (along with my brother) at Qaxis game studios.
Now, we have founded Qaxis game studios about 2 months ago, along with Mohamed Hamade (our ceo and manager - not involved with any programming) and my brother Stan Hebben (23 years).
The company does not officially exist yet, but that will come soon enough.
We are currently working on our first real game: a Space MMORTS (Massively Multiplayer Online Real-Time Strategy). It is a commercial game, due for release end 2010 (could be postponed, but this is the date we are aiming at).
Stan has 5 years of java experience and is creating the core of the game, aswell as developing the most complex algorithms needed. I have 2 years of java experience and do more general and somewhat easier stuff, which includes the whole 3D engine part.
So far about the introduction of the game itself, now onto the actual thing I want to say: we are in need of a 3d modeler/designer/animator.
The job itself: create and animate the following in 3D (and in a format that is supported by jME of course):
spacecraft (very small, small, medium, large, extra large and insanely huge), also planes and drones
tanks, robots and other land units (like artillery on wheels)
buildings (factories, mineral extractors, headquarters etc.)
projectiles (shells, rockets, missiles and even nukes)
turrets and cannons
miscellanious, such as developing textures and other various 3d models we might need
The game is played on two levels: on the planets themselves (hence the land units), an in the space between them (for the spacecraft). This makes it a one of a kind MMORTS (apart from the fact that it is in full 3d, something pretty unique in current MMORTS, which usually lack even the slightest bit of graphical content).
If someone is interested, be reminded that you will not only be credited for the work, but also get payed according to the work done (amount to be negotiated).
You are not bound to any particular rules or contract apart from whatever restrictions we lay on the designing of the models (like restrictions on the size, certain shapes, amount of turrets on ships etc).
You can add me on MSN (that talks easier) on michielhebben@hotmail.com, or feel free to leave a message here (or in my personal messages). Note that I am from Flanders, Belgium, so my time is GMT+1.
Don't hesitate to contact me if you can design and/or model and or/animate any of the above stated (animate is mainly robots and other land units).
This job is mainly for 3d artists who want to develop their skills, play around with 3d models in their spare time, and get credited and payed for it too.
Both my brother and I can program in C++, but we chose Java over that because it is not only much easier to work with, it is platform independent, thus enabling people with a Mac or Unix OS to also play our game.
I have chosen for the jMonkeyEngine, for it is a graphically proficient engine, easy to use, comes with a lot of tutorials (which I have gone through and now I am experimenting with some stuff myself, I'm getting quite the hang of it ^^ ), but also because of its great community!
I would also like to thank Aleksey Nikiforov, for the creation of an entire StrategicHandler library, which will be of very good use for the game (although some minor changes are needed).
If anyone has a comment or question, do not hesitate to post
Sounds a lot like the sort of game I've been meaning to make. I'm not exactly sure how big you plan this to be, as any sort of persistent large MMO is out of reach for most developers here. My idea was more a traditional multiplayer game, but that was larger…maybe 20-100 people and where you'd have a battlefield and both teams would build up bases and capital ships which has turrets that can be manned (players themselves would be fighters or bombers by themselves).
It would basically be a zone called Fleet! in an old game called 'Infantry Online' that is now run (and has been for like the last decade) by Sony Online Entertainment. It's a bit more than just a multiplayer game like TF2, but not quite like a persistent MMO like WoW or SWG. If you plan on a really large MMOG most people will probably be the prophet of doom in their replies to this thread, but its a valid point.
I know what you are talking about, and yes we see it pretty big. Our goal to get thousands of people to play it.
I am also aware of the fact that most people on these forums (and people in general) will see this as a non-realistic goal, because something like this requires marketing, advertisement, lots of people involved (usually 20+) and a serious budget.
We have none of those, but I do have over a year experience in the making (and keeping up) games like these, and it has taught me a lot. Our CEO/manager is very experienced in low-budget advertising around the internet, and my brother has won several national programming and algorithm designing tournaments, so it's not like he's a newbie in the java programming world either (side note: he almost has his Master degree in Information Technology at the University of Ghent - Flanders, Belgium).
Summer break starts in a week for us (at the university, it starts quite early), and the three of us will put our expertise together into the making of this game.
But even if we do not reach the goal of thousands of players, and only like 100 something people play it, we will not consider that a defeat or a loss of any kind. We have a (very) small budget of a few thousand dollars, but that also means we have nothing to lose. Even if we do lose whatever little money we put in it, we are going to have a good base for future games, and we will have a lot of experience which we will be able to use later.
Anyways, anyone who can make the needed models, textures, or has any great ideas…shoot
PS: the game you are talking about is an MMORPG (and I'm afraid it has already been done by CCP Games with the game Eve Online), we are actually developing an MMORTS, where every player assumes control of a planet, and builds out a fleet (and a land army too for land battles) in order to conquer other planets.
PS: the game you are talking about is an MMORPG (and I'm afraid it has already been done by CCP Games with the game Eve Online), we are actually developing an MMORTS, where every player assumes control of a planet, and builds out a fleet (and a land army too for land battles) in order to conquer other planets.
His description:
maybe 20-100 people and where you'd have a battlefield and both teams would build up bases and capital ships which has turrets that can be manned
sounds quite like an RTS to me..
I like the idea for the game, but when designing an MMO, you also need to consider running costs, such as cost of servers, paying for GMs, and such like...
Yeah, it was a hybrid RTS. At least only in concept of base building + resource gathering. Teams would start with a command center, and would mine resource minerals (powerups basically) over the battlefield and deposit them back at base. That combined money would be used to build defense turrets and manufacturing structures for light ships and capital ships. Building ships also cost money that would be the "general fund" that everyone would put into.
So no, it's not EVE. It's not even a traditional MMO. Infantry Online is a "small" mmo, where zones had persistent stats and in some cases you'd purchase skills, or at least weapon load outs and gained money more you fought and won games. But population wise, you'd usually have no more than 100 people per "arena". But a single "zone", which was a game type (like the above game type, or ctf, or an rpg game type they had) would have multiples arenas, and hundreds or thousands of players would therefore be in a single zone - these days more the former tho.
Honestly, it's more like Planetside - with RTS components. Where the player is a single soldier in a big battlefield and can be infantry or a vehicle driver/gunner. Though I didn't play Planetside long enough to see any base building or resource gathering, I don't think it had those qualities.
I know there's a MMORTS being developed out there that's AAA quality, but I honestly don't know how much different it would be from a traditional MMO. What I'm describing is more like Planetside where you're just a foot soldier in a big battlefield made up of other players acting as infantry or vehicle drivers/gunners, but with an RTS-like resource harvesting and base building (albeit on a much smaller scale). What you're describing sounds more like the MMORTS I heard about, where its more traditional RTS but you don't play random games on maps, instead there's an overall global "meta" game where those wins and losses actually mean something. To be honest that's probably going to be more doable than a traditional MMOG.
Heh your break isn't that early, my university ended May 10th. Though I'm actually done now (graduated the 11th with a BSE in Comp Sci & Engineering ). Anyways, the prophecy of doom isn't exactly skill based. It's far more man-power, which you mention. Programming and design will be difficult, just due to the sheer size of it all. That is where 36 hour days would come in handy heh. Art is going to be something entirely else, and probably where most of your budget will go too. I've found few artists who would rather work on my project, than their own with only limited funding or none at all
Thanks for choosing jME Not a whole lot of 3D artists hang out here though; I'd recommend you reach out to more general art & game specific communities if you haven't already done so.
By the way, if you're planning to pay this artist a standard freelancer fee (i.e. (s)he would not be getting a share of your game/company equity as compensation, which doesn't work for teams without a long track record anyhow) we're talking several thousand dollars here.
erlend_sh said: y the way, if you're planning to pay this artist a standard freelancer fee (i.e. (s)he would not be getting a share of your game/company equity as compensation, which doesn't work for teams without a long track record anyhow) we're talking several thousand dollars here.
Fair point, established 3D artists are expensive.. It wasn't out of the ordinary for my last company to pay an artist (or team of artists) well into the 10,000's for what seemed like very short animations. That said though, remember that there are students out there ;) Make sure you're posting on boards where folks talk shop about Maya and Blender as you'll find many there who are either just starting out or aren't yet 'professionally' established.
Fair point, established 3D artists are expensive.. It wasn't out of the ordinary for my last company to pay an artist (or team of artists) well into the 10,000's for what seemed like very short animations. That said though, remember that there are students out there ;) Make sure you're posting on boards where folks talk shop about Maya and Blender as you'll find many there who are either just starting out or aren't yet 'professionally' established.
Our team would consist mainly of people who are not professional, but can make nice things. I have seen many people around the internet who make stuff just for fun and experience, not to earn something from it. Those are the people we are looking for.
We know they exist, all we have to do is find them ;)
Side note: we do not plan our models to be top-notch Crysis/Call of Duty/... like quality, aslong as it looks nice. And for spaceships, that has much more to do with the design and general looks of the ships than the modeling itself.
Side note: I have quite some experience with Solid Edge (CAD software, can be used to make spacecraft too), so I could principally make models myself. It would take several months though until we have all we need, so we prefer to hire someone for the job.
DarkPhoenixX said:
If you are a serious team, I might be interested to offer my skills and time. :P
We are a pretty serious team, and this game will be made. So it's not like it's just a rough and unsure/unclear idea of someone, we do have most things figured out already. The development of the core of the game is making very good progress and the only thing that could stop us from making it is personal IRL problems of someone (which is not the case at the moment) or a nuke. Or maybe a zombie plague.
Please respond to my personal message and add me on MSN if possible :) we can talk further there.
Well I learned to work with CAD software for 4 years at high school and I’m pretty good at it. I know it’s not really suited for this kind of work, but I can’t really be bothered to learn how to work with other 3D software. But yeah, that’s kind of a last resort if we really can’t find anyone to help us
Pseudocode, well I could give you a few classes (interfaces) that my brother made to give you a glimpse. Concerning screenshots etc, we don’t really have much yet cause it’s only been in development for a month or so, and we didn’t really work that much on it yet because we currently have exams - and exams at uni aren’t really easy.
Oh yes, I do have the base for the GUI so far. I can give you the current version of the game, which is a randomly generated terrain, with the StrategicHandler library and the base for the GUI on top of it. It is something I made to show to our manager, so he knows what jME is capable of doing. It has the native libraries in it for Windows 64bit, so if you have another OS, you’re going to have to replace them with those. But that’s just a few DLL’s so I can just send them over if needed.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=X92JA2IE <- url for what I have so far, feel free to download and test. Remember it’s just the very base which I made in a few days time, it needs to be improved ALOT (also, I only started working with jME a few weeks ago and I’m still more or less in my expermimenting and trail-and-error fase).
Homepage, nope. We need a name for our game first and I guess we better only start making our website once we have something to show to the public (some nice screenshots etc, if we have a few models, then we’d have something to show em :D ).
Also, I’m trying to change the GUI from plain Quads into a nifty-gui though it’s not really working.
I downloaded the jME example from nifty-gui but all it shows is a rotating ball, and no GUI at all. There are also a few errors in the nifty source code that I can’t seem to fix properly. I guess it’s going to be quite a ride until I can get the whole GUI thing to work properly. I might want to post this problem in another thread though.
). Anyways, the prophecy of doom isn't exactly skill based. It's far more man-power, which you mention. Programming and design will be difficult, just due to the sheer size of it all. That is where 36 hour days would come in handy heh. Art is going to be something entirely else, and probably where most of your budget will go too. I've found few artists who would rather work on my project, than their own with only limited funding or none at all 