Wow, amazing to see people being quite active. I did know the answer to a couple of you, wanted to hear from those old timers (those of you who have been with Halls for a while now). It is refreshing to see many of you still working on things. I am actually proud that I have completed video number 24 with that Browser Based MMORPG tutorial that Halls wrote. I have been motoring along, adding a couple pieces here and there to the core tutorial game. I have to hand it to you Halls, you make one of the most complete set of tutorials. I just like to sit there and go through a bunch, thus is why I'm waiting for your other tutorials.
So here is my story, the background to it. So, I have got myself a family. A cat, two dogs, wife, couple teenagers, and a 20 week old in my wife's belly. Life is a blast, takes you on some crazy turns, and leads you to where only God knows. Since I have always been "dabbling" in various projects, I have come from playing MMO's since the Meridian59 days, all the way up to your current incarnations of MMO's. The one game that has always struck a cord and resonated within me was Ultima Online. It seems only the ones in my age group know of this amazing game that was more socially driven than content driven. The game was open enough to allow people to explore the entire world and to discover places to go, search through, fight, etc. You chose what you wanted to do. Then there was the good old original Everquest. That was a unique game in itself, was the first to take the idea of exploration, and have the fun be in exploring, looking for those interesting places to fight monsters, even team up and play together in a group. I had a great experience with the original Everquest as well. Then from there it all goes blurry as then everything seems to be a rehash of what has been done.
So when life got hectic for myself here earlier in 2013, I had to drop out of that contest that Halls had running here. I never left the idea I had, I just had to postpone things. Well, I am back. Over the past few months here I haven't even played a game or anything. I was taking it easy, doing broad research, reading, when it all hit me. So, I am back going through the tutorials and trying to soak this all up as quickly as I can with the time I have. As my time is limited I have to use it as best as I can. As I mentioned before, I have hit video number 24, completed it and have done my own tweaks and changes to the game outside of the tutorial. I am getting comfortable with how php and mySQL operate. I plan to go through the rest of the tutorials here this week so that I can get started on the idea that hit me.
For those of you curious, the idea that hit me was to create a site, that would allow me to create these games and have people play them. To elaborate, you would say go to
www.demuria.net (nothing parked in there yet, returns a forbidden
) and see that there are some announcements posted, you read what we are about and decide to create an account. You would then log in and see an area for forums, games to try, and even a shoutbox. To take you on a jag, you know how when people are making their game, they tend to always reset the databases every so often and so you have to recreate your account? Well why not create a site that sits on top of the game sites. This way you can create an account for the site, and then you can go and create characters in the game worlds. As well as offer a way for the community to interact within itself for the game. One where you have to be registered on to see. The games that would reside within the site could then have their databases reset, but at least the account is still there and thus an area to hang out in. So back to the concept, you are logged in and see that there is a new update for a particular game, you notice the database is reset and so you give it a shot to check out the new changes. Maybe there is a game that has gone live and so you want to advance your character some more. So to recap all of this, the idea is a main site that handles the accounts, and from there you access the games and forums for a place where games are being developed and created. Then to be tested by the members, and even feedback for changes/improvements.
As far as monetizing anything, I haven't taken it to that level. There are some ideas I have for that, such as you donate via PayPal and receive some In-Game currency, which then can be used to accelerate tasks, or buy items only available with currency through donating. But that is just for those who would see value in the project and want to help with funding it. Otherwise I'm doing this as a labour of love.
Why the reason for this idea? Well I miss those old Ultima Online and Everquest days. I spent what must seem like hundreds of hours of my life into them. Eventually life happened and circumstances change and so moved away from playing those style of games and I didn't have the time commitment. I have been playing the odd game on my mobile device, but even there the small scale MMO's seem to have issues. In Book Of Heroes, I am a GM of a guild and lately everyone who has been active has stopped playing. Frustrating as when you are trying to advance the guild levels and trying to tackle the higher level raids. So it gave me the idea, that I enjoy playing games with other people, just sometimes I can't be on at the same time as them. Since I have a wacky schedule, and sometimes I sleep during the day, other times in the evening. Depends on what is happening in my life. I have always wanted to make a game of sorts, not for profit, but for the pure simplicity of creating a game and having fun in the process. The journey is always more fun than the final destination. So, the idea came to create a site that has all the games that I have created attached to it so that you can follow along with the progress and play along as well. I want the games to be playable from mobile devices to the desktop. I also want to capture that old AD&D style of feel in the games that are created. So the target group of individuals would be those in my age group who lead busy lives.
Well, thanks for reading this, I didn't realize how large I made it. Kudos to you for reading this!
