I was searching for MMORPG''s to get a feel for what others put in their games. I found a site called Dark and Light. It only allows for 2 factions but it is an open ended game. 40 000 km2 Freedom to do what you want. It''s a PvP game http://www.darkandlight.com/ read up on the concept of the game. It''s quite amazing.

I stumbled onto that the other day out of pure luck. Watched the movie and was simply blown away. Read the info and was further impressed. 40k /sq miles. Viewing distance of what? 5km? Real time weather that affects game play (see the sandstorms?)

It''s all very impressive except for one thing. From what understand, the entire world is modeled by a massive database that is controlled by certain rule sets. The developers themselves are still FINDING sew towns that they never knew existed. Now, while this may be interesting at first, it just screams trouble. Imagine what happens when the player finds something that the designers don''t know about. That level 1 orc who drops that uber weapon and phat moneyz. That and I think that designing in this method will take away from that finely crafted feel that "good" games have. It''s innovative for sure, but not impressive when you realize that it''s just a computer placing polygons and deciding where to put a collection of houses and who lives in them.

Might be worth a look into. Another thing that bothers me. If these guys REALLY have developed this kind of technology, why haven''t we heard of it sooner? You''d think it would have come up more often and not just by a random hit on a website. It''s a nicely designed website but...what more is it for sure?

Think this one will be in development for a LONG time or it will be quickly released as innovative at which point it''s not likely to go very far.It does indeed look nice from the movies however. But I gotta wonder if those are REALLY in game shots or if someone didn''t create it with the help of something like Maya or 3DS.

Just my thoughts,
Webby

quote: Original post by WebsiteWill
Might be worth a look into. Another thing that bothers me. If these guys REALLY have developed this kind of technology, why haven''t we heard of it sooner? You''d think it would have come up more often and not just by a random hit on a website. It''s a nicely designed website but...what more is it for sure?

Well I''ve known about the game for what must be nearly a year now. Why advertise or promote an incomplete game though? Too many companies do this and I know it helps build customer base and such but the game has just this month gone into beta. They haev been on websites for multiplayer gaming which is where they will get testers from and in the circle of people I assocaite with its known about. Their community forums have 12500 users so I would say its not that unknown about.

As for the gaem itself it does look really good but then how long till wandering around becomes boring and have the gameplay elements been given enough thought and emphasiss. I''ll defiantly check it out when it''s released.

I''ve known for it more than one year too. I don''t know, but news are pretty regularly posted on sites like rpgdot.com, and i''ve also seen some previews in big French magazines, so i''m unsure why you believe it''s pretty unknown.

Y.

I signed up for the beta but that doesn''t mean i''ll get in. I might get in for about a week or two if they want to have as many people as possible to check for bugs. Another thing. I think that the developers know about all towns. They might have created them all when they were building the world but have forgotten about a lot of them.

The scenes look really nice. For exploration to be fun for much longer than MMORPG''s are now, they would have to be. Otherwise we''d look at pre-rendered mountains that never get closer or a hill that appears as we get close to it and other things that disappear when we get farther away.

But there''s more to the game than just exploration, there''s fighting and if you don''t want to fight you can go into politics. I plan to fight myself... i''ll be the nasty rich stob''s thug

Elite 2 Frontier worked like this too, only there a massive universe with all sorts of planets with random generated names and inhabitants was created.