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Post by Grayson on Apr 14, 2014 16:14:59 GMT -5
I think the game would translate neatly into an old school 2D format or a simple top-down 3D format. In fact, I think you could fix a lot of the issues RoE had with combat really easily while keeping character and skill customization concepts that made the game great.
What I'm proposing is a game made with Flash or Unity3D. I've done a bit of research and I think we could have a beta version programmed and hosted professionally for $25,000. I figure that the entire lore behind a game is easily available from the community, as well as artwork.
Can we get some knowledge in here? Does anybody know about this? I'd be willing to invest a large portion of this cost if I'm convinced that it's possible. What does the community think about this?
Hosting, programming, and licensing. As I see it, these are the missing pieces to a game we could all make together. Community owned, community driven.
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Post by Newman on Apr 30, 2014 17:51:54 GMT -5
I could see a lawsuit coming unless you bought the lore from OSC or such. Good luck with that one.
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Post by Grayson on May 4, 2014 4:01:37 GMT -5
Just to be clear, what I mean by 'RoE Clone' is a game inspired by RoE. Obviously, great care could be taken to avoid any copyright infringements.
As an example, check out the newly released beta Wasteland 2. It's Fallout. The story and gameplay are obviously Fallout, but it was created with care to avoid copyright infringement. A spiritual successor. It's sort of a funny story actually, because Fallout was a game clearly inspired by the first Wasteland game.
It's absolutely legal, and if OSC tried to sue us we could countersue so fast it would make his old fogey head spin.
What does OSC really have the rights to anyway? The race of Leshy? The name of a few Gods, NPCs, locations, and a terrible soundtrack? It's not as if he invented semi-turn based combat, warriors, assassins, mages, illusionists, elves, dwarves, gnomes, necromancy, holy magic, elemental magic, bards, zombies, golems, swords, axes, healing potions... well you get the point. Very little about RoE was original content.
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Post by Newman on May 7, 2014 20:59:10 GMT -5
Someone with money and time on their hands can make a project even resembling ROE (no matter how noble) a living hell and not worth the fight. I am sure DoI was watched closely. A simple lawsuit by a corporate entity is a different animal. It can and will bankrupt any well meaning project such as yours with a hint of RoE or not.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love spending money again on a fun game such as Halberd was or the one you suggested. For the family friendly game that Phoenix was, I'd chose not to play unless it was community oriented and it had a fun server. One where imagination was rewarded not suppressed.
As for what OSC may or may not own, I'm guessing he owns power leveling on slimes in ToU, camping r2, the Carthas bug, "can you rez me in r1, r2, r3?", killing miners & camping the Keep. But is it worth the risk? That's all I'm saying. Best to just make a new game with new lore that Strus can ruin. One where the gate keeper is Grayson the crossbowman and he says "must answer me these questions three...ere the other side he see" to enter the realm...DOH! Another copyright infringement. He doesn't own "this is a game a lot of old Rubies people play", so more power to you.
I think I'd prefer your lore Gray, just make it quirky...good luck!
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Post by Grayson on May 7, 2014 22:09:19 GMT -5
Someone with money and time on their hands can make a project even resembling ROE (no matter how noble) a living hell and not worth the fight. I am sure DoI was watched closely. A simple lawsuit by a corporate entity is a different animal. It can and will bankrupt any well meaning project such as yours with a hint of RoE or not. Don't get me wrong, I'd love spending money again on a fun game such as Halberd was or the one you suggested. For the family friendly game that Phoenix was, I'd chose not to play unless it was community oriented and it had a fun server. One where imagination was rewarded not suppressed. As for what OSC may or may not own, I'm guessing he owns power leveling on slimes in ToU, camping r2, the Carthas bug, "can you rez me in r1, r2, r3?", killing miners & camping the Keep. But is it worth the risk? That's all I'm saying. Best to just make a new game with new lore that Strus can ruin. One where the gate keeper is Grayson the crossbowman and he says "must answer me these questions three...ere the other side he see" to enter the realm...DOH! Another copyright infringement. He doesn't own "this is a game a lot of old Rubies people play", so more power to you. I think I'd prefer your lore Gray, just make it quirky...good luck! So one of the things I've been up to in the last 6 years has been a food manufacturing business I've partnered up to develop. We offer higher quality school lunch options reimbursed by a USDA healthy lunch program. Essentially, we sell food and form-filling expertise to provide it at no cost to our customers. (We've grown over 300% in the last 2 years... doin' pretty well) We were sued by Sysco, a massive corporation, for redistributing their products with our own branding. That's not illegal, and I have a few paranoid theories about what prompted the lawsuit, but according to our lawyer, it was probably an attempted money-grab. We counter-sued and 6 months later we won both suits and were awarded legal expenses + $17,500. The check came in the mail less than a month ago. So maybe I'm feeling a bit froggy about litigation. I'm not really worried about it though. Maybe RoE Clone was the wrong phrase. What I would suggest is a game with a RoE-community driven lore and setting that has nothing to do with RoE, incorporating the best game mechanics and character building concepts and shedding the problematic ones. What I'm attempting to describe would be as comparable to RoE as hundreds of other RPGs. OSC didn't invent the concepts behind the game mechanics, and honestly, the character building system was highly derivative of other classic RPGs. (Ultima comes to mind) In fact, if I had to describe the mechanics and character building to someone who hadn't played it, I'd tell them to imagine a game with the combat mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons and the character building system of Ultima.
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Post by Oruid of Fireopals on May 10, 2014 18:49:14 GMT -5
Man.
I want this game yesterday. It's been almost a decade. (or has it?) I've played and spent thousands on many other games, coming short of the satisfaction I had playing Rubies. So yes, if you guys can make it happen, I'll even buy a PC if I need to, just to play the game. Just make sure I can mine all day long in a similar concept that RoE had.
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Post by Banzer on May 28, 2014 13:10:58 GMT -5
Grayson I want nothing more. I agree with you, it can be done, with no copyright infringement. Let me know if you get any momentum, I have tried several times to learn unity etc... but all i ever can get is a guy running around with no animations haha.
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Post by Oruid on Jun 11, 2014 19:20:31 GMT -5
I just got Unity3d and have been able to make a guy running around, adding patches of water, trees, grass, using skyboxes, etc. This is in three days without programming experience.
Surely 4 years we would have had something out.
In the meanwhile this Unity3d is fun to play with. First things first, I'm going to attempt to make a mining spot. And no, I am not going to share where my secret spot is.
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Post by Newman on Jun 11, 2014 19:47:49 GMT -5
I'm not a big fan of miners!
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Post by sonemere on Jun 17, 2014 17:07:59 GMT -5
boo
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Post by Evorlor on Jun 23, 2014 14:45:12 GMT -5
I can code the game if someone else can finance it.
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Post by Newman on Jun 23, 2014 20:59:42 GMT -5
Can you code that combat system legally?
I don't care about the "copyrighted stuff" just the type of combat and choices. I want people to be able to gank (kill, murder, assassinate) others (including all types outside the safe zone) with the chance of survival by victim (i.e. RUN!), if a skillful player (not based on computer performance like RoE). Every fantasy game like this, I envision needs crime that is punishable by the community and their choices. I could see builds that obey the law and enforce the law. And, me being me, see some builds that spy and deceive the law and/or break it...I think we all just need an idea that is worth funding.
In other words...a miracle or Hawk winning the Lotto.
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Post by Banzer on Jul 2, 2014 11:14:00 GMT -5
I think the main motivation for seeking funding would be to legitimize the process. A good example was a website I started building about a year ago to learn HTML/PHP/Javascript. I would have never actually built something cool until I paid for a domain and built a small website. A couple months after I actually abandoned the site, because I didn't have time to work on it, but I imagine there are a fair amount of pirates, and roe patriots that have programming skills and still want their game back.
My point is that if we actually want something to happen, we have to make it real. We need to organize, make a website, start a github repository where we keep our gamefiles, make a wiki or guide on how to contribute and get pre-alpha versions of the game up and running and then let whoever feels so inclined to contribute. We track it all with git (or svn or mercurial or whatever...)
Basically do what Dawn of Iskirra sought to do, but better. Open source. With a better name. A better Engine. Community involvement. Within a year I will hopefully be starting a semi-lucrative career in Computer Engineering, and I would be willing to contribute both time-wise and financially to an open source project to resurrect Vormis. Even now, I have the means to get something started. (I.E. get a website up, set up github, start working on organization and alpha code etc...)
Obviously we can't copy Rubies of Eventide directly, but I think we can pull even a fair bit of content from RoE without facing any legal action.
But yeah we would have to actually spearhead something if we want it to work. People will jump on once they see it rolling.
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Post by Grayson on Jul 4, 2014 18:40:15 GMT -5
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Post by Banzer on Jul 7, 2014 10:47:43 GMT -5
So I was talking to a co-worker of mine that just finished the video-game design senior project at the University of Utah. They used Unity3d to make a sidescroller called Magnetic By Nature, and he went over a couple things with me about how they did their design. He also told me about a lot of game-design conventions and contests they hold in Utah that I might start looking into. From what he told me, Unity3d is by far our best chance at actually getting a running game off the ground...
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Post by Itchy on Jul 11, 2014 6:22:39 GMT -5
I can't fund up front but I can do Monthly! Hit me with a Private Message! But I do have one stipulation every time Newman attacks my miner his gear is stripped and spread out across the playing map and gets docked one level. Hows everybody been! Hope everyone is doing ok and enjoying the summer!
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Koju
New Member
Posts: 2
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Post by Koju on Jul 20, 2014 19:28:30 GMT -5
the only way they can file a lawsuit is if you're making money off the game, tbh. There are tons of private servers for diff games and nothing hardly ever happens to them. Who remembers Eternal Rest? I've missed this game a lot over the years =\
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Azaz
Halbred
Posts: 2
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Post by Azaz on Jul 25, 2014 10:20:30 GMT -5
Hello everyone!
Glad to see you all still gathered here and still wanting something more than you're getting from the former RoE community.
Let me echo your frustrations and your desires to have something unique to us, the former Rubies players.
I've seen Hawk and a couple others occasionally on LOTRO, but I haven't been on much at all over the past few months.
Life gets in the way, and that is a sentiment I will likely repeat somewhere in this post.
As for Dawn of Iskirra... I would consider it a dead project until Dunny or someone else proves me wrong. I've always tried to be the voice of pessimism internally, usually as a motivating tactic. Since the forums crashed (and the wiki with it,) and even before then, progress bounced between the states of "crawling" to "non-existent" as far as I am concerned. Mamoru had taken a lot on his plate when he came aboard, and I saw it as a kind of progress, but I think he wasn't getting a whole lot of support from others, myself included, because again... Life gets in the way. Even he himself was too busy in the real world at times to dedicate himself solely to DoI. I don't expect that anyone should dedicate themselves that much to a pet project.
It is a shame that the bulk of the lore that we had come up with is kind of a waste now. Lots of people contributed a lot of things, and I kinda have a bitter feeling that it was all for nothing.
That said, I can't blame anyone involved. I just don't think it was meant to be from the beginning.
Enough of the sulking...
IF you want to take a stab at making a game, the advice I can offer based on my experience with DoI would be as follows:
Find someone dedicated to lead the charge. This needs to be their prime focus until it is completed. Parents, hobbyists, 9-5ers with serious day jobs, people who are married or heavily involved in a relationship, or Norium miners need not apply.
Find a way to compensate #1 for their time and work. Motivation is a wonderful thing. I'd even find a way to compensate/outsource a lot of the coding work and engine building. Maybe even concept artists or even game artists. It can be a DIY project AFTER you have a solid foundation.
Find a way to fund the project. A Kickstarter campaign or something once you have a tangible beginning would be a wonderful thing. Time is money, and you're going to need a lot of time to develop the project. You'll also likely need hardware and hosting services, etc.
Be open about your progress and ideas with those involved. "We're working on it" isn't proof positive of progress.
Hear out ideas but don't be afraid to shoot them down.
Don't get butt-hurt if your own ideas are shot down.
Understand that life still gets in the way sometimes. ----------------------------------------------------------------
If you're indeed serious, I'd start by assembling some kind of LLC with board members (founding members) that will make the major decisions and serve as a source of initial investment. Let that board set up the list of what exactly you want in a game and how you plan to make it happen. Come up with the basic concept of the storyline, mechanics, engine, etc. and then approach an experienced coder with the time and desire to take on the project. Network as much as you can. But, keep in mind that, if you want an end-product, you are better served by sticking with professionals already entrenched in the industry.
It won't be cheap in the long run, but there are alternatives out there to help fund a project like this. I'd use them wisely.
I wish you lots of luck! I'd love to see you succeed.
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Post by Itchy on Aug 3, 2014 5:13:14 GMT -5
But Norium is so shinny.....
But in all seriousness what are we talking about price wise? I can comfortably contribute between $200-$400 a month depending on the seriousness of getting the game going. I don't know shit about computers but I can do some work as far as names, crafting items and material needed and stuff like that. I'm sure I can get a certain sibling going on lore and crap as long as she has a steady stream of coffee coming her way!
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Post by Banzer on Aug 8, 2014 16:40:50 GMT -5
Well I've been seriously researching it over the last few weeks and have come to some conclusions: It is do-able, but a lot of time, talent and cooperation is needed. The main inhibitor to development is art (mainly 3d models and terrains) and to a lesser degree code. I originally thought it would be a lot simpler to design an environment, because while Rubies was around i poked into the game files and use the Lithtech map editor to actually view the source map geometries for RoE maps like Bane 3 and ToU. I actually created a map of the ToU in valve's hammer editor and it wasn't terribly challenging with such an editor. However most modern day engines expect you to create geometries as large 3D models. This takes skill and knowledge that I havent quite refined yet... Anyways I think this is the same thing that shot DoI dead in the water. I think the best way to get this off the ground would be a very very basic playable alpha. (One possible character selection, one map, very little implemented, but able to connect several people to the server) I just keep getting discouraged when I start working on it, but I know if I dedicated more time to it, I could get a simple unity server and client working within a couple weeks... Anyways yeah we need models...
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Post by Evorlor on Aug 21, 2014 15:07:29 GMT -5
Sorry I haven't replied in a while.
Like. I said, I can make the game. I am a game programmer by trade. But I am not sure if you are all aware of the massive man hours this would take. Because of that, it would require a serious investor (of roughly $100,000+) to complete. THAT, not coding nor art development, is the real obstacle.
But if we had it, I would be all about it!
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Post by Evorlor on Aug 21, 2014 15:18:20 GMT -5
I can be reached at Evorlor@gmail.com (better than here) if you people really do want to make our game.
I have years of programming and game design experience. I am a player of RoE since New Jollis (with the sewers and 5 quarters).
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Post by Banzer on Sept 1, 2014 17:34:00 GMT -5
I will be contacting you soon Evorlor to just chat about it.
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Post by Hadaly on Nov 2, 2014 19:10:58 GMT -5
First inkling of anything I've seen since my offer to John about hosting services, which he declined.. then everything crashed three weeks later... *sigh*
Anyway.
If we are serious. IF. Then I can provide any and all hosting needs. Ill even ship the 'devs' equipment to start playing around with. I run a private VPS farm in Las Vegas and I peer with internode and TWTelecom to get bandwidth to each coast. We run anything from heavy transactional SQL clusters, CouchDB, and hypermedia to DR sites on Citrix/VMware. I have been wanting to support the community since we got off the ground in 2011, but kept getting ignored. I guess they liked running everything from their garage.
Ill keep a very close eye on this thread.. feel free to PM me and Ill start communicating with people via email or a private forum thread.
Good to see some of you are very much still alive. I didn't do much on Phoenix and could never find the time to level another toon on Halbred, so I mostly played on FO.
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