Multiverse

[Jackolantern]

It has been years since I have looked at Multiverse. The last I heard of them they were going under after Oracle bought out Sun and the project was being sunk. However, I never knew (or had forgotten) that it was given out as an open source project, and was picked up by a group that now maintains and expands it. Here is the website where you can find it. It even includes a sample game to show how it works. It is licensed under the MIT license, which is extremely permissive, so that is a huge plus.

I figured I would throw this out there since there has been more talk than normal about 3D MMORPGs lately. It also appears to use Python, Java and XML, so no learning a proprietary programming language!

[srachit]

Looks pretty nice, if I ever get into 3D MMORPG creation this has got to be the first engine I'll try!

[Jackolantern]

After looking around, that is kind of how I feel, too. It really speaks volumes that it has a sample game, since that means that out of the box it is MMO-ready. It really starts to boggle the mind how much is actually missing from many MMO engines such as Big World.

[srachit]

http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/12/what- ... ultiverse/

I found this article about multiverse and while reading I noticed a name Patrick Hamilton. The article goes on to speak about Hamiltons game Forces of Arm and then says that the game has been put on hold to make a facebook app for this game.

Is this the same Hamilton who is part of our community? He is making a game called Force of Arm and his first post here was how facebook broke his app

I wish you could tag people here like you can on facebook

Edit: found a post where Hamilton does confirm he was one of the early delevopers of Multiverse

[Jackolantern]

Good eyes there haha

[Hamilton]

Indeed it is.

The server code is good, but the client... well that is a bugger. So we have been trying to integrate the server code with Unity. The Smoo Online is an example of it. But looks like still having some issues. Hoping to have that server code available for release soon. It has been modified since Multiverse went out of business.

Unfortunately the server code will not be free... HOWEVER there are two items to note. One, this server code is not the same that is publicly available*, I guess you can say it has been forked. The second, is I am quite certain I can provide some free licenses for those of you here.

Unfortunately I have been in conflict locations and don't get the time to much development, which is why I'm trying to just do what is suppose to be a simple browser game... heh. I have to get in contact with the group to see how close or far we have left to go.


* This was made in a separate agreement with Bill (CEO) of Multiverse before the code was release for public.

[Hamilton]

On another note with the licensing...
I know of the quality of Hero and Big World and how most of us indies are with limited funds. The price would have to be low and affordable, basically realistic in what most indies would consider acceptable. Although free would be nice, unfortunately I sank a lot of money and time into it, so would like something back... If there is a free model that could work out, I'm open to it.

[hallsofvallhalla]

WHOA! Then you might remember me back in those days. Forsaken Sanctum was one of the first up and running games on Multiverse. Was short lived but a fun time.

[Cayle]

Wow! A full blown Multiverse reunion!

Multiverse was the second engine that I went to after I quit the NWN PW building/modding scene. I really liked its server design, but did not care for the client, because A) it was closed source at the time – a black box really and B) It used a quadtree instead of an octree for handling proximity; probably for performance reasons. This meant that it did not take into altitude differences when determining distances. Now, I could probably work around it, but that the time I said “woah! No real 3D”.

Multiverse was why I started learning Python.

Multiverse was also where I started working on what eventually became Angela. I decided that I’d concentrate on making my sandbox friendly rules engine and mate it up to a server later – or build my own. Incidentally, a Multiverse server mated to a Unity client and using Angela as the actual rules processing engine would be a killer combo.

[Hamilton]

And finally all of those years with Multiverse may be coming to a time of paying off.

So yes, very soon... I do hate to use the word "soon" as we all know what "soon" can imply... a MMO server linked to Unity3D will be available.