Citadel: Mmo Platform Game Concept

[kagato]

Citadel: A massively multiplayer platform game concept

Latest info is always at the project's brainstorming page: http://citadel.wikispaces.com

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Summary:

The game is a side-scrolling platform-based RPG/action game, in the style of Castlevania and Cave Story.

The game takes place entirely within the Citadel, a vast castle-like structure. No one knows what lies outside its walls. Long ago in the forgotten past, the Citadel suffered some form of mystical catastrophe, and the world was fractured.

The castle exists in a realm of perpetual Night, pristine but sterile; no plants grow there. The people make what lives they can, enjoying a magically-imposed peace (no human can harm another), but always on the defensive against the ever encroaching monsters from above and below.

However, there is a ritual that allows a person to break through the barrier to the realm of Day. In daylight, the castle is in ruins, and overgrown with wild plants, but no other creatures disturb the silence -- only the humans who dare intrude. Many of the plants are deadly, and there is no spell of protection preventing attack from an enemy. Still, there are riches to be found there; both among the Trees, and from the bodies of fellow travellers.

Some small areas of the Citadel exist between the realms. The protection spell holds, and no monsters can enter, so these halls provide welcome sanctuary for weary adventurers. Perhaps they represent the original nature of the Citadel. But the Twilight Rooms are few, and their numbers may be dwindling...

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If the concept sounds interesting, please take a look at the project's brainstorming page. There is much more detail there, and it is updated regularly as the concept evolves.

I'm looking for some feedback and information on a number of topics:

* Thoughts on the game concept itself, whether you see any gameplay issues or not, further ideas...

* Suggestions for a game engine, platform or supporting libraries. The less that needs to be written from scratch, the better.
Note that the game will be optimised for the Pandora, but it won't be exclusive to it. (Otherwise you'd end up with an MMO with no players...)
Ideally the software will support the Pandora, Linux & Windows; possibly PSP.

* Assistance with development of the project.
I can manage production of the initial art assets. (later on, having a few extra people would speed things up)
I could probably write the basic platform engine okay too, but I have no experience with developing multi-client network support.

Perhaps there is even an existing game that could be extended with the required features.
Interested developers, let me know.

 

[sindbad]

In no particular order:

I imagine certain areas could get very crowded and in 2D that makes stuff very hard to tell apart. Do you have any plans to minimise/control this?

Pixel art is unacceptable these days, you must use SVG if you want it to look good everywhere and at any angle.

For an engine, http://cocos2d.org/ is pretty cool (python only), I haven't tried others. There isn't much point in using a 3D engine, but it would be possible.
You could use a 2D physics engine to make stuff more fun and easier to program and here you basically have 2 choices: box2d or chipmunk. After using both for a bit, I found chipmunk to be more general, customisable and robust. It's also written in C, which makes using it from other languages that much easier. Personal taste has a lot to do with this.
In a worst case scenario, you could use SDL, but it's 2D graphics is a bit slow and it's certainly not an engine.

I would suggest starting it in python (or the other popular dynamic language of your choice) at least for the prototyping phase. Incredibly short turn-around times. However, you must make sure the library(ies) you use in python are availabe in C or D or whatever else you want to use later on.
You could keep it in python and only write the slow parts in C and package them as python modules. This has worked marvelously for me in the past.

I'm willing to help, but that depends on your choice of language, libraries and architecture and my free time (uni comes first).

 

[Creature XL]

WOW!

Just read the linked page. This absolutly sounds like agame I always wanted to play. I like Castlevania much. If it is turned multiplayer with all the cool things there are in "standard" MMORPGS ( I played Everquest for some months) its da shit, dude! I really like it.

However, I must say I don't believe it could be done If the project takes off I most probably join ( I am programmer).

 

[Milamber777]

Very excited about this concept. I have experience in class balance, mechanics (basically, "item balance"), and testing (when it gets to that point) and will help as best I can. (Both balance & mechanics experience from MMOS). No current programming experience to speak of though. Good luck with this, and I look forward to seeing it progress!

 

[Yamara]

I imagine certain areas could get very crowded and in 2D that makes stuff very hard to tell apart. Do you have any plans to minimise/control this?

One possibility is to limit the number of people who can join an area, similar to how WoW has instances where only team members join an area. You could then use a format like Golden Axe for the common areas, where you have a bit more 3D. This would allow you to use the same art, but also allow more space to see different player sprites.

I'm not familiar with many games that make good use of multiple players in a platformer. I recently read good things about the old Chip 'n Dale NES (SNES?) games, in that regard, allowing you to pick up other players and throw them. Things like that could make for more interesting puzzles and interaction.

 

[Mattz]

I read through your ideas, and so far it sounds amazing! I would love to help with the programming, but I have no decent amount of skill with using C and/or C++. ( I know HOW to program a game, but I'm not strong enough with C++ to use my knowledge to create a graphical game.)

Very good concept for a game, and I will haelp if I can.

 

[dentrado]

[...]

I'm not familiar with many games that make good use of multiple players in a platformer. I recently read good things about the old Chip 'n Dale NES (SNES?) games, in that regard, allowing you to pick up other players and throw them. Things like that could make for more interesting puzzles and interaction.

I came to think about lost vikings (for snes I think) which is a puzzle/sidescrolling game where you control three vikings, each with different abilities. The goal is to get all three to the end of each level.

 

[PoisonedV]

Sounds more attractive as a networked RPG than an MMORPG.
that, or several small servers, with limits for players depending on the amount. use python, its portable and has alot of great libraries, like pygame, pyglet, and library warppers for box2d and chipmunk, and some nice engines, too, like cocos.

(cocos for iphone is opengles http://code.google.com/p/cocos2d-iphone/)

also, svgs for 2d game = ugh

I especially like the seeds idea. in my opinion, MMORPG's need to move away from being 'MMORPG'S and more towards being online RPG's. they need more interactivity, chances to actually shape the game world. player housing, player inhabited governments, player ownable businesses and stuff etc like in EVE and Puzzle Pirates are progressive from the current state of most MMO's.
also, the time should be based on ticks so that server owners can set whatever speed they want...

 

[kagato]

I imagine certain areas could get very crowded and in 2D that makes stuff very hard to tell apart. Do you have any plans to minimise/control this?
Honestly, the game is unlikely to get sufficient players for it to be a problem; but I agree that handling for overcrowding should be designed in from the start. One possibility is to divide the map up into rooms, and "lock the doors" once the maximum number of players are present in a room... but that could make navigating the map kind of difficult.

The server should be able to keep track of thousands of characters, and the client screen will only big enough to render dozens of players at a time anyway, so I'm hoping technically it won't be a problem. Visually it could get very cluttered though, so big popular areas will need to be fairly vertical in their design to provide more standing room. Imagine the main player halls having lots of stacked levels that you could jump up or down to, sort of like this:

QUOTE
Pixel art is unacceptable these days, you must use SVG if you want it to look good [...]
For an engine, http://cocos2d.org/ is pretty cool (python only), I haven't tried others. There isn't much point in using a 3D engine, but it would be possible.
Cocos2D looks pretty good, and as PoisonedV points out it has an OpenGL-ES port for iPhone. I'm not sure how many of its shortcut functions could be used, but they might be handy for animation tweening. However, it doesn't seem to support SVG (and neither do the other python game libraries from what I can tell), so even if I design the sprites in SVG they'll probably have to be rasterised anyway.
QUOTE
You could use a 2D physics engine to make stuff more fun and easier to program
Physics would be cool, but I'm sure synchronising simulations over the network gets pretty hairy. There's not a great need for it in the concept at this point; simple platform game physics (ie pretty much just gravity and box collision) should be sufficient.
QUOTE
I'm willing to help, but that depends on your choice of language, libraries and architecture and my free time (uni comes first).
That's okay, I don't have much free time either; this won't be a super-fast moving project

Just read the linked page. This absolutly sounds like agame I always wanted to play. [...] However, I must say I don't believe it could be done
Glad you like it.
I don't see anything inherently impossible in the requirements though; the biggest hurdle will be the network library.

Very excited about this concept. I have experience in class balance, mechanics (basically, "item balance"), and testing (when it gets to that point) and will help as best I can.
Thanks for the offer; when (if) it gets that far, I'll get in touch.

I'm not familiar with many games that make good use of multiple players in a platformer. I recently read good things about the old Chip 'n Dale NES (SNES?) games, in that regard, allowing you to pick up other players and throw them. Things like that could make for more interesting puzzles and interaction.
There really aren't many multiplayer platformers, which is why it seemed like an interesting design. (Of course, there may not be any because it's a bad idea, but I guess we'll find out.) One example of a (small) number of players in a platformer is Super Smash Bros, for the Day (PvP) side.

Players throwing each other is certainly a possibility.

Sounds more attractive as a networked RPG than an MMORPG.
I'm sure it'll start out that way during development... and if it can't be made to scale up it might stay that way.
QUOTE
I especially like the seeds idea. in my opinion, MMORPG's need to move away from being 'MMORPG'S and more towards being online RPG's. they need more interactivity, chances to actually shape the game world.
I haven't planned out all the possibilities that planting Seeds could provide, but I'm sure there's lots of room for innovation there. (Planting your own house is certainly one...)

 

[PoisonedV]

There are pyglet sub-libraries for svg's, which might be easy to integrate with cocos2d (it's open source, after all)

 

[Eniko]

Pixel art is unacceptable these days, you must use SVG if you want it to look good everywhere and at any angle.

As an accomplished pixel artist I would like you to substantiate this claim somehow.

 

[sindbad]

Pixel art is unacceptable these days, you must use SVG if you want it to look good everywhere and at any angle.
As an accomplished pixel artist I would like you to substantiate this claim somehow.It's partly a problem of manpower, because you can't really make enough versions of each sprite for each different resolution and aspect ratio combination you may come across. Vector graphics clearly has the upper hand here. Look at KDE4 and how well icons work in it.

The other side of the problem is rotation. SVGs can simply be regenerated either beforehand or on the fly, depending on hardware capabilities and needs.

Even SVG starts having issues when you need Z-axis rotation. Using 3D models rendered in different positions is a partial solution, but you usually want full 3D at this point.

Pixel art is pretty cool and I meant no disrespect, but it just isn't really useful anymore.

 

[PoisonedV]

so you get jagged edges- big deal. they still look great to me.
if you could, however, do something like flash on low quality- you get the raw pixels, but scalable?

 

[kagato]

As long as your sprite library does decent alpha and bilinear filtering, you shouldn't see a noticeable difference between a rotated vector sprite, and a double-sized bitmap sprite rotated and scaled by half.

Vector sprites are more elegant of course (and have other advantages, eg. colour replacement), but if the bitmap libraries are faster and better supported, it's certainly the simpler option.

 

[PoisonedV]

gameplay wise, how would items work? would monsters drop items and gold, or maybe some alternate form of currency taht could be traded in? it always seemed illogical to me that monsters had hundreds of GP on them at all times. what sort of stats would there be? would you have one that strictly affected things like magic and combat power, or ones that gave you physical legs-up, too, like higher jumping, etc? would there be player owned stores?

 

[PSyMastR]

gameplay wise, how would items work? would monsters drop items and gold, or maybe some alternate form of currency taht could be traded in? it always seemed illogical to me that monsters had hundreds of GP on them at all times. what sort of stats would there be? would you have one that strictly affected things like magic and combat power, or ones that gave you physical legs-up, too, like higher jumping, etc? would there be player owned stores?

Thats why I like the way Fable, or even Baten Kaitos did it. In fable, no monsters ever dropped gold. In Baten Kaitos, you got gold by taking pictures of monsters and selling them for cash. The better the shot, the more cash. I don't think the picture thing would be easy to do on a 2D game (more suited for 3D), but maybe an alternative thing, like get a piece of their body that's useful, such as a rare plant enemy gives off some sort of pollen that is valuable.

 

[Mithrildor]

A few things.

1. No skills that are always needed to succes , do it like guildwars , the skill system of GW is way better than the one of WoW (played both games so I know)
2. Make the cities multilevels high and make districts (like in GW , when te max of people is in a city and someelse wants to be in the city to , a new district is opened (sort of server). In that way you want have really laggy citys (big citys need a higher max of people in a district)
3. Give people a way to "tune" their weapons like in GW , diablo or most of the other MMO's. This is really fun when there are loads of options
4. Missions, those guildwars missions were great fun and the boss battles were the best!
5. Guilds and guildbattles (no need to explain i think)
6. Area's which NEED co-op to be completed.

I think Diablo and Guildwars are something for you to look at, it shows a great way of COMMORPGs (Co-Operative Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game)

 

[lordmunk]

I do really like the idea of this game, So im more than happy to help with anything i can, as for the Python and supporting SVG (i assume you mean Scalable Vector Graphics), I cant see why not granted i think most libs that allow for there usage still arnt 100% complete. but andvantage being with python it will be mutli - platform then which could turn out to be rather a good thing.

Anywhoo im happy to help with the project and if required im happy to host a site/forum just for the project just.

 

[PoisonedV]

forcing co op isn't good, and for someone who seems to dislike WoW you should know that. especially when you will have such a small playerbase.
whatever happens, dont try to implement too much stuff early on or it will never get done.

 

[kagato]

[1.] gameplay wise, how would items work? would monsters drop items and gold, or maybe some alternate form of currency taht could be traded in?
[2.] what sort of stats would there be? would you have one that strictly affected things like magic and combat power, or ones that gave you physical legs-up, too, like higher jumping, etc?
[3.] would there be player owned stores?

These are the sorts of details that probably need more planning out.

1. I don't think monsters should drop gold or items in general (though special case monsters might). With respawning monsters, that would encourage gold farming far too much. Gold should come as mission rewards, either as treasure or as payment.
Monster drops would typically consist of mana and health; maybe level-up tokens like Cave Story?

2. I favour leaving the stats very simple, and keep the game fairly arcadey at its core. Say a general purpose Strength stat (how much you can carry/wear, how hard you hit), Mana (the maximum value your meter recharges to) and so on. Building up layers of various skills is where you can make the most of character advancement. (Spells, fighting moves, crafting etc). Combat skills represent specific attacks (like special moves in a fighting game) and not your chance of hitting like most RPGs; hit success comes down to sprite collision.

An example: rather than have a stat that represents your jumping ability, players all jump a standard height, slightly modified by their Strength and their encumberance. Bigger changes in your jump could be obtained via special items, or spells & abilities (which cost mana each use).

3. Player owned stores are definitely in, probably done the same way as arenas. (Plant a tree to create a shop.) For fairness sake, shop trees are probably invulnerable as long as the shop has stock, but maybe players are only allowed one shop at a time to avoid "shop spamming".

I'll elaborate on these ideas some more and add them to the doc.

1. No skills that are always needed to succes
2. Make the cities multilevels high and make districts (like in GW , when te max of people is in a city and someelse wants to be in the city to , a new district is opened (sort of server).
3. Give people a way to "tune" their weapons
4. Missions, those guildwars missions were great fun and the boss battles were the best!
5. Guilds and guildbattles (no need to explain i think)
6. Area's which NEED co-op to be completed.

1. Yeah, there should always be more than one way to do things.
eg. A section might be too high to normally jump to; you could reach it via a flight spell or jump ability, or "double-jump boots", or player cooperation ("throw me up there, will you?").

2. Multilevel, absolutely. Most areas will be, just so you can better see all the characters involved. Districts/instances/shards, I'd rather not unless absolutely necessary. I don't like fragmenting the community like that unless it's deliberate on the players' part (like with arenas).

3. Crafting will be a major component, although I haven't come up with any real details yet.

4. There will definitely be missions, though that comes down to plot & storyline, which will only come late in development. Support for missions will need to be there though.

5. Rather than races or big guilds, I'm currently leaning more toward smaller player parties, about 8 players each or so. In Night it's all PvE, so affiliation isn't so important, and in Day it's pretty much a free-for-all. You wouldn't really want a situation like 50 guys invulnerable to each other's attacks ganging up on a couple of opponents. Small parties could form who are safe from each other (say, with a small portable version of Night's Protection spell), and work together while battling other groups.
There could still be informal allegiances (indeed, you couldn't stop it), but I doubt a hard division like Horde vs Alliance would work so well in this setting.

6. Co-op will be encouraged in some areas, but it will never be mandatory (see point 1). There should always be some potential path for a player, even if he is working alone, though he might have a much harder time of it.