A community created game - could it work

Panahasi101 · July 2015

Would a community created game work for an MMORPG. Unreal Tournament is using this model to build a game.

DarkVagabond · July 2015

Developer infighting shreds most open community projects.

Egos fight egos when nobody really owns the product, people leave and take what they've made with them, and the project ends up a walking corpse if its lucky.

So, to answer, not usually

eye_m · July 2015

If the community of MMORPG.com is any example, then no. Not even close. As a matter of fact, I would have to say that for my personal experience, the more "community" gets involved, the less "vision" is used. It's like a developer paints a beautiful picture of what they want to achieve, then along comes the community, and they add a touch of something here, and a bit of change there and the end result is a garbled mess.

sunandshadow · July 2015

Well you need a leader; groups of humans without a leader are just non-functional, they can't even decide what restaurant to eat at half the time, much less the thousands of decisions that go into a game. The leader needs to have mad networking and organizational skills, and if he or she doesn't have good taste and skills in game design, then he/she at least needs to be able to select a lead designer who does. At that point it's not really a community project, but an indie project. Then they need at least a little money to grease the wheels - even $1000 can be tremendously helpful.

sunandshadow · July 2015

Originally posted by eye_m
If the community of MMORPG.com is any example, then no. Not even close. As a matter of fact, I would have to say that for my personal experience, the more "community" gets involved, the less "vision" is used. It's like a developer paints a beautiful picture of what they want to achieve, then along comes the community, and they add a touch of something here, and a bit of change there and the end result is a garbled mess.

One possibility is to filter all community suggestionsa and requests through a designer. This means 75% will be discarded or modified enough that they don't really look like the original suggestion, but the ones that are used can be made a part of the vision rather than conflicting with it. This was actually one of the most fun volunteer jobs I ever had, collecting and editing community suggestions to make them fit together into a coherent vision.

Grunty · July 2015

There is a community based open source MMORPG being created. It's been in development for about 8 years now. Don't remember it's name though. It's around here somewhere.

Loktofeit · July 2015

Originally posted by Grunty
There is a community based open source MMORPG being created. It's been in development for about 8 years now. Don't remember it's name though. It's around here somewhere.

Planeshift?

rojoArcueid · July 2015

If im not wrong Linux has the most community based games right now. And thats not saying much since Windows rules over the gaming space... unfortunately.

KenFisher · July 2015

I was active in a project building an MMORPG framework with community contributions.

Even so, there was still a formal project manager who handled design decisions.

I don't think the project would have worked without him. There were too many of us, including me, who had conflicting ideas on how the framework should develop.

~waves~ to anyone who remembers MMOWorkshop

Mendel · July 2015

Originally posted by DarkVagabond
Developer infighting shreds most open community projects.

Egos fight egos when nobody really owns the product, people leave and take what they've made with them, and the project ends up a walking corpse if its lucky.

So, to answer, not usually

I'd definitely agree with the ownership issues.

Egos will clash. Ideas will conflict and someone will have to arbitrate. When faced a cost, who is going to pay it? Who is going to arbitrate what features go in and what features don't. What happens when one of the contributors 'uses' a trademarked image by taking it directly from another game? Who is going to provide the drive to finish the product? How is everyone going to keep on task, and not simply re-hashing ideas and decisions previously made?

The worst thing imaginable is for a community designed product to be successful. Who owns it? A successful game might generate a pile of money to fight over, and everyone who contributed will want their share.

Far better to go with a regular business model with a business' inherent hierarchy. At least, if you want a chance at making a successful product.

waynejr2 · July 2015

Could it work? I could in theory. History is not on the side of success. If you look at the history of software projects in the past 50 years (not just game software) you will see a ton of failed projects. If failure happens in a professional environment, imagine the team herding cats of software developer trying to win.

eye_m · July 2015

Originally posted by sunandshadow
Originally posted by eye_m
If the community of MMORPG.com is any example, then no. Not even close. As a matter of fact, I would have to say that for my personal experience, the more "community" gets involved, the less "vision" is used. It's like a developer paints a beautiful picture of what they want to achieve, then along comes the community, and they add a touch of something here, and a bit of change there and the end result is a garbled mess.

One possibility is to filter all community suggestionsa and requests through a designer. This means 75% will be discarded or modified enough that they don't really look like the original suggestion, but the ones that are used can be made a part of the vision rather than conflicting with it. This was actually one of the most fun volunteer jobs I ever had, collecting and editing community suggestions to make them fit together into a coherent vision.

So take the community out of the community based game, or at least as much as required to make it functional. I guess that is agreeing with my original point?

ArChWind · July 2015

I have an engine to throw at it.

It's a full blown MMO engine, 3 years old but no longer supported.

I'll even throw some code examples in so you can get started.

Do keep in mind the engine requires 10% payout and is highly technical but it works great.

WOT and WOP are using it.

Why would I do this?

I highly doubt it will go beyond talk because building a project of this magnitude requires more skill than most have.

Quizzical · July 2015

Different people working on the same game are inevitably going to disagree on various features in the game. Things that might strike players as a minor detail will sure seem major to you if you're spending a month of your life implementing it. In order for a team to stay together, people have to have some incentive to stay with the project when they don't get their way.

The usual solution that the gaming industry has found is a paycheck. A lot of people will do things for pay that they wouldn't do for free. But you don't seem to be talking about a company hiring employees and assigning them work to do.

monochrome19 · July 2015

Nope.

sunandshadow · July 2015

Originally posted by eye_m
Originally posted by sunandshadow
Originally posted by eye_m
If the community of MMORPG.com is any example, then no. Not even close. As a matter of fact, I would have to say that for my personal experience, the more "community" gets involved, the less "vision" is used. It's like a developer paints a beautiful picture of what they want to achieve, then along comes the community, and they add a touch of something here, and a bit of change there and the end result is a garbled mess.

One possibility is to filter all community suggestions and requests through a designer. This means 75% will be discarded or modified enough that they don't really look like the original suggestion, but the ones that are used can be made a part of the vision rather than conflicting with it. This was actually one of the most fun volunteer jobs I ever had, collecting and editing community suggestions to make them fit together into a coherent vision.

So take the community out of the community based game, or at least as much as required to make it functional. I guess that is agreeing with my original point?

Oh yeah I agree with the general principle, I just wanted to point out that community input is something that can be used as raw material, it's not inherently an unusable mess.

ArChWind · July 2015

Originally posted by VonTakala
Originally posted by ArChWind I have an engine to throw at it. It's a full blown MMO engine, 3 years old but no longer supported. I'll even throw some code examples in so you can get started. Do keep in mind the engine requires 10% payout and is highly technical but it works great. WOT and WOP are using it. Why would I do this? I highly doubt it will go beyond talk because building a project of this magnitude requires more skill than most have.

That and you're talking Bigworld which is all in Python and C and requires you really know what you're doing...

It isn't that bad but yeah it can be a big PITA to work with because of code in 3 places. I am still working with it but just a hobby so figured maybe these guys want a REAL MMO engine with incredibly high scalability I would offer.

mmoguy43 · July 2015

Only with the right people and someone doing an amazing job managing them... Maybe

Since MMORPGs are the largest, most complex, and diverse genre; you won't be able to make the game with just anybody.

The reality is you would have 50 idea guies, 1-2 s1acker programmers, 3-5 Artists doing random inconsistent junk, 23 GMs that hope to abuse their power, and 331 people that want to contribute but realize they can't and instead distract everyone else.

Yeah... I've seen some of these kinds of projects materialize and vaporize in between a few months and a week. Somewhat worse than Greed Monger but the devs of that game ran off with more money than they deserved.

Quizzical · July 2015

There are a lot of things that can work well if you have a number of talented people really committed to making it work but predictably won't work well if you throw some random people together and see what happens.

sunandshadow · July 2015

Originally posted by mmoguy43

The reality is you would have 50 idea guies, 1-2 s1acker programmers, 3-5 Artists doing random inconsistent junk, 23 GMs that hope to abuse their power, and 331 people that want to contribute but realize they can't and instead distract everyone else.

Haha those numbers are so true; though it's actually kind of impressive to get more than 20 people interested at all. Oh, and there'd be one musician, who composes with only a computer program, no instruments or vocals.

ArChWind · July 2015

Originally posted by mmoguy43
Only with the right people and someone doing an amazing job managing them... MaybeSince MMORPGs are the largest, most complex, and diverse genre; you won't be able to make the game with just anybody.The reality is you would have 50 idea guies, 1-2 s1acker programmers, 3-5 Artists doing random inconsistent junk, 23 GMs that hope to abuse their power, and 331 people that want to contribute but realize they can't and instead distract everyone else.Yeah... I've seen some of these kinds of projects materialize and vaporize in between a few months and a week. Somewhat worse than Greed Monger but the devs of that game ran off with more money than they deserved.

There you go. 100% Fact

Reason I closed mine down and reason I bailed out on another project.

Not worth the headache.

I shut my server off a year ago and haven't looked at since.

madazz · July 2015

A camel is a horse designed by a committee.

Gormogon · July 2015

I've been involved in collaborative projects in various areas and my experience is that the idealistic, democratic approach to game design and production is generally a waste of everyone's time. I was involved in a game where votes were put to everything, from character names to music to individual pieces of art, which slowed down production immensely, made the losing candidates bitter, and accomplished nothing because as the whole team turned over over the course of a couple of years, the next generation had different ideas and put everything that had already been voted on to a vote again. One person with the proper knowledge could have accomplished over a summer what that project did in a decade.

Part of being a pro is doing the job assigned to you to the best of your ability, even if it doesn't match your personal vision. You might be able to offer suggestions, but ultimately you do what the team needs you to do. That element is usually completely missing in an amateur, community production. If things are going in a direction you don't like, you leave, and take all of your skills with you.

The better approach IMO is to develop a prototype among a small, tight leadership group with a shared vision, and then commission out various elements to people who are interested in developing their skills and having work to showcase in hopes of landing a job in the industry. This way, you're able to match your vision during the search/recruitment process with that of someone who has the skill and time to do what you cannot.

sunandshadow · July 2015

Originally posted by Gormogon

The better approach IMO is to develop a prototype among a small, tight leadership group with a shared vision

This is a good idea. Do you have any specific advice for how to do this? I have not had any success at finding people with a shared vision and I haven't encountered a website set up to matchmake gamedevs with people with similar interests, even though such sites exist for comics and other things that require a creative team.

Flintsteen · July 2015

A game like TF2 is already in part community created.

I'm thinking of a basic game by some game studio. Lets call it Stargate, with the basic big city with stargates and a few worlds to explore just to get you started.

Then build a solid foundry or whatever you would call it, and let the community create more worlds. Every new world would have to be approved by a community board + a game master that would be able to veto.

I doubt a 100% community created game would work, but a game with more community involvement should definedtly be possible.

Nitth · July 2015

Originally posted by sunandshadow
Originally posted by Gormogon The better approach IMO is to develop a prototype among a small, tight leadership group with a shared vision
This is a good idea. Do you have any specific advice for how to do this? I have not had any success at finding people with a shared vision and I haven't encountered a website set up to matchmake gamedevs with people with similar interests, even though such sites exist for comics and other things that require a creative team.

Been to http://www.gamedev.net/page/index.html classifieds portal?

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