I know you thought I was going to talk about the 9000 MMOs that are based on elves, but in doing a quick survey of the online projects arena Im starting to wonder...How many post-apocalyptic projects can be developed at one time?? Fallen EarthTwilight WarsNeoShockRoadKill WarriorsDystopiaCaliberReign of MilitiasUnderworld 3dConflict Omega and thats just off the top of my head...filtering out projects by monied developers. Of course everyone has their own slant, and they arent all MMOs, but holy crap people love ShadowRun, Wasteland, Fallout...and its going to be overkill. Oh well. Wont stop any of us, I guess :P

How many romantic comedies can Hollywood keep churning out?

For that matter, how many action movies can they keep making?

In the end, the genre doesn't matter at all. It's just whether the game is good or not. If it's good (and your marketing dept. has a clue) you do ok. If not, you'll join Gigli.

Yeah, regardless of the genre, if the game sucks, it sucks. If the game is unoriginal and a copycat clone of another game, its only got the potential to be as good as the game its copying.

I think the problemw ith the post-appoccolyptic genre is that so few games have done it right.

To be honest. I really didn't want to use a post-apocalyptic setting at all. I really really didn't. Unfortunately, I always dreamt of doing a game that had Real Mythology characters, locations and items in it. I also was very inspired by Heavy Metal and Hard Core Anime.

I tried my best to think of a different sort of story to tie teh whole game together (after I designed it as a system of several mythologies connected together). I finally decided I could use Lovecraftian Mythos to tie it together.

But sicne I also wanted to have sci-fi, I tried again to think "how can I tie together multiple mythologies and sci-fi?"

I was thinkign of havign the game based on an artificial world that was somehow "infudsed" with magic and deities from Earth. But I decided that was too hokey. So I had little choice but to settle on Post Apocalyptic. If anyoen else knows how I could tie together multipel mythologies without usign post apocalyptic, please tell me (not being sarcastic.. seriously. I would rather avoid post-apocalyptic if I could)

Check out the game at this page instead of teh underwordl 3d link please: http://www.neopangaia.org/nation

ANyways.. Thx.. I just hope I'm done first so I don't seem liek a copycat ;)

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Original post by Vanquish Of course everyone has their own slant, and they arent all MMOs, but holy crap people love ShadowRun, Wasteland, Fallout...and its going to be overkill. Oh well. Wont stop any of us, I guess :P

Doing a quick check, looks like maybe two out of these are going to be along the lines of MMO, the rest is half-life 2 mods and half if not more done in the "let's render few images of gun meshes, make a website and then get bored with the project in couple of months when we realize it's going to take way more than that to actually get something working" manner ... compared to list of MMO under development i'd say the elves still outnumber them ;s

Those are triple AAA games - Their must be literally hundreds of mmo projects posted on the help wanted section. On flip code, one guy went through all 107 mmo projects posted, and found out of them, only 3 had reached screenshot level. 2 were still active, but werent progresssing. Only one game had reached a fanbase of about 1,000. Goes to show how hard it is.

i agree. i have been working on my game for almost 5 years now. literally about 12 hours a day on average (self funded). been through about 6 engines in that time. just nwo do i feel i am actually on what i consider a pretty good development path and direction.

i still wont have a single screenshot for another two months (minimum). was it worth it? i left a great career where i was makign $70,000 a year. i got stuck back in the U.S. (which i HATE living in (without making 70k a year that is)) and i now have a new baby to deal with at teh same time. i cant turn back now, too much time and money ivested. and i have no way to move forward with a gamign career until the game is DONE.

i would tell anyone trying to do a videogame. it is HARD. do a singel player first if you just want to get your feet wet. If you are steill serious.. COMMIT!! I will die before i leave this game unfinished, so i know it will get done.

everyoen from investors to fans seems to think this is some sort of game to me. like i just had too much time to make a website ro something. hello.. 12 hours a day for ive years? that was not cheap to be able to fund, let me tell you.

when the game is finsihed or i at least have a screenshot, i will be happy.

for now, its hell. the corporate jjobs i used to do dont want me because i spent so much time "away" from a project. the game companies say "you dont have a finished game" to know that i would be a good employee for them.

i cant imagine anything rougher (being a struggling actor perhaps) and still i have nowheer to go but through teh difficulty. even if i dont get any funding i will have to finish it myself (luckily in those five years i was able to learn every component i need.. and well. and from pros..)

im praying every day for a source of funding or at leat for a job to come along to help me survive beyond just crankijg out code and art and story for the game. but what choice do i have, since i made this decision 5 years ago?

im doing it because i love the art of gaming and feel it is lost. i feel noone makes art that happens to be a game like they used to. i didnt want to give my life for it. but hey. since everyone let bush win while i was out of the country for those years, i feel somebody hads to give their lives for SOMETHING..

somethign hasd to make sense beyond being just about money.. someWHERE. and tehy have to do it without giving up or selling out or getting tired along the way.

i only hope i can finish it. i refuse to let quality indie games of this magnitude go the same way quality movies have went over the years.

Genre is overrated. Make a good game, then let the fans put it into whatever classifications they like.

Personally, I would like to see a bit more variation in settings chosen.

I liked the setting for the RPG Archainum (I think thats the name) But I liked the idea how it mixed fantasy with 19th century technology. I think as far as genres go I would rather play a game where its world is completely unlike anyother game or with a mix, than a game where the environment is just a knock off of Fallout or the movie MadMax.
I dont think environment is enough to consider a game in a certain genre because if you take Baulders gate and give it a fallout setting its still the same game. Its all about gameplay.

Oh yeah elfs are gay.

Note... NeoshockMod.net is not an MMORPG, it is a team-based FPS set in the future. Thanks for confusing the forum mini-game with our actual game...

NeoShock is also not a post-apoc game. It is a futuristic SCI-FI game.

Dystopia is also a FPS modification for Half-Life 2.

On the subject of genre, I think you can look at it in three ways:
1. A game that defines or pushes the definition of a genre.
2. A game that follows the specifications of a genre as a template.
3. A game that is made without 'genre' in mind.

As indie developers I don't think anyone should be with #2, so therefore all of the games above may have some similarities, but I don't think clumping them all together "post-apoc/cyberpunk" really makes any sense. Sci-fi as a genre has really revolutionized itself over the last few years, it's like saying can there be too many fantasy MMORPGs? Apparently not!