Existence...a virtual world that is controlled entirely by the players.

doctorie · May 19, 2013

http://local.stv.tv/aberdeen/news/m...d-by-aberdeen-it-graduate-from-robert-gordon/

video on link page.

i think im excited

doctorie · Apr 5, 2014

ill cnp in case its removed

You awake onboard an alien spaceship, with no memory of who you are or how you got there.

For years, one country had been communicating with aliens, gaining new technology that allowed them to create immortal soldiers.

After the outbreak of a nuclear war, the world was destroyed and millions of people were killed.

As one of the few survivors, you can choose to be anything from a farmer to an assassin - and either lead the planet to peace or plunder and destroy what is left of the world’s resources.

Existence is a new game for the PC market that is daring to go where no game has gone before by creating a virtual world that is controlled entirely by the players. And, unlike any other virtual game, the number of people able to play against each other is limitless.

Mark Duffy, executive producer, said: "Most games operate from multiple servers and, if players want to play against each other, they have to choose which server to play from. At the moment, in games like World of Warcraft, you can only play against around 200 people.

"We want everyone to be on the one server. This means that we really can create an entire virtual world, where if one team, or clan, claims a realm or defeats opponents, they will be in control of that level, or area within the game.

"Every single person who plays will be affected by the decisions of other users, just as they themselves will be able to influence and change the game.

"So far we have tested it with 7000 users but if we move to the single server, the numbers will be limitless."
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The team behind Existence, which is due for release next year, will organise annual parties for the players, offering them the opportunity to meet online opponents and allies in the flesh.

Mark, a Robert Gordon University IT graduate, added: "It would be incredible to be able to meet face-to-face, with the people who you kill or who kill you. It is about making friends based on alliances within the virtual world, but also enemies.

"We want to design an infinite server system so that everyone can play in the world together and create a more sociable and inclusive aspect to gaming."

Before being released, the project is seeking Â£35,000 investment on funding platform, Kickstarter by June 9.

A team of over 30 people, from techies to self-professed geeks, have been pulling together to create the game.

Aberdeen-based app developers and animators Kreopix, together with Activideo communications, Second Places and Clinks and Links, have all provided specialist developer, designing and gaming knowledge for the project.

The partner companies have previously developed simulators for BP, virtual tours and even police and army training simulators.

Animations of an avatar in various clothing designs

Mark added: "We have seen great MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) game concepts be ruined by money. Existence is not a game for Christmas - we are aiming for two expansions per year. We don't want to be governed by profit, but by community.

"Britain has a conservative attitude to money. In America, there are huge investments being made in the gaming world.

"There has been no offer on funding from banks for our project, we were told that computer gaming was not on the list of sectors that they were investing in.

"Kickstarter means that we can gauge interest in the project and offer people a first look at the game, without having to surrender any of our shares."
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Mark first began designing games when he was only eight years old on a Spectrum computer. Now, working from his home in the Bridge of Don, he develops and designs games for the international market.

He added: "When I came up with the Existence game design, I sat down with Kreopix, an Aberdeen-based company with three young graduates and hammered out the nitty-gritty.

"I am definitely an avid gamer. I have an 11-year-old son and we play games a lot together.

"Quite often, when I finish work at 10pm, I come home and sit until 3am playing. It’s a fantastic way to relax and ease frustrations. It’s my way of dealing with everyday stresses and I think that is the same for most gamers.

"Instead of coming home and watching TV or heading to the pub, this is what we do to unwind. Killing a character makes you see that someone is always having a worse day than you."

To find out more about the project visit the Kickstarter page, the Existence website or find the team on Facebook.
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http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/loi/existence-online-mmo-rpg-fps-pvp-pve-sandbox-limit

http://www.existence-online.com/

Meemo · May 19, 2013

A goal of Â£35,000. Risks and challenges says this:

Presently (counting man hours) we have spent over Â£100,000 on EXISTENCE with a business plan of spending another Â£250,000 - that's even if KickStart fails.
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That's a plan of making it for Â£385,000 for making an MMO. That's a suspiciously tiny budget for an MMO. Especially for an MMO that wants to operate on a single shard no matter how many players they get.

Later on:

We are confident - half a million pound budget confidence!
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Where did the extra Â£115k come from ?
When numbers don't add up, I worry that there is something dodgy going on.

From the article I see that the person running this project is an IT graduate with no mention of any past projects of his. Meaning no proven track record.

I am very skeptical of their ability to fulfill the promises they have made.

Deadend · May 20, 2013

Budget is way off never happen.

doctorie · May 20, 2013

they really have some large ideas... I do hope they pull this off.

Cities and Bases

You can live in Tarian Cities for ever, you'll always have a home there, but to make money you have to leave the relative safety.

Most islands will be about 400KMs Square, in other words, MASSIVE. In the start your only form of transport will be walking, covering those distances would take months. So when you set off to live away from the pack, take a tent with you. A tent can be used as a storage system that anyone can use. Its the first step towards a city.

Each alien city will allow you to teleport to any point on the island, but this is a one way process. If you teleport too far away, and can't be bothered to walk all the way back your only return is suicide. You could have a group of players willing to teleport to the same place and set up your own city, taking all the building blocks for a city, with the priority of a teleport system so you can start trading what you can carry back and forth with ease and safety.

Over time you will learn other forms of travel. You will be able to transport much larger items over longer distances, but that means leaving your base.

You'll be able to protect it with automatic weapons, fences, walls, gates. Nothing will ever beat human patrols, but this will let you know your base is safe(ish).

Your base requires a power plant, which requires batteries to power. If the power goes out, your defenses will fail, your teleport will stop working, you could find yourself cut off!

If your base has power when its captured, it will start a 24 hour timer, if that timer reaches zero a new clan can take ownership, if during that 24 hours you can get more batteries to the power station and repair it then it will reset the 24 hour timer and will have to be attacked for the 24 hour timer to start again .

Barracks, Clone Vats, Markets and Power Stations can never be destroyed by damage, however they can be damaged and made obsolete until repaired. Defense equipment, walls and fences can be destroyed.

A City is not something you undertake lightly, its expensive to make the batteries and hard work to manage, but if you control a rich area its well worth it. You can charge tax in the market place, you can charge entrance/exit fees through gates, you can charge to use the teleporter, you can even make your own resource missions with item rewards.

You have become the ruler of your own city! Can you keep it!
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Damage - How to kill!

So you want to hurt someone... Well this is the place to find out how!

Each player, NPC or building has damage indicators. If you find an object without damage indicator then it can't be destroyed (things like trees, lakes, roads, mostly all the cosmetic stuff). Firstly lets talk about people and NPC's.

Every player has 16 damage parts. These are:-
Face
Back of Head
Shoulders
Torso
Left Upper Arm
Right Upper Arm
Left Lower Arm
Right Lower Arm
Left Hand
Right Hand
Left Upper Leg
Right Upper Leg
Left Lower Leg
Right Lower Leg
Left Foot
Right Foot
The image to the side shows just the Back of Head, Shoulders, Face, Torso and Left side damage Parts. This Golem NPC has all 16 damage parts, however some (snakes, insects) have fewer. Players always have 16.

Each area is given a specific hit point counter, when shot or damaged that hit point counter will decrease to such a point that area will become useless or death results.

A Player has 100HP for each area, you wouldn't last very long with just 100HP. So you can add armor to all these locations. When you are in your room, you can dress your character by adding armor to specific areas. You may have different pairs of boots to protect your feet, or you may have a helmet to protect the back of your head, but nothing for your face or another helmet that protects both. The two images to the right show how you may be dressed, one shows uniform dressing (same boots) the other shows you can have one boot and another, giving different HP to each foot. Clothing gives some armor as well.

You may be fighting something that produces large scale damage hitting more than one area at a time, or you could come across a sniper who is very specific to what area it wants to hit.

If you hit 0 HP with the Back of Head, Face, Torso you will die these are called the critical sections. As soon as you go below 100 HP from any point it will decrease until it is repaired, decreases depending on skill of repair. If a non critical section hits 0 HP you will be disabled - Hands or Arms means you can no longer shoot a weapon, Legs or Foot means you can no longer move.

Remote repair is possible if you have someone near by who is happy to shoot you with nanite repairers, which will put your armor back together!

Shields are a ball of energy put around your character. When active you can still fire weapons, but you will be stuck in place. Once activated a shield can not be disabled and is a one time use object, but gives massive HP boost
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Meemo · May 20, 2013

If your base has power when its captured, it will start a 24 hour timer, if that timer reaches zero a new clan can take ownership, if during that 24 hours you can get more batteries to the power station and repair it then it will reset the 24 hour timer and will have to be attacked for the 24 hour timer to start again .

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In other words, if you aren't capable of keeping the base you're attacking under siege for a full 24 hours, forget about capturing the base because it's owner will reset the invulnerability timer during any gap in your siege.

Comment from guy in charge on the comments page:

Well its looking bad at the moment. Any ideas what we did wrong? I mean only 300+ people have even visited the KickStarter page? We've tried the game bloggers, press, used a few PR firms... and we failing horrid. Any pointers?
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If I could respond to that, I'd suggest that he proofread the kickstarter page, set a realistic budget for an MMO and do something to show that he has the talent required to pull this off.

Other worrying quotes from the kickstarter page:

We know making an MMO will not be easy. We know the security worries, the client hacks, the packet sniffing.
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He is only worried about protecting the MMO from hackers and bots. Not the many other major issues in building an MMO, things like server infrastructure or game balance.

We will have a rather detailed EULA and ToS and we have some of the best security people already in the partner companies.
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Boasting about the size of his EULA and TOS. I don't think I've seen that before.

100k and we'll have another team working on vehicles in game for Beta testing. So you can race around the islands carrying even more loot or ore. Current plan is Vehicles as first expansion (December 2013) which is pre launch but post Alpha
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An expansion that is planned to happen before launch.

I'd also like to know what happens when they don't hit that stretch goal. No vehicles, no beta testing of the vehicles, or no beta test at all ?

Deadend · May 20, 2013

Meemo said: ↑

I'd also like to know what happens when they don't hit that stretch goal. No vehicles, no beta testing of the vehicles, or no beta test at all ?
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Like I said that budget will never make the game they are talking about. They just can't make it with even 100k, they most likely couldn't make it with 10mil. With some really extremely low bids they might get 4 contract people for a year for 100k, buts that's extremely unlikely. The 35k they are asking for first would maybe pay for their concept art, maybe.

Just to give you an idea how much even the simplest of games cost to make, Double Fine when they where doing their Kickstarter said Costume Quest was a two million dollar game and even after that other people said that that was probably a low ball estimate.

They just can't make it for what they are asking.

Meemo · May 20, 2013

Oh, I know that if this kickstarter meets it's goal then anyone who contributed will find their money wasted.

I should have said that I wondered what their plan was if they didn't hit that stretch goal. Along with pointing out another area that makes me wonder if he has ever played an MMO before.

Just look at the 250k goal:

250k we'll be able to take on 2 new teams (above that of 100k). 1 on more PvE missions (current aim is 20 missions, 15 solo PvE, and 5 multi user) this team will deliver even more on top. The 2nd team working on clothing for your avatar (there will be 10 avatar shapes to choose, 7 male, 3 female at current aim) then moving to new weapons.
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I don't think he realizes just how many people have their characters gender different to their own. Also I'm very surprised to see solo missions in 'a virtual world that is controlled entirely by the players'.

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