Project name:
FACTIONS
Team name:
none yet
Brief description:
I began programming this game in February 2008, and have worked off and on since then. I now have a very dedicated and talented team working with me on the game.
Factions is a completely player driven dynamic world MMO. Player housing, player owned territory, player owned factions (guilds), faction created towns, player directed NPCs, missions and work orders created by players for other players, dynamic resources and dynamic 'monster' spawning, lootable player corpses, no instancing. The game revolves around the players and how they shape the world.
Target aim:
A solid niche market game. Those who will play Factions won't be so interested in graphics or a pre-made story line. They will instead put gameplay first and want to have a large impact on the world they play in. They will be mostly cooperative players and creative types.
Compensation:
No pay up front, who knows about in the future.. May turn out to be freeware, may be able to make a living off of it.. The goal would eventually be to form a profitable company. There is a revenue sharing contract which will be signed by all team members.
Technology:
C++ for client and server
DarkGDK for graphics
RakNet for Networking
mySQL for database
Talent needed:
We are in dire need of artists (3d, character, animators etc...)
Programmer
All game design concepts will be considered in our team. I do not want to make anyone feel like they are joining a huge team with a rigid structure and where they will be lost in the shuffle. You will be able to contribute as much or as little to the game and game design as you wish to contribute. Pretty much everyone is a game designer on our team even though we still filter ideas through myself and the other team leads to keep a very consistent feel to the game.
Team structure:
Mike Stankiewicz (myself) - Founder and Lead Programmer
Ray Crabtree - Art Director
Shawn Dundas - Senior Programmer
Brandon Keehan - 3D Artist
Triadian - Project Generalist
Austin Osborn - Composer
Adrian Deans - Textures
Rick Piller - Programmer
Website:
http://www.factionsgame.com
Contacts:
Stankiem@hotmail.com
Previous Work by Team:
-I am the creator of the popular Warcraft 3 custom game "WarBall"
Additional Info:
I'm a 28 year old http:// mature married (with a 6 month old baby) PC / Network technician and amateur programmer. I am a MCSA and MCTS: SQL 2005. Can't wait to hear from you all!
screenshots of the game in it's current development state:
Below is a more detailed description of the planned features:
[size=2]Complete Sandbox Gameplay
-Factions is acompletely different style of MMORPG. Where most MMOs follow the same tried and tested pattern of pre-made,story-driven content. Factions strives to provide a completely unique experience. An almost completely untapped game play style in the Fantasy MMO genre.
-Some "sandbox" games promise open-ended game play, only to be upset by the lack of essential sandbox features like the ones explained below. Factions strives to appeal to the niche gamer who craves a morerealistic open-ended fantasy MMO. It will not appeal to every joe schmo and their sister as other mass market games attempt to do.
-Factions allows the player to play whatever role they choose. Whether youare more interested in combat, crafting, faction and/or town management, building a business empire, or any combination of these things, you will be able to play how you want to.
Full featured faction system
-Traditional 'guilds'have been replaced with the 'factions' concept.
-Factions can control territory,build towns, and wage war against rival factions.
-Rules can be established to control how your faction is governed, how it interacts with other individuals and otherfactions, and how it handles infractions on its sovereignty.
-Factions (and even powerful and well developed individual players) can hire NPCs to perform duties around theirtowns. Manning a guard post, farming afield, providing vendor services for your goods, acting as an auctioneer for your town, and more can all be handled by NPCs. They will require upkeep in the form of pay and food from your fields.
-Borrowing concepts from RTS games and possibly even City-building games, buildings can be erected to serve purposes (silos for food storage, walls for defense, forges to melt the hardestmetals, mills to process the strongest of woods, machines to make mass quantities of the most mundane parts). Towns with the best infrastructure and resources will be the lifeblood and work-horses of well-off factions.
Fully dynamic world
-One world (oneshard) for all players, no portals to go through to reach other areas, no instancing, no static pre-made "theme park" destined to be the same experience for each player.
-Everything from the plant life to groups of monsters is generated in the world and evolves with theworld.
-If a tree is cut down, it will not grow back. If a monster is killed, itwill not respawn. If a mineral depositis mined, it will not return. etc... etc...
-Some threats will need to be dealt with before they become too big a threat. For example, if a faction's territory is on the edge of wilderness it will become necessary to wonder out into the wild to destroy gathering threats before they encroach on their lands. Saythat an ogre camp has been established deep in the woods, far outside the screaming distance of any man. The camp may start out with a single tent and a couple of ogres which are a nuisance to the local deer and rabbit population. In a few days they may establish a larger foothold, start a campfire, and erect a few more tents. Some more powerful ogreswill join them. Given a few weeks theymay be strong enough to send dozens of marauding warriors to bring back needed supplies to their foothold in the wilds; a small faction's town may be ill-prepared for such an invasion.
Completely player driven economy
-Nothing will have apre-set price in the game and all materials and products will be worth only what the buyer will pay.
-There are no gear vendors with gear that spawns out of thin air. If you see a NPC gear vendor, he is hired by a player or faction, told where to stand and who to sell to, and his stock is provided by that player or faction. Infact, if the vendor was killed, the stock could be looted.
-There is no 'starting area', as a new player you have the choice of starting in the wilderness alone, or starting in a faction that welcomes new players (you will be able to choose which of these factions to start in). When you first spawn, you will have only the rags on your back and a small bag, it will be up to you to work, adventure, beg, borrow, or steal to secure your spot in the world.
-There is still a missions system,with all missions being provided by the players. A small list of mission scenarios can befound below:
-Escort mission. A player may hire other players to escort him to a far away place to protect a cart full of expensive wares. Or a player may need protection while mininga large iron deposit far off in the wilderness. Or maybe the player just needs a player who has access to a larger wagon to haul his goods?
-Bounty mission. A player may decide to put a very large sumof money on an opponent's head. Or possibly a very valuable piece of armor was lost to an enemy in battle and the vanquished player will pay handsomely to have it returned to him.
-Collection mission. A wealthy player may need 50trees worth of lumber to complete his new house, he may decide to hire someoneelse to do the work so he can focus on obtaining the marble stone from a far away town... Or maybe he'll hire someoneto go pick that up for him as well?
-Kill count mission. The constant incursions from the local giant bear populations may be starting to effect the farm production,a player may be hired to kill 20 of them to stem the attacks.
-Production mission. The faction leadership maydemand a stone wall be erected around the town instead of the old wooden palisade. A player may request 500 bolts be produced.
-These are just some of the scenarios which may prompt a player or faction to post a mission. Missions can be posted on inexpensive boards in a faction's town, or can be left with an NPC.
Nearly everything is player created with a rich, deep crafting system
-Just about everything that would naturally need to have been created, has been created by a player. Gone are the days of finding a piece of armor dropping from an alligator or a snake-like monster with no arms wieldinga two-handed sword. You willfind, however, alligator bones on every alligator and snake skin on every snake.
-As mentioned previously, there areno pre-built cities or towns or buildings or NPCs. The entire world will be shaped by the player's actions.
-It is possible that a player may reach an extremely high skill level in a specific trade skill and may be able to create things only dreamed of by other players (think nearly one-of-a-kind items like an Excalibur sword).
-Most complex items will require many different skills to create. While it is possible that one player posses all these skills, it is very unlikely. Cooperation will be required to create items like buildings and armor/weapons of high quality.
-Mounts, pets, and companions willneed to be tamed or raised by someone skilled in such an art.
-Crafted items will not always turn out with the exact same specs. Forexample, if a sub-par lumberjack cuts down a tree and damages the wood, and then a sub-par Fletcher creates a "Longbow Arrow Shaft" from that lumber, it may provide a damage increase of +5. Whereas if a lumberjack cuts down a higher quality tree and then anexpert Fletcher uses that wood to create a "Longbow Arrow Shaft" it may provide a damage increase of +20.
-Town management will be a craft initself. To ensure efficient food production, building upkeep, and NPC management, the town management will needto keep a close eye on the workings of the town, faction, and its players.
Ability based skill system
-No one is tied downto any specific class any longer. Players will build their character to precisely what they envision by using Factions deep ability system.
-While more powerful abilities do have pre-requisites, for example, to be able to hurl a ball of fire at another player, you must first learn how to create magical fire and then learn how touse it against another player whom you can touch, then you may be able to learn how to project it distances.
-The ability system will allow very extreme combinations such as a marksman who can stealth or a plate armor healer. But these combinations would bein vastly different areas of the tech tree and would take a long time to obtain such terrific combinations.
-Each ability in the game has a skill level, so while your shield block ability may be available to you, it will take a very long time until it 100% effective.
-Abilities take time to acquire. Even while you are logged off of the game,you can continue accumulating points towards learning the ability of your choice.
-Abilities must be learned from other players with the exception of one ability per week which can be chosen by the player without having to learn it from another player.
-Trade skills and crafting will be included in this ability system.
Feedback:
ANY
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