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Ultima VII has remained my fondest memory of an RPG. It was a world that, in comparison to its contemporaries, was practically alive, a living, changing place (

Ultima VII has remained my fondest memory of an RPG. It was a world that, in comparison to its contemporaries, was practically alive, a living, changing place (that I could visit with my specially tweaked CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT). I think TES has done a good job of taking up the mantle that Ultima VII set down, but for me nothing will duplicate the childhood wonder of encountering the level of immersion and detail that Ultima VII offered. About simulations: after playing MUDs I wished for evolving worlds, player clans with the ability to claim territory and build structures, NPC factions that battled among themselves, ecologies, simulated NPCs that responded to invasions and events, the works. These have been achieved to some extent in recent games, but maybe the magic lies in the storytelling in the end. Maybe what we need is professional scripters running MMO cities: imagine Lord British essentially playing himself as a full-time job, with the ability to spin quests and stories that permanently change the fabric of the world, fight off invading lords, launch expeditions, rezone areas, fund guilds, run his realm. That way we can have complex world simulations, player-driven clans, and the human storytelling element, all richly combined. (I wish I'd played UO, it sounds fantastic. Realistically, I won't have the time or energy to play SotA intensively, but I'd certainly like to try it. Too bad it isn't 2.5D isometric...)

janlukacs 14y ago
I loved U7 The Black Gate. I just hate the fact that all games are 3d now, it just doesn't add anything to the game and it's distracting (in case of RPG games). I'm too old for this s*it :)
gavanwoolery 14y ago
I might just be working on your dream game: http://www.voxelquest.com http://www.voxelquest.com Of course, whether or not I will ever get even close to finishing it is another question. :)
- creamyhorror 14y ago
  It worries me that you're writing your own game engine. Makes me think you might be working on this project for another decade or more ;) Then again, you might succeed like Eskil Steenberg did, after 4 years of effort: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27871/Interview_Eskil_Steenberg_Explains_What_Makes_LOVE_Different.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27871/Interview_Eskil_Ste... I hope you succeed despite your extensive goals (building a deduction engine in AI?). Really, I'd be happy just to play multiplayer in a fairly self-running world that's perhaps more user-friendly than LOVE. I definitely think multiplayer will attract more interest to your game. If you haven't come across it, another HN user shared his UO-inspired project, First Earth. It has more of a focus on allowing a natural player economy to emerge, and the client is built in Unity. As someone who never experienced the glory of UO, I'm waiting to give it a spin. http://firstearthgame.com/ http://firstearthgame.com/
  - gavanwoolery 14y ago
    Yeah writing my own engine was a hard decision. On one hand, I hate writing boiler-plate code, but on the other I have become so used to it at this point that I can whip up a basic rendering engine in a few weeks (the most recent iteration of my engine was written in two weeks of free time, in about 80 hours). I have wanted to use existing engines like Unity, but I have found that they pigeon-hole you into a specific type of industry-standard workflow that is not really good for me (for example I do not use any external assets, everything is generated in-engine since I am not a very good artist). That said, I'm just kind of taking everything one step at a time. When Minecraft was first released, it was just a simple block-based world editor; I intend to release the simplest thing I can first and work from there. As for the AI, it is easier than it might seem to implement and I am not doing anything that novel (primarily the deduction is based off of languages like Prolog); I have implemented basic (test-based) prototypes in the past and I am pretty happy with the results so far. I'll have to check out First Earth; as for multiplayer, I am prioritizing it last - not because I do not love a good multiplayer game, but because it is the one thing I can safely remove and still have a fun (enough) game while greatly reducing complexity. Thanks for your thoughtful insights. :)

janlukacs 14y ago

I loved U7 The Black Gate. I just hate the fact that all games are 3d now, it just doesn't add anything to the game and it's distracting (in case of RPG games). I'm too old for this s*it :)

gavanwoolery 14y ago

I might just be working on your dream game: http://www.voxelquest.com http://www.voxelquest.com Of course, whether or not I will ever get even close to finishing it is another question. :)

creamyhorror 14y ago
It worries me that you're writing your own game engine. Makes me think you might be working on this project for another decade or more ;) Then again, you might succeed like Eskil Steenberg did, after 4 years of effort: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27871/Interview_Eskil_Steenberg_Explains_What_Makes_LOVE_Different.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27871/Interview_Eskil_Ste... I hope you succeed despite your extensive goals (building a deduction engine in AI?). Really, I'd be happy just to play multiplayer in a fairly self-running world that's perhaps more user-friendly than LOVE. I definitely think multiplayer will attract more interest to your game. If you haven't come across it, another HN user shared his UO-inspired project, First Earth. It has more of a focus on allowing a natural player economy to emerge, and the client is built in Unity. As someone who never experienced the glory of UO, I'm waiting to give it a spin. http://firstearthgame.com/ http://firstearthgame.com/
- gavanwoolery 14y ago
  Yeah writing my own engine was a hard decision. On one hand, I hate writing boiler-plate code, but on the other I have become so used to it at this point that I can whip up a basic rendering engine in a few weeks (the most recent iteration of my engine was written in two weeks of free time, in about 80 hours). I have wanted to use existing engines like Unity, but I have found that they pigeon-hole you into a specific type of industry-standard workflow that is not really good for me (for example I do not use any external assets, everything is generated in-engine since I am not a very good artist). That said, I'm just kind of taking everything one step at a time. When Minecraft was first released, it was just a simple block-based world editor; I intend to release the simplest thing I can first and work from there. As for the AI, it is easier than it might seem to implement and I am not doing anything that novel (primarily the deduction is based off of languages like Prolog); I have implemented basic (test-based) prototypes in the past and I am pretty happy with the results so far. I'll have to check out First Earth; as for multiplayer, I am prioritizing it last - not because I do not love a good multiplayer game, but because it is the one thing I can safely remove and still have a fun (enough) game while greatly reducing complexity. Thanks for your thoughtful insights. :)