Comments on: Simcast Project is Dead

By: Foxy Xevious

Foxy Xevious — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 17:32:31 +0000

I’m sorry to hear that Simcast didn’t work out. I know that they work very hard on that project for a very long time and it with allot of bumps in the roads. I found creating games inside of SL a very tough challenge. When we created U:SL, we where quickly defeated by lag. It was very fun to create, we gave it all we had. We where happy with what we accomplish, but the game never did well. I have to agree with Pirate’s advise. Big groups working on any large scale projects inside of SL = to failure. Good luck to anybody perusing developing games inside of SL.

By: Walker Spaight

Walker Spaight — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 10:01:19 +0000

Hehe stay tuned to the Herald for more on Portal Wars, Aliasi. Coming soon.

By: Tony Walsh

Tony Walsh — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 08:47:43 +0000

Aliasi, I’ve never heard of Portal Wars, but if you give me some info on it (like where I can find it), I’ll check it out. I have my doubts about any SL game scaling to a large size, particularly a twitch-based game.

By: Aliasi Stonebender

Aliasi Stonebender — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 23:10:18 +0000

In so far as “small-scale FPS/PvP” games, I’m surprised efforts liek Deevyde Malstrom’s Portal Wars hasn’t gotten more press; it works quite well, and is scalable to any size arena.

By: Walker Spaight

Walker Spaight — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 13:37:55 +0000

Pirate Cotton > “Combat is more than FPS. Where are the weeks-long web-stlye strategy games, for example?”

love it. do we have any in SL already?

By: Urizenus

Urizenus — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 09:10:28 +0000

I’m not sure it solves all the problems to prototype before buying the sims (Simcast did this anyway — prototyping an early version on an island on the main grid). I saw the main problems having to do with working out security for the island and then figuring out how many people and how much scripting an island could sustain without lagging to death. Maybe there is a way to extrapolate that from a prototype but I wouldn’t count on it. There are also problems related to knitting the sims together. That having been said, I certainly wouldn’t buy a sim *just* for purposes of building an FPS inside SL — only do that if you want your own island to hang out on and screw around with for its own sake.

By: Prokofy Neva

Prokofy Neva — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 08:45:51 +0000

Rent, don’t buy!

By: Pirate Cotton

Pirate Cotton — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 02:55:46 +0000

Some tips from me:
- Don’t spend any RL money till your prototype works.
- Don’t have a team bigger than 3 FRIENDS. The other people hire as you need them and fire them if they don’t perform
- Don’t rely on LL
- Combat is more than FPS. Where are the weeks-long web-stlye strategy games, for example?

Many more tips are available, just buzz me

By: Apotheus Silverman

Apotheus Silverman — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 08:18:07 +0000

The widely-known attempts at PvP games in SL to date have generally taken a bass-ackwards approach to their development efforts, similar to what dotcom companies did before the crash. Instead of buying (leasing) a sim (or sims) up front (why do so many people jump to buy a sim so quickly?) and paying all that money it would be a very wise decision to at least finish a proof-of-concept prototype so you *know* your efforts won’t be wasted in the end.

Personally I think the traditional model people have attempted so far is not really the way to go. Not yet at least. Instead of building up a whole sim, it would likely be easier to build and market a modular PvP arena and plop a few of them down in various locations throughout SL. They don’t have to be large — it’s been a long time since I’ve really been into FPS games (Quake 2 was the last one I played extensively), but I remember some of my favorite PvP maps were highly vertical and not that spread out.

On another note, I am a firm believer that SL is not up to snuff yet for anyone to be able to produce a FPS/PvP game of any quality. That is going to change in a big way when LSL3 becomes available. My expectation is that, come SL2.0.whenever-the-bugs-are-fixed, the functional abilities of SL in general are going to be an order of magnitude higher than they are today. If a group can be formed that has the right combination of skills (code, design, business, and marketing), I expect we’ll have a dominating PvP group/game/system by Feb 2006.

By: Mr Fairplay

Mr Fairplay — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 17:40:31 +0000

In order to sustain big projects as such, the main developer/builder/scripter also has to be the creator and owner of the associated land/sim. At the end of the day, money and resources does not necessarely take you far in Second Life. Mainly due to the fact your relying on people you have never met and will probably never meet. Project like these will consistantly fold due to internal team conflicts and arguments, and will prove impossible to sustain. Great idea shame it didn’t make it.

p.s. I’ll try and start publishing some new stories soon