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Infinity: Quest For Earth
DarkCrawler
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Didn't see a thread for this.
Anyway, say hello to the greatest independent MMO EVER...
http://www.fl-tw.com/Infinity/
The development team has only ONE programmer and maybe six mainstay artists...this is what they have been planned to have in the finished game (copied from the site):
Current development status
* Open ended gameplay: unlike many other games, Infinity does not force you to play in any specific way. The game is race-less, class-less and skill-less. You can play as a merchant, trade, mine asteroids or minerals on planets, explore the galaxy, do scientific research, create your own industrial corporation.. or, if you are more into action, play as a space pirate.. at your own risk.
* Real-time fighting: most MMORPGs today use a turn-based approach to combat. In Infinity, you are directly controling your spaceship movements and lasers. Your own skills and dexterity will make the difference, not a bunch of stats on your character!
* Persistent universe: infinity is a massively, multiplayer online game. The universe is persistent. When you are not playing online, the game does not stop. Other players continue to play, the universe evolves, and new things are always happening.
* Procedural universe: procedural programming is a technique to let the computer generate the game universe on-the-fly, in real-time on request, rather than manually building everything. Because of this, the generated universe can be absolutely huge. In Infinity, billions of worlds, most of them never explored by any player, are awaiting the adventurous soul.
* Seamless engine: Infinity's engine features a completely seamless experience. You can fly in space and land on planets.. without any loading times or unnatural transitions.
* Planet landing: you are not restricted as to where you can land. Explore every square centimeter of your home planet! On planets you can see the flora and fauna, find oceans, hills, mountains, cities, and a lot of other details.
* Unique quests: Infinity offers a wide range of missions available in space stations or cities. But sometimes you might want to try something more challenging. Discover the storyline's quests. Unlike missions, quests follow a real story, and can only be accomplished by one player (or a group of players). Once the quest is done, it disappears forever from the game and is no longer available to other players. Be the first to complete a quest, and you'll get fame, money... and much more.
* Newtonian physics: rigid body physics are used to simulate the game objects. However, the newtonian space flight will be controlled by a computer, which will simplify the navigation. The amount of inertia is automatically adjusted. It will be very easy to travel in space, land on a planet, or dock to a station in manual mode.
* Astrophysics: Unlike most other games, Infinity respects the relative scales and distances one could find in space. Realistic orbits are used, and planets move in real-time. Many systems have multiple suns, with a complete hierarchy of celestial bodies orbiting around each other. You will find moons and asteroids in orbit of larger planets, themselves orbiting the sun(s).
Screenshots (under development, the finished game will look MUCH better...screenies are from year 2005):
Concept art:
More screenshots and concepts and models in the main site.
As an example that they are taking this seriously and not slacking off...see how many ship models they have made:
http://www.fl-tw.com/Betelgeuze/Public/fleetrenderproject/renderbig.html
FAQ:
http://www.infinityprototype.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dev_Q%26A
The game is still FAR from completed...the earliest Alpha/Beta can be expected in 2008/2009, but there is combat prototype (not how combat is in the finished project, but gives you something to play with). It can be downloaded from here:
http://fl-tw.com/Infinity/infinity_combat_proto.php
Anyway, discuss this awesome project. ;-)
Anyway, say hello to the greatest independent MMO EVER...
http://www.fl-tw.com/Infinity/
The development team has only ONE programmer and maybe six mainstay artists...this is what they have been planned to have in the finished game (copied from the site):
Current development status
* Open ended gameplay: unlike many other games, Infinity does not force you to play in any specific way. The game is race-less, class-less and skill-less. You can play as a merchant, trade, mine asteroids or minerals on planets, explore the galaxy, do scientific research, create your own industrial corporation.. or, if you are more into action, play as a space pirate.. at your own risk.
* Real-time fighting: most MMORPGs today use a turn-based approach to combat. In Infinity, you are directly controling your spaceship movements and lasers. Your own skills and dexterity will make the difference, not a bunch of stats on your character!
* Persistent universe: infinity is a massively, multiplayer online game. The universe is persistent. When you are not playing online, the game does not stop. Other players continue to play, the universe evolves, and new things are always happening.
* Procedural universe: procedural programming is a technique to let the computer generate the game universe on-the-fly, in real-time on request, rather than manually building everything. Because of this, the generated universe can be absolutely huge. In Infinity, billions of worlds, most of them never explored by any player, are awaiting the adventurous soul.
* Seamless engine: Infinity's engine features a completely seamless experience. You can fly in space and land on planets.. without any loading times or unnatural transitions.
* Planet landing: you are not restricted as to where you can land. Explore every square centimeter of your home planet! On planets you can see the flora and fauna, find oceans, hills, mountains, cities, and a lot of other details.
* Unique quests: Infinity offers a wide range of missions available in space stations or cities. But sometimes you might want to try something more challenging. Discover the storyline's quests. Unlike missions, quests follow a real story, and can only be accomplished by one player (or a group of players). Once the quest is done, it disappears forever from the game and is no longer available to other players. Be the first to complete a quest, and you'll get fame, money... and much more.
* Newtonian physics: rigid body physics are used to simulate the game objects. However, the newtonian space flight will be controlled by a computer, which will simplify the navigation. The amount of inertia is automatically adjusted. It will be very easy to travel in space, land on a planet, or dock to a station in manual mode.
* Astrophysics: Unlike most other games, Infinity respects the relative scales and distances one could find in space. Realistic orbits are used, and planets move in real-time. Many systems have multiple suns, with a complete hierarchy of celestial bodies orbiting around each other. You will find moons and asteroids in orbit of larger planets, themselves orbiting the sun(s).
Screenshots (under development, the finished game will look MUCH better...screenies are from year 2005):
Concept art:
More screenshots and concepts and models in the main site.
As an example that they are taking this seriously and not slacking off...see how many ship models they have made:
http://www.fl-tw.com/Betelgeuze/Public/fleetrenderproject/renderbig.html
FAQ:
http://www.infinityprototype.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dev_Q%26A
The game is still FAR from completed...the earliest Alpha/Beta can be expected in 2008/2009, but there is combat prototype (not how combat is in the finished project, but gives you something to play with). It can be downloaded from here:
http://fl-tw.com/Infinity/infinity_combat_proto.php
Anyway, discuss this awesome project. ;-)
DarkCrawler on
0
Posts
The chances of 'if'?
slim-to-none.
You are right about EVE though, Centipeed, but the games DO have a lot of differences. Here is post outlining most of them:
http://www.fl-tw.com/InfinityForums/viewtopic.php?t=1175
Planet landing and twitch-based gameplay being the biggest of differences...plus the astronomical objects and such. I think it has potential to be much better then EVE myself, I didn't play it much but one thing I always missed was the planetary landing.
I think it falls mostly under the question "Will this one guy be able to afford the hardware to run an MMO for 20k players?"
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Well, with like X3's graphics.
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There is most likely monthly payment. It's not like 20k are going to sign in at the first possible moment. With the standard MMO monthly fee (which is about 12 bucks I think), even like 500 guys bring in $6000. I don't think keeping up a server for 500 guys costs 6000 per month? Or even anywhere near it? And it's not like the universe takes up much data, with the procedural generation and all.
You have to buy the servers (and a building to put them in) before you can get people to pay you a monthly fee for playing on the servers that you bought (in the building to put them in).
MMOs also require months of boring work into class balancing,item databasing, and server coding. Furthermore game mechanics have to be altered to make people want to play more and keep subscribing. His idea of no classes, no races etc will never work in an MMO. People would just get irritated that they couldnt specialise at all and that the established players could do whatever they wanted better than them.
What he should do is back this down to a single player / co-op online version. Then all his ideas are great. Release that for massive testing and so forth, just like mount and blade is doing. He'll get plenty of donations and demonstrate his concept can be a success. Then he can attract financing from people and get his MMO ideas set up into a full release game.
Seriously, noone can release an MMO by themselves. He doesnt even want any programming help! Its going to take him a billion years to finish!
Oh man, if you only knew.
I could break it all down into component costs, but let's just say that dedicated hosting costs. Through the ass.
And you'll still have to store the procedurally generated data somewhere unless you want to re-generate it every time someone looks at it.
edit: 6k would buy you the RAM to stick in one server.
The only thing that worries me is that if someone builds an "empire" can that empire be decimated while the user logs out for the night?
-Louis C.K.
You see thats an excellent idea, but what you do is make a single player game, distribute it for free and say "Woot, look at me developers, my procedural universe generator is sweet! And my physics models astounding. Come buy them"
You dont make an MMO. Making an MMO is 10% inspiration, 10 % story and game code, 80 % network coding and boring bug fixing. With a single player game...
Distributes itself for free with online hosting
Players will bugtest for you, for free, with no costs to you
1/5 of the work
No need to worry about interactions between people causing trouble
Allows focus on AI, story and universe
More seriously, I love indie games. Unfortunately, the love is generally unrequited as they don't get very far, especially MMOs. I mean, how long has planeshift been in development on awful, awful servers? I generally find independent stuff in a position to take more risks, but I've only seen it pay off a handful of times.
As to the comment of no-class skill systems not working, I would take a look at UO. I find classless systems far more interesting, and UO was pretty successful in my estimation.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
On top of that, it is a HUGE effort. From all the network stuff that they have so far tackled to the precedural content that looks AMAZING, they've done a lot!
Cause I guarantee that they didn't sit down and model the many thousands of planets by hand.
According to Wikipedia:
What they're doing is procedural content generation. C is a language that supports procedural / imperative programming, but that has nothing to do with how the art assets were created for a game programmed in C.
Maybe I should use "
Hey so does their fantastic productive fanbase have a FAQ that isn't horrifically outdated, because the FAQ you linked is either really outdated or they have no idea where they're taking this game.
Wanna know why this isn't going to work? Because a handful of people aren't going to be able to maintain a project so large and ambitious. Hell, you said they only had one programmer, right? There is NO way one programmer is going to maintain an MMORPG once it has launched. MMORPG launches are already horrible with massive teams working on them.
All of that is completely irrelevant. Even if they did develop the software, they would still have to purchase the servers when beta starts, keep them running during beta without any revenue from players, and then maintain the game once it has launched.
Is it true it's basically EVE meets Freespace 2?