16 replies to this topic

[Master1988]

is opal spheres going to be gettin finished in the near future was looking really forward to playing a new game

Edited by Master1988, 06 September 2011 - 09:10 PM.

[Cadabra]

Simon gave up i think.

[Stig]

Simon says... nothing so far. Don't be too quick to jump to conclusions.

[ice_cold]

where's our simon. i dont care if i even have to click bunnies on the game all day!

[IXThunderDomeXI]

Make Opal Sphere for Facebook

[Exor]

I do wonder if it's still being worked on. Would love an update from Simon on the matter.

[speedy]

its probably a lost cause by now i havent seen anything posted here about this game in ages now

[Pandilex]

I haven't touched this for a long, long time. There isn't much drive to work on it. Nightmist was successful because we were highly motivated to make it - we were neophyte developers at the time and figuring out how to program everything was an extremely fun and challenging task. In addition, I think it was the relationship between myself and JLH - I was always designing and asking for things to be implemented, and then building things out of them. There was a real drive from JLH to add features because I wanted to use them right away.

 

This kind of motivation doesn't exist for developing OS. I already know how to program and it's my career. The only way to be motivated is to have other people who are motivated working on it with me. A while ago I approached a number of people on playing my main role in Nightmist in OS, while I focused on being more like JLH and doing development. However no-one stepped up to the challenge and other than tinkering with various bits and bobs, I've not done anything new on it for some time. What I did do was add all kinds of really cool mechanics. Stuff that would be incredible in Nightmist - walking, talking interacting NPCs, monsters that hunt other monsters and players, a full minimap, and complex customisable AI behaviours that have no limits in terms of what can be done.

 

I would like to develop something else in the future, but I don't know what yet. I've been writing things in XNA, such as NibblyFish for the Bristol Games Jam 24 hour development competition http://www.explay.co.uk/gamesjam.php and more recently another entry into the global gamejam, but Microsoft's recent announcement regarding the discontinuation of XNA has temporarily thrown a spanner in the works of what I am going to do next. I imagine until the new Xbox is announced and the development plans are revealed there might be very little game development coming from me.

 

I certainly have enough time for another project, but all of the other factors surrounding motivation have to be there to do so

[Exor]

I just now saw Simon's reply and all I can say is bawwwww =(

 

Edit: Also wish I didn't see that I have a warning point every time I post now. Especially seeing as Stig admitted he jumped the gun and that I was warned for nothing. So double bawww =(

Edited by Exor, 13 October 2013 - 10:34 AM.

[Pandilex]

You saw it just now? :-)

I'm finally going to do something with Unity soon I hope. Wonder what that'll be?

[Exor]

Yup!

 

Oh snap, you better keep us in the know of what you're working on with it! =D

[Pandilex]

PS: The Pandilex giveth, and the Pandilex taketh away.

[The Joker]

Do something. Other MUDs that's arent even graphically based are making serious cash. It's all about advertisment and facebook. I would like to see this game come to fruitition. Look at Achaea, and all of Iron Realms MUDS. They've all got clients that have basically what your speaking about. Player-based politics, guillds, clans, Sea-travel. Quests. If you ever decide to come back to this project I may be of some use.

 

Nightmist is unfortunately on it's last leg, and how great it was 10 years ago, JLH simply doesn't have the time to rebuild the whole system to make simple editing jobs easier. If you decide the final language that you'd like to build such a game, and are still interested, then give us an update. Also, building the game in an old format would be easy, and we could simply make a client that runs the game from an old school Diku, Smaug, ect. But it would be more fun developing it as a compiled program.

 

What languages are you currently trying to create the project, if still at all?

Edited by The Joker, 16 December 2013 - 05:29 PM.

[Pandilex]

It's a lot of effort to go the commercial route when you have a full time job. I believe there's a game programming competition next month that I'll be entering so perhaps something will come off the back of that.

 

I develop only using C#. I will probably learn Unity if I enter the game dev contest.

[The Joker]

The way people are buying these "credits" in those Iron Realms games would become a full time job, literally. Check out their games. I've been considering working on a project myself. The whole game is player ran and it's basically waiting for kids with Mommy's credit card to excel. Now I do hate games where it's pay-to-win, but, not if I'm on the recieving side of that paycheck.

Regardless, I know C++, but C# is a bigger language, but IMO it's better designed than C++, and it has a lot of useful features that C++ and C don't have, as well as cleaner syntax. C# would be better for graphics, not really necessary for what this game would take, but eh, whatever. Are you planning on making a non-MUD game?

 

I've never used Unity.

[Pandilex]

Not sure yet, will see what happens in January. I'll check out the Iron Realms games you mention, sounds interesting. Thanks.

 

C++ is great if you need cutting edge performance, or if you only know C++. But C# excels at everything else.

[The Joker]

It's not so much about the simple games as much as the GUI built for them, their company builds GUI's for each game with minimaps and all the bells and whistles. You could implement that into your own compiled program though. So check out some of their GUI's instead, you can play the game from telnet on their website. But after reading their forums, people are paying $1,000 US for like 1 "Artifact Item", Which consists of making you Hit Harder, or have like a /where command. Or an item that blocks you from others /where commands. They have like 30 Artifacts, spanning from lvl 1 to 3, lvl 1 costing $100, 2, $500 and so on. There is crazy money to be made in such a project.