The name of the game is Era (Era Online is a long term goal but for now it simply remains "Era"). It is an idea I have had for quite a long time, the first time I can recall coming up with the basic idea was almost two years ago. At the time I had just started going to school for Simulation and Game Development and wanted to make the best game to ever come alive...as many of you can imagine, the idea was shot down as I learned the basic ins and outs of creating a game. And so it got set on a back burner, then it became forgotten all together. Instead I found myself making a lot of small games, most of them actually really good and receiving a lot of praise and popularity amongst my fellow classmates and instructors (none of them were able to make it to be uploaded online due to incompletion, that tends to happen when you are expected to make a new game "unlike any you have already made" literally twice a week =_= ). As they piled up on one another and life began to throw problems at me, which eventually led to me having to drop out and look for a second job, the idea behind Era was all but completely erased from my mind.
However, about a month ago, while playing the ever-amazing game, Minecraft, Era came back into my head. And so it began, scrambling to figure out just what Era was, what its goal was, and what I was going to do about it. Due to my assignments when I was in school, I have quickly become tired of small little games, I decided I was ready to take on something big...I have found that big is too small for what I am doing...this is gonna suck, but hard work is what makes ideas into reality.

What Era Online is:
-Era Online is an idea for an MMO, nothing more, nothing less, simply just an idea. An idea for a game in which players create a family of two to five members and choose a region to call home on a world called Cradle.
>Cradle is intended to be an actual planet rather than a large square map with limited worldspace. Imagine the planets on Spore, but bigger, yet at the same time, smaller in scale than that of our own Earth (Due to hardware limitations and possible player numbers, you don't want a sparsely populated world, it just wouldn't feel right).
>The idea is to set up a formula that will allow Cradle to be generated semi-randomly from the planets core all the way out to the crust which will feature all the geographical diversities of our own planet.

-The very first players who log into the game will find themselves alone unless they chose the same starting region as another player. This is because, while there will be a few NPC's here and there, they will be representing the dawn of man and will have to lead their family in building shelter and surviving the wilderness as well as any hostile NPC's or players they may encounter.
>The player will be able to use materials around them to create basic tools and weapons, and build homes and shelters.
>As the player population grows, they may band together and start tribes, villages, towns, cities, and eventually nations.
>The main feature of Era, along with the development of civilization, would be the advancement of technology.

>A look at the player's ability to advance the technology of Cradle
-Player A. learns how to make a wheel from wood.
-Player B. decides to make a large box and attach Player A.'s wheels to the box, making a cart.
-Player A. decides to tame a large beast to pull the cart.
-Player A. and Player B. meet Player C. who wants to know how to make the cart.
-Player C. Is taught how to build a cart and in exchange, teaches Player A. and B. how to make a boiler to cook food with.
-Player C. figures out how to attach the boiler to the cart in order to move the wheels and creates a steam powered vehicle.
-As the first engine is passed along players, it is constantly revised and improved, using fuel instead of steam and making it more powerful.
-Player D. decides that with his powerful engine, he could put wings on a vehicle and he creates the first airplane.

Again, look to Spore and imagine the vehicle creator, but a little more sophisticated. There will be basic elements in the game that can be used toward invention, but you cant just slap wheels on a cart to make it drive. You have to have an engine with a chain attached to a gear on an axle (all the little parts would only show in the invention editor to prove the functionality of the vehicle, other with a game world model that is more complicated would slow the game down tremendously, creating tremendous strain on the system and most definitely a crash).

Of course not everyone is going to be able to think in ways that will allow them to discover or design a modern day Ferrari. This will increase the need to work together and exchange information as well as provide service for others, whether for hire or volunteering to progress their world's progression, as well as create a need for market and trade. No one is going to buy a truck if everyone can go out and make one themselves.

And of course theirs PVP. No hitpoints, you get shot in the head, you die, pure and simple. The upside is you have a family who inherits what you left behind, either you choose a preexisting family member to take your place, or you create a new member to take the job. Also all those skills you acquired during your characters life, they are easy to earn back. Not instantly but still quicker than your average MMO. The harsher possibility for death would hopefully allow for a more open game play. No "hay! cans i duel you and get ur stuff?" If you want to attack someone because they are easy to kill, go right ahead, but remember, you're just as easy to kill as they are. Also, no more endless grinds or buffs to get the 1% advantage on the other player or try to reach the level cap and be 'unbeatable'.

Now for a giant slap to the face of reality:
Era online is impossible with the resources I have now, in order to make an MMO, one needs funding...lots of it. So until I can get that (If I can get that) I just have Era, not Era Online, just Era. Era is going to be a single player game of the same idea and concept, just no online, no player interactions with other players, and much much simpler. Era also will not take place on a planet world like the that of its dreamed up equivalent. It will be a flat plane world, possibly randomly generated like Minecraft...possibly. It will have a handful of creatures, and NPC's to interact with. The invention feature will still exist, but not as sophisticated. This time slapping wheels on a cart will make it drive if it has and engine object located somewhere on the vehicle. And materials will still need to be obtained in order to make tools, and components.

Everything starts small. Era Online is possible, but for now I have to start with just plain old Era. I already have a team pulling together and its actually coming much quicker than I expected. It's only been three days and I already have four members with multiple talents and roles that they are not only capable of filling, but willing. And it helps that I've seen some of their work and what they call "not the best" is actually quite astounding. (Note to those of you who think you're not all that great, you're probably better than you give yourself credit for) But I hope we can get Era to a point where we can release it to the web as a purchasable download (I'm thinking $10 to $15 but you cant really be sure until you see what the releasable product is) and from that I am hoping we can get funding to license it and funding to start making Era Online. It all depends on how successful this turns out to be if at all.

So tell me what you think. Feel free to praise, flame, or commend and give advice to what I may need to know.

I would also like to take this time to extend an open invitation for anyone who may be interested in joining our team (Emblem) and working with the Era project (Not Era Online, just Era) to send an email to blink.riddle@gmail.com or just PM me and I will let you know who we can use and any other information that you want to know.

sounds very similar to one of my projects im working on lol
my one focuses more upon NPCs making the villages/towns etc while you just interact more as an adventurer/god



my advice, dont get caught up in realism too much, make it fun and simple more, otherwise not enough people will "get" it

sounds very similar to one of my projects im working on lol
my one focuses more upon NPCs making the villages/towns etc while you just interact more as an adventurer/god



my advice, dont get caught up in realism too much, make it fun and simple more, otherwise not enough people will "get" it

Which element of realism are you referring to?

Are you familiar with A Tale In the Desert? Anyone interesting in making an mmo sim where people start from 'the dawn of man' should at least glance at ATITD. They had a free trial last I knew.

Which element of realism are you referring to?

invention system primarily..

Change your title. Era Online was already used for some crappy VB MMORPG made by a Norwegian kid in the late 90s that somehow got really famous. You REALLY don't want to associate yourself with it.

Change your title. Era Online was already used for some crappy VB MMORPG made by a Norwegian kid in the late 90s that somehow got really famous. You REALLY don't want to associate yourself with it.

Gotcha, thanks for the information.

My main idea to add to this is to make technology branching. I read somewhere a while ago that, in the 20th century, humanity had basically two options: We could develop smaller and smaller computing equipment to get the most out of small amounts of energy or we could develop nuclear power and simply brute force computers that way. We chose the former and, well, here we are.

Now think about this in game terms. The player has, over the course of a long game, come to be ruler of one of two superpowers with modern tech. He chose the former option from above and the nation now has armies of highly equipped infantry and high mobility vehicles. He can compute the ballistic calculations to launch a cruise missile at any point in the world in an eye-blink.

The other superpower is an unknown. Like RL China it's insular and its tech is largely a mystery. Then, one day, in a player-owned military base on an island near the other superpower, a MASSIVE FUCK-OFF MECH POWERED BY NUCLEAR REACTORS WITH CHAINSWORDS FOR ARMS comes out of the ocean. All the player can do is watch as his base is ripped apart. His units are safe because of their superior speed but the sheer power of the mech would disintegrate them in an instant.

..... Ahem

Anyway, I hope you got what I was trying to say. If the tech is linear then one playthrough is all you need to get bored of the game. Make it branching and genuinely (not just cosmetically) varied and people will be more involved by making crucial decisions instead of trying to power-level tech to get nukes before everyone else.