Hi
I recently started to read up on what was happening in the Linux comunity
and was thrilled to say the least. The progress the last couple of months
have been enormous and it seem to keep accellerating. In one area though
windows still is to far ahead, the gaming area. Sure, Linux have done a good
job porting windows based games to work on linux but very few games are made
especially for Linux and even fewer of them are big enough to make much of
a different.
Linux needs a couple of good, big games to get more users skip Microsoft.
Most of the Linux users I have encountered still have a copy of windows to
play games on.
An idea struck me some time ago. An online fantasy rpg. Sure, that have
been
tried before but not as this. Here is a small presentation of my
idea.
The Consept
A fantasy world on the internet that never sleeps. Players
connect and
disconect all the time. The programs involved are free to
download and
distribute and if you want you can conect, create a new
character and play
for free but your character will disapeare when you
disconect. If you want a
permanent character you pay a conection fee and
then a monthly fee.
As a permanent player you can have a house, a store and
have important
positions in the comunity. Hey, whats stopping you from
gathering a group of
people and take the throne.
With the position comes
responibility and if you dont live up to them you
will find yourself loosing
ground. A king for example have to run his
countries business wich isn't an
easy task. To his aid though he have an
add-on program he can download from
the server for free.
The whole game is built on that, free add-on programs.
If you have a wagon
creator shop you have an add-on program for that and if
you are in the army
you have one for that and so on.
Ofcourse there are
more to do then building a career. You can go out on
adventures written by
professional fantasy writers or creat your own
adventures by setting up a
goal, like killing the one that killed a friend
of yours or becoming a
master knight for the holy church you are part of.
The World
Since it is a fantasy game there is more races then humans and
all of them
are very different. There are different religions (with Gods
played by
people who work with the game) with different advantages and
dissadvantages.
People dwell on different part of the world, some in the
swamp and some in
the desert and so on.
There are cities and villages.
Alot of AI (Artificial Intelligence)
characters walk around minding their
business. There are AI storekeepers,
city guards, evil magicians and so on.
The map starts out quite big and can
grow with the growing of the
comunity.
The UI (User Interface)
The game is played like a mix of Baldurs Gate
and Warcraft. The UI is
attached in this mail.
1. The map (also see the bottom of the page)
It is on the map
everything happens. If you want to look at something you
just click on it.
E.g. if you click on a person you get a picture of him/her
on the Object and
Control window (window 2) and can choose what to do there.
The graphic on
the map is quite simple but still very comprehensive. For
slower conections
the details can be set to low. If it is set to low the
building seem more
alike and the trees in the woods are more alike.
2. The Object and Control Window
Here you make your choices what you
want to do. You have acces to add-on
programs here and alot else
too.
3. The Personal Info and Control window.
Here you see how much money you
have on your person, in the bank and stuffed
under your bed. You choose what you want to hold in your hands and what to
have
in the little back pack you have.
Why Linux
Sure, this could be done to Windows but since this progam is
made to grow
the Linux community is more use to the idea of helping out. The
money isn't
in selling the game. The money is in commercial and fees from
permanent
players.
Why this would be a success
MUDs (Mulit User Dungeons) have allways been
a success even though it is
quite hard to learn the system and it takes a
long time to feel at home in
the worlds. The graphic MUDs out there are
often very expensive and very
complicated to use. None of them explains how
it works and there is no goal
in the worlds more then hang out, wich gets
quite boring after a while.
"The World", as I call this game at the moment,
would be very different. The
UI is easy, the graphic is easy the goals are
many and the limits are not
even there.
Why you shouldn't just steal this idea yourself
I have put alot of
effort, time and love in this project and am taking a big
chance by handing
my idea out to alot of people for comments. Besides the
fact that it would
be faul play to use the idea I have written down alot of
thoughts and ideas
about everything I can think about and new thoughts comes
all the time. I
have a vision and a vision is the base of all good projects.
Why I am sending you this.
The reason I am sending this to you is one of
the following.
* You have a company withing the Linux comunity and could
therefore be
interested in this project as a sponsor.
* You have another
company wich might want to sponsor this project
* You are a person or have a
company wich have knowledge that would be
usefull in this project.
* You
are a programmer that might be interested in being part of a
development
team.
* You are a gamedevelopment company that might be interested in making
this
game
* You are an interesting person and I want your point of
view
* This project might have other use for you or you might have use for
this
project
* You are a person I think might have contacts that is one
of the above.
With regards
Tomas Forsman
Hallgumsgatan 31 A
872 36 Kramfors
Sweden
Fax:(810) 277-0550
