Beautiful game engine

[Tori]

I've been browsing around, looking at the thread for a new game engine for the next version of this world layonara. From what I've read, it seems the nwn version is shrinking and my understanding it's going for pay as you play.

I've been looking for neverwinter nights worlds to play on, and keeping a watch on this one. The world seems very nice and the people good. But I can't understand the reasoning to go to a pay system to compete with games like World of Warcraft.

Unless you are going to sell the rights of the world to a large publishing/development company to broaden your user base to actually make money, the logic in this is flawed. As I see it, The user base here is too small to support a commercial venture, and if you stick to developing everything yourselves, to support the world of layonara without making it broad appeal, it will fail.

New users will think "Why should I pay for this world I know nothing about, when World of Warcraft is solid and there are millions of users to interact with? Is it guaranteed there will be users to roleplay with? Or will I shell out money to wander an empty world? "

So unless you sell layonara to a publisher with funds to advertise and get new people interested in shelling out their hard earned coin, I dont see a private comercial venture working out.

Now on another note. Why develop your own engine when there are free ones to download and develop your own world around?

Main Page - Crystal Space 3D

In todays market its impossible to make your own game engine for commercial profit and gain through a very narrow niche such as layonara.

Take this completely free world of Planeshift PlaneShift - A 3D Fantasy MMORPG

They have over 400,000 users, and a passion for the world. They make it completely free for their users. Layonara can take lessons on their model, unless the team behind want to make money, and not do it for passion.

Such beautiful graphics for a free mmorpg game. I was shocked when I saw them.

Here is a few:











And before you say anything, no I am not a promoter or user of Planeshift. If my time permits me to play games, I may join up. For now I just browse the web and post my views where ever.

Now, please be adults when posting your replies, Use logic and facts maybe doing research before any inflammatory posts.

It also would be handy for the team here to give a roadmap with more information instead of generalizations. The masses panic too easily with lack of information and general statements like "We can't tell you now, don't worry about it you'll love it"

Oh, before I submit this post. Is your new game engine being paid for by people on the team? Or do you have investors giving you money?

Thank you for your time in reading this.

Tori

[miltonyorkcastle]

There's a reason why the team doesn't give out too much information: Thieves.

But that aside, I've never heard of Planeshift until now. That says something about how much I pay attention to the online gaming world. It looks pretty in the screenshots, but I'd certainly have to play in the world to get a feel for whether or not the RP and story element (actively generated) were up to par. I could never play on WoW because the RP is about as consistent as cottage cheese and individual players have no chance to make a direct impact on the story. I have no plans to move on from Layo at this point, but even if I considered Planeshift, it would have to keep on par with the depth of active story generation and high-level RP Layonara maintains.

As far as Leanthar's little venture working out, who knows. You're right, it's risky and will likely be a pretty tough sell. And while the answer, "We'll see when we get there," may not be satisfactory, it's the wisest and best answer for now.

[AeonBlues]

Zergon, you have the diplomacy of a dwarven defender trying to move silently, while wearing full platemail and beating a drum.

AeonBlues

[miltonyorkcastle]

"Better RP" and no quests means "Not better RP." But that's only my opinion.

And Ultima Online having unmatched RP... excuse me, but **roars laughing, laughing so hard that I fall out of my chair. I wipe a tear from my eye**

Seriously... that's got to be one of the funniest thing I've heard in years. If Ultima Online is anything close to your standard of RP (which, by your comment, it seems to be), then it's no wonder you didn't like it here.

I suppose there's nothing wrong with that standard, it just doesn't jive with me.

[Skywatcher]

But not everyone shares your opinion of L or Layo or their plans for the future so please just take your opinions and move on and let those of us who enjoy playing here continue. Thanks. It just sounds so petty when you have already left and created your own world and then you come back here complaining and promoting your own world. Enjoy your world and leave us alone please.

[Harlas Ravelkione]

Truth is - in this matter - based on your own perception Zergon. It is good that you have moved on to build your own world where you can promote your own views and the truth as you see it. Please stop to tell others what they should think about Layonara in general, the GMs or Leanthar. Let people find out for themselves, please.

Good luck with your world.

Harlas

[twidget658]

What good is a one-sided view? Other people with opposing opinions should be able to express themselves openly as well as the people with favoring opinions. That offers a balance.

Please, let everyone speak and allow this to be a balanced and tasteful thread.

[Chongo]

Zergon, as someone who has done what you've done (gone off to create my own servers due to discontent with Layonara), only to a much larger scope and degree, please, regardless of your opinions on Layonara, Leanthar, the staff here, me, canadian geese.. whatever, consider this advice.

Establishing a gameworld that is going to succeed demands professionalism, and the majority of individuals over the age of 13 will immediately recognize posts like yours below as a massive red flag and avoid you like the plague. It shows a dirty streak of sorts in how you deal with problems, and they'll usually identify that behavior as indicative of how you'll deal with them as a player.

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, I know it isn't easy to start a gameworld in the land of NWN giants like Layonara, Avlis, or Amia... but realize how bad you sound when you attempt things like this. Everyone makes mistakes, back out of it gracefully and recognize that just because this is the internet, you don't have to burn every bridge that you've passed over.

[Interia_Discordius]

Can we not allow this to become a flame thread and mainly just sit and regard all the different perspectives brought up and allowed? That is what I believe we are all trying to do with these posts, after all.

Maybe we should just ignore replies and post our own views and let it be.

[Thak]

I agree Internia back on topic:

Those screenies look nice.

[Fatherchaos]

I've followed the planeshift development for some time. To Tori, thanks for reminding me that I haven't checked out the game in about 1+ years. I played it back before there was a combat system so the rp availability consisted of wandering around town to explore and gathering little goodies here and there.

Although, to stay on topic here, to L and the layo team the crystal-space engine might be something worthwhile to review for your upcoming project. It's pretty far along, multi-platform, and would generally save your team the torment of inventing another round shaped device called a wheel (tongue in cheek joke here from a berk whose worked in the gamining industry ).

Although I'm not sure how the licensing would work out.

Back to playing Overlord now.

[Talan Va'lash]

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Why would someone create a forum account for purposes of posting this if they weren't promoting their own project? Heh, at least it was done tactfully and the user seems to have done their homework on their audience.

[lonnarin]

Come on folks, loyalty is one thing, but rabid fantatacism never helped anybody, and going on a wild-eyed Layonaran flamewar jihad against the competition just makes them look better. While one might not care for their opinions, directly insulting the people making them lowers you beneath their level and only proves their point more. Somebody telling you how they feel is not them telling you how to feel just because you don't like the way they feel. It's easy to claim 100% unanimity when you silence or shout down all opposing views... but it takes a cival mind to simply stand up and say "well that's your opinion, man. But I like layo because of x, y, z". So far in this post I haven't seen any "Layo Rocks because..." posts, just angry negativity "take your opinions and move on" and "you have the diplomacy of a dwarf" are arguments that only make me feel like playing Layo less.

[Fatherchaos]

Layo rocks because of the players. It rolls because of the dice. OH, those multifaceted, colorful little random generators of numbers.

Did anyone else notice the odd coincidence that today's date is 7-7-7?

[Tori]

Thank you for the replies so far, although it started negatively and showed me an alarming amount of what lonnarin referred to as "Fanatical loyalty" in this community. Being loyal is one thing, but what is shown here shows me there is a huge problem in this community. I'd hate to see behind the scenes here, what I've witnessed scares me a lot. Please feel free to drop me a line if you feel like to vent. I am objective and not biased.

I've been reading the forums for weeks now and the thing on the new game engine got me concerned. The gaming industry is nothing like the entertainment industry. It is much more cut throat and dream shattering.
For every one successful game, there are around fifty that fail. Take account the niche layonara sits in and your chances of success are roughly 1% for any kind of financial success.

As father chaos pointed out, its like re-inventing the wheel. Some companies do not have the resources to create their own engine, so they license from other companies, or use an open source one like the crystal engine. It is a money saving choice and greatly increases your chance for any kind of profit. Even with these choices, your chance of success are still narrow. The consumer is a fickle beast and can turn on you destroying companies, or they lose such amounts of money they are sold to bigger companies and their talent recruited to their own.

What questions I would like answered, which they can be without screaming "Theivery" as an excuse.

Your plans for the new game. Is it pay to play, or the game is free? Do you charge for bandwidth, or do you charge for the game and the play is free?

How will you attract consumers to the new game?

Who are the list of people developing the game?

A list of names and their role. All game companies have this information freely available without fear of "theft"

Are you making your own engine, or modifying one?

What is the current progress of it? 20% done?

Providing details like this will keep people more interested in the progress, instead of statements "We will give you more information when we feel like it"

Thank you all again for participating in this discussion, and no, I do not have any projects I am promoting. I am just a concerned gamer.

Tori

.

[ycleption]

Originally Posted by Fatherchaos

Did anyone else notice the odd coincidence that today's date is 7-7-7?

Yeah, a bagizillion people are getting married today because of that little quirk...

On topic though, I play Layonara because people actually know how to roleplay. The relatively small size of the game means lots of interaction with the DMs, and ample opportunity to interact with friends or foes on a regular basis. I have confidence that the qualities that make layo so cool will transfer to where ever L and the team take the game.
I really don't buy the "larger player base is better" mentality Although the Planeshift game that you mention looks like it could be a lot of fun for a while, I don't think I could ever be really held for long in a game that 400,000 people play. Once games get that big there's just not as much solid interaction and oversight the game administers can have over the players. The few bad apples encountered in any community, become a few barrels. There just tends not to be as much sense of community when people know they can get lost in the crowd of the masses of players. Roleplay tends to suffer as more people join games, as the good RPers tend to shine less brightly in the crowd (thus giving others less chance to learn from them), and the ones who really don't care about solid rp often fall through the cracks.
Just my two cents, based on my somewhat limited experience in various gameworlds.

[Skywatcher]

Well I appologize if I sounded like I was insulting anyone but the FACT of how you sound when you come to a place and suggest that is sub standard and that the people how do like it are doomed to fail is something that should be considered in the discussion. If I wanted to go tell people who played rugby that their league sucked and they should stop trying and come over to my soccer team because it was much better then I should understand the FACT that it might sound petty to those who still play so what I meant to present was a FACT to be considered and a suggestion that from a profesional and social perspective it might be inapropriate. Just because it's the internet and everyone can have an opinion doesn't mean every opinion should be posted in every place.