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Minecraft Frontiers | A MMORPG experience through Minecraft
Minecraft Frontiers
Change the way it's played.
Update (Opening event this SATURDAY)
After 2 years of development, we are finally releasing our project to the public. If you are interested in a fun roleplaying event, consider joining us for our opening. We have a long list of features ready - and we are very excited to see others explore what we built. Our small community has already started writing biographies and getting to know each other. If you'd like to tag along, visit our beta registration thread to reserve your spot!
Minecraft Frontiers is a revolutionary Minecraft project aiming to introduce a new type of a server. Over the past few months, we have been collecting talented people from all areas related to Minecraft. We have writers, artists, coders, Minecraft enthusiasts - you name it.
We decided to open our doors to more talented people, trying to create a truly memorable project of a great scale. This is not a chance for you to try out yet another server, nor is it a chance to easily get privileges just by signing up. It is an opportunity to shape, in our view, one of most promising Minecraft projects in the making.
The Project:
Think of an RPG server with classes, quests, levels and a storyline that guides your character from a nobody to the savior of the world.
Now throw that idea out the window!
When we sat down to design this experience, it was instantly obvious that majority of games out there are the same old thing, just slightly different settings. Our goal is to make a player experience that is like nothing you've played before. We call it a living universe.
What is a living universe?
- Plays on its own - it lives without the need for a single player. Farmers plant crops to make a living. Bakers buy the wheat and sell their bread to others in the marketplace. Politicians make big decisions for citizens and collect taxes. Warriors explore the wilderness and defend trade caravans. It is constantly interacting with itself, resulting in a completely dynamic experience.
- Smart NPCs - so the above sounds like the smartest NPC system there could be, right? Well there is more. NPCs chat with each other, share their experiences and knowledge. Did a thief steal from a caravan on the other side of town? Well the other trader won't know about it - unless someone told him! The goal is for each NPC to have a meaningful life, making decisions on a daily basis - possibly being "smarter" than most players!
- Expanding towns - if a city prospers and the villagers are happy enough to make love, politicians will start thinking about expanding the town. If you don't log in for a month of two, chances are you will come back to a very different place - full of new buildings not created by the admins, but planned and built by the NPCs!
- Dynamic economy - the town economy goes beyond supply and demand. If warriors bring back rare weapons, the old iron daggers will drop in value - but that's not it by far. A player set up a new bakery that makes tastier and cheaper breads than the old bakery in town? Locals will quickly realise and start enjoying the new yummy breads. Shame on the old greedy baker who is now out of a job!
The Players:
So we have a world that lives on its own. Where does the player come in? That is the beauty of it all. You log in and have a meaningful decision to make! Who will you be? There are literally hundreds of possibilities and our team is here to let you be who you want to be. Through systems promoting roleplay and interaction, we let you blend into the already living world.
You not only get to explore this rich universe, but since everything is dynamic, you also get to change it! Things you do and the way you spend your time really makes an impact. No more RPGs where you log in with level 1, stop playing a month later and no single soul cares. As soon as you log in, the world has already changed!
We keep our fellow roleplayers at heart, letting you do things like:
- Write your own lore - and if you ever get in trouble, don't be surprised the elected senator can dig the local library to find out records on your character.
- Own valuable property - no endless plots. If you want to own a building at the heart of the town, you have to work for it. But if you are lucky enough to own that tavern in the town square, you bet all those NPCs will flock to your events!
- Be known - both players and NPCs will get to know you over time. If you feel like it, you can even dabble in politics to really stir things up.
IMPORTANT: We are not a traditional Minecraft server. We are here to "change the way it is played". Our server is highly based around story and creating a brand new setting. If you are looking for a place to stack blocks, you are in the wrong thread!
NOW HIRING
We are one big family, where everyone on the team knows each other. Being a group of people passionate about Roleplaying Games, we are looking for similarly minded people who are enthusiastic about creating something new and fun. If you are passioante about rolepalying and sandbox games, hit us up on our forums!
To apply and for more information, please visit our website:
Are you ready to change the way Minecraft is played? We are looking forward to working with you.
Lou Summers
Minecraft Frontiers Team
Owner
Post edited by laxie on
Comments
Our team has grown considerably since this thread was first started.
We now have professional developers working with us, builders from well known teams and lore written by publishing writers. Since this project has stepped in the right direction, we would love to hear from more people. The roadmap we have is quite ambitious and aims to deliver features most of MMORPG fans would absolutely love.
Come check us out and give us a shout - you might make new friends and be part of something really amazing in the process!
After three months, we have managed to do the following:
Hello everyone, I'm the Design Lead for Minecraft Frontiers and I'm excited to be apart of this project and want to extend an invitation to all builders who have alot of skill and experience and have nowhere to apply it. Consider joining us and be apart of a revolutionary experience.
Our Design team is made up of highly experienced individuals with an eye for detail and a pursuit for perfection and quality design. If you intend on applying to be a builder, you must prove to us you can do the work and show your loyalty in the process. We're not hardcore or strict in our selection, however we do want to be somewhat selective in who we bring on our team.
If you have experience in any of these please don't hesitate to post!
It has been quite a while since I last posted here. A lot has happened in the past 6 months!
Things are ramping up, as we are putting in some of our first gameplay systems, finishing the build of our central town and putting together some of the first lore encounters players will experience.
I have coded over 14 custom plugins over the past month - these allow us to deliver a server considerably different from anything else out there.
If you are a MMO fan like me, some of our goals will likely appeal to you!
Some of the completed features are:
Really glad to see interest in the project!
The game is not playable yet - there simply isn't enough to do. We will be able to release a playable version fairly early in the developmental process. The big advantage of having a dynamic world means there doesn't need to be a huge array of prewritten quest lines. Our players will generate the content themselves.
What we do need is polished main town. And at least the basic dynamic systems to link in together. My estimate is 6-8 weeks before we push out our first test build.
Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter and we will let you know first!
Our forums are now up and running. The website has also been optimised for mobile devices and we have cleaned up our financial records to make sure we can run smoothly far into the future.
Visit our new forums here.
We have published a couple new blog posts, including one on Lore.
You can have a read here!
So how close to the original minecraft will this be? Not a lot of information about the core gameplay (barely any information at all honestly) on that site besides ore respawning.
Will I be able to kill someone and take everything in their inventory?
Will there be factions/guilds that I can join or create then declare war on other factions and blow them up with TNT and steal all their stuff?
Will items and enemies be limited to minecraft vanilla? (diamonds and skeletons)
Will there be 'leveling' gaining skills or anything of the sort?
Will there be a system to prevent the world from getting messed up (see spawn around any large minecraft server) since this is supposed to be an MMORPG and as such the world will presumably be permanent?
How do you plan to support the cost of running the server without overpowered (pay2win) donator perks?
I ask because I see the word MMORPG getting flung around but I'm not seeing anything that actually backs up that claim. Three months since the first blog post in December and still nothing has really been posted besides some pretty screenshots.
Waiting for:
The Repopulation
Albion Online
Giving away any game you want if this actually wont have any pay to advance faster/"winning" "feature".
The first person to respond to my comment, and being naive enough to think otherwise will receive it.
I have the right to not follow this "MMO" any further, so you have to keep up and if the "game" does not contain this feature one month after their launch. I will supply you with any game available at Steam at that time.
Devs have no right to claim this.
Let me do my best to answer all of your questions.
Please do try to view our project from the right perspective. This is not an externally funded Minecraft server, it is not a sponsored Minecraft server, nor is it a project we are making to reach some profit goal on the horizon. I am 23, University student, love sandbox MMO games like Ultima Online or Star Wars Galaxies. The motive behind the project is to create a playground for anyone who likes similar features in MMOs to the ones I do.
We do have some nice progress on the development of the features. Large majority of our features realies heavily on the fact that they are connected to one another (export needs politics, politics needs elections, elections need reputation, reputation needs NPCs). The ore respawning is the least connected, so I could write an in-depth post about it as it is in a fairly polished state.
For example, our export feature now allows ships to sail into town, bring a new list of requested goods. Players can fill these requisitions, paying sales tax to the town in the process. I could post about it, but do not feel comfortable doing so as it is not polished to the level I'd expect from something that would amaze me.
Will I be able to kill someone and take everything in their inventory?
If a player dies, they will drop their inventory. You will be able to save stuff in a safe area to prevent the loss of valuables. But the server will very likely not be 100% PvP enabled. In a lot of the areas, you will not be able to attack other players. That is simply not the focus of our vision. It is more about players interacting with the towns around them using PvE methods.
Will there be factions/guilds that I can join or create then declare war on other factions and blow them up with TNT and steal all their stuff?
No. You will not be able to create a build or a faction. You will also not be able to break buildings. You will be able to interact with factions that are present in the game world already, gain good reputation with them and use that to your advantage. The thinking behind that is that we do not want to create a system where players are spread around the world in their little guilds. We want to create meaningful factions that you can interact with.
If you become the leader of the only trade guild in town, it really means something. If you give people the option to create their own trade guilds, being a leader of one will lose a lot of the magic.
Will items and enemies be limited to minecraft vanilla? (diamonds and skeletons)
Two things we are aiming for in this respect. 1) We want any player owning minecraft to be able to connect to our server, without the need to download a custom client. 2) We want to deliver as much variety as possible.
These two points are directly contradicting each other. We have a coder working on that at the very moment, trying to find as many loopholes to allow us to add more variety without the need for a custom client.
Chances are we will be limited to the vanilla item art assets sadly. That said, the NPCs will be custom, the crafting recipes will be custom and so are the block textures and soundtrack.
Will there be 'leveling' gaining skills or anything of the sort?
I do not like the artificial grinding of numbers. It is very enjoyable in some games, but this project is made with different goals in mind.
A lot of the gameplay will not be linked to gaining progress through levels or skills. Instead, your character will progress through the things they have done. If you want to craft a rare sword, you will not have to craft worse swords to get better until you can make it.
Instead, you will have to find an NPC or a person to teach you the recipe for it. And obtain the materials.
Most of the progression is design to be gated by reputation and knowledge, not skills and levels. Since reputation is not a one sided progression, it will not be a straight forward grind towards a goal. Say you start with trader reputation 0; for some tasks you will need 5000, for other tasks -5000. This is super simplified, but that is the feel we are going for.
Will there be a system to prevent the world from getting messed up (see spawn around any large minecraft server) since this is supposed to be an MMORPG and as such the world will presumably be permanent?
Players will not be able to break the game world at all. They also will not be able to place blocks. Instead, they will "build" using the town infrastructure, tasking NPCs with build tasks. "I saved up 1000 gold through taxes, let's buy this plot of land for the town. This NPC will contstruct a farm for me there, giving us as the town access to pork."
How do you plan to support the cost of running the server without overpowered (pay2win) donator perks?
This is something VERY VERY important to me personally. I have fallen in love with so many games only to see them be ruined by insane monetisation practises. The simple answer is there will not be a donation reward that would allow you to get an advantage over another player.
Truth is, I have heard that exact same line to learn not to trust it. "We will not offer pay to win ... except for an outfit ... expect for a cosmetic mount ... well the mount may be faster ... and it might not hurt to allow buffs on clothes ... or weapons." You get the point.
I am doing the best to construct the budget in such a way that I do not need a single dollar from others to keep the project running. If we get a lot of players, that will change - and we will likely offer donations.
My philosophy is this, If I as a player spend 20$ on the server, three groups need to be happy about my purchase. :
Haha, I think you have a fair point.
I've sat down with the monetisation plan a couple of times. Even if you apriori decide to be 100% clean of any progression-advancing rewards, it is tempting to add stuff. "If I add this feature as a donation reward, it could make it interesting."
It's a very hard thing to do. You want to get it right, get in the money to run your server, but also make sure you don't screw someone in the process.
I think the draft I have now is very good for those who donate, but also for those who never donate (they benefit when others donate as well). I may be completely off and we will have to see.
@laxie can't wait to see it
We are about a month from letting a small group of testers in.
The team spent the past couple of months developing all the systems. I did not really keep this thread updated. A lot has happened since I last posted on this here. Many of the systems exceed my original plans - I am really excited.
We have NPC dialogues similar to Ultima Online, where they are looking for keywords in your text. So you can have a fairly natural conversation with an NPC, as you would with a player. I added moods on top of it though (similar to SWG), where you can set a mood you speak in. This will not only format your chat for everyone appropriately, but also may influence the way NPCs talk to you.
We also have a really dynamic NPC combat AI. It uses stamina and blocking - a bit like Witcher 3. The nice thing is each weapon has very different stats. The NPCs dynamically adapt to the stats. If they have a weapon like a dagger, they won't block and will simply run at you trying to stab you. If you give them something like a long sword, they will try to keep you at range and spend a lot of the time trying to block your attacks. All of this is dynamic based on the weapon stats.
I also did a lot of work on the economy and exports. I consulted with a couple of economists to get their opinions. The current implementation uses supply/demand mechanics - requisitions may come in, asking for goods from you. You then have certain period of time to either fill in the requisition (lowering the value in the future), or to leave it be (likely increasing the price if it isn't filled elsewhere). NPCs will also try to fill these, so it will hopefully be a fun competetive environment.
We did tons of work on crafting too. NPCs now understand recipes and how to craft items (also dynamically). So if a society uncovers a new information on how to craft a golden sword, the NPCs will try to get the materials and will try to sell the sword to others.
The project is really fun - a blend of all the features I always wanted to see in a MMO. I'm looking forward to it.
Our server is opening to the public this Saturday! We have a long list of features for the beta launch, including:
- Politics, elections, taxation.
- Plot ownership, 9 unique player houses, 16 town buildings to construct together.
- NPC dialogues - a custom system allowing for dynamic conversation.
- Economy, goods export, banking.
- Fully custom combat, with NPC integration.
- Crafting custom items, dynamic harvesting, recipe experimentation.
- A large land for you to explore, with several dungeons and points of interest.
We will be hosting a roleplaying event on Saturday (noon PST). All of our beta testers are welcome.To reserve your spot as a tester, read our beta registration thread for all the information you need to know.