 | Multiverse Platform videoFebruary 13th, 2006 |
The Multiverse Platform was demoed at DEMO. Most interesting line: “Multiverse is a media company.”
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Very interesting.
It looks like they’re creating the “engine” of the game and running the server system, but it’s up to the developers of each ‘universe’ to provide the content and probably the graphics as well.
And of course, there’s the whole “online gaming service” thing, userside, where access would likely be a subscription to the Multiverse Platform servers and the individual games therein, like Sony’s Station Pass, only not limited to one development company’s efforts.
It’s Easy! It’s Fun! Give us 50% of your revenue for the server code and some art tools and you’ll make a fortune! Even better then ‘No Cash Down’ Real Estate!
Man that teleport skill that the characters and mobs were using to move around looked pretty good. -.-”
I’d be shocked if they find more than a handfull of mildly interested kids with a get-rich-quick scheme and a list of cool class names in their pocket. “Because like… WoW isn’t all that great, like… I could make something like that for $15 a month. A billion dollars a year would like.. be rad.”
This sounds a lot like something that I wont remember having watched 2 months from now…
That is exactly the part that caught my attention and which I quoted after I watched it. Too bad it’s missing what I consider (as a product designer) to be a crucial ingrediant.
Did you also watch the “Chili” presentation? That could be a sleeper.
Where’s the Chili one?
What’s the crucial ingredient you saw missing?
My eye was caught by iGuitar. 
Chili: http://demo.com/demonstrators/demo2006/63047.html
Missing ingrediant: a new 3D modeling format that moves from videogames to manufacturing (possibly in the works as an open source project by someone who might be able to pull it off).
Otherland?
I know the demo had to be short, but I came away with the impression, YAMMORPG… “Yet another MMORPG”.
The primary selling point of “cheaper” is good, but not enough to produce compelling MMORPGs that players actually want to play.
The important question is: How does multiverse allow authors to create VW’s that are DIFFERENT from existing ones, as well as how much can author A and author B, both using Multiverse, differentate their worlds.
What they demoed was the same as every other standard MMORPG I’ve seen. If they don’t pay attention to this issue, all they’ll end up with is a graphical form of DikuMUD, thousands of worlds that are all pretty much the same.
I also hope they have access to more than $1.3M. That won’t last very long. Developing public toolkits, APIs, and platforms (which is what they’re up to) ends up taking a LOT of work, probably twice as much as writing a private toolkit for a single MMORPG. (I have enough experience with API/platform design to go into detail if you want.) They could possibly skimp on content, but not too much or no one will believe their toolkit is capable.
Two thoughts;
It’ll be nice to see some of the garage developers try to get their ideas where the rest of the world can play them. I can see if they spend a small amount of money and can develop a unique idea it can really take off into something of value, a lot like “Adventure Quest” the flash game has taken off as a significant web based MMO.
And
Competition in the lower level of MMO production has just become significantly more difficult.
Zankin said:
It’ll be nice to see some of the garage developers try to get their ideas where the rest of the world can play them.
That’s what we’re trying to enable with Multiverse. Maybe our site is a bit too snake-oil-sounding–we do have a “Get filthy rich!” joke, after all. But we’re trying to open up this space for independent developers who don’t have $20 million lying around. Our hope is that we’ll see a ton of weird, creative, experimental stuff, that can help drive the state of the art forward. And FWIW, we only collect money when our customers (developers) charge consumers. If you want to make something that’s free for players, then our technology always remains free for you.
–Corey
Exec Producer, Multiverse
Mike, I don’t see this as anything like “yet another MMORPG.” IMO Multiverse looks like it’ll be filling a niche that sorely needs attention: making it possible for indie devs to create actual commercial-grade MMOs.
Don’t let the “WoW-lite” demo throw you; it’s intended, I believe, to show that you can put something familiar together quickly — it’s a starting point, not an ending point. And now the end point of what gets developed won’t be controlled exclusively by high-budget, risk-averse, new-IP-resistant companies or creativity-throttling publication contracts.
(Disclosure: I’m on the advisory board for Multiverse, so I’m not unbiased. OTOH, I agreed to be on the AB because the team and the technology look solid and fill a much-needed role. This is a good and significant change in MMO development.)
Mike Sellers wrote:
Mike, I don’t see this as anything like “yet another MMORPG.” … I’m on the advisory board for Multiverse, so I’m not unbiased.
That’s good go hear. I’ve looked at a few different CRPG, adventure game, and MMORPG development toolkits and have been dismayed by the fact that ultimately, anything an author produces with them ends up looking/acting the same as every other title produced by the same toolkit.
As you know, my “disclosure” is that I’m also producing a VW toolkit, although aimed much more at adventure-gaming, and probably more “artsy”. Multiverse is distantly a competitor as much as a car (metaverse) is a competitor to a bicycle (my project). I posted my concerns about YAMMORPG and financing because I hate to see projects fail; I’ve been on a few that have been cancelled and know how lousy it feels.
As I posted in Raph’s “Is the shift to online is a fad?”, what you’re really doing is creating an operating system (of sorts). I hope you realize how much work/effort it’s going to be. I know; I have experience with writing only a tiny portion of an OS, and that was heaps of work. Last night, after seeing the uninspired demo and posting my previous message, I was thinking about E-mailing someone at Multiverse and warning them about the difficulties, but decided it was none of my business.
Sorry, blame it on sleep deprivation from hand-raising a joey (kangaroo). On re-reading the my last post, I realize that I probably should have shut up a long time ago.
Some of my interest in Multiverse has stemmed from the fact that their graphics engine is Ogre3D, and I’ve widely advocated students and indies to try that one out. It’s very similar to some of the commercial engines out there, and it’s a great place to get started, for folks who don’t have much money to throw around. The thing it most lacks is commercial-grade tools (which, presumably, is one of Multiverse’s big selling points).
It looks to me like the Multiverse demo would play better if they had higher quality art. What they have right now looks like amateur student work. It gives everything a cheap, generic feel — which is only going to contribute to the sense many people have that Multiverse can only be used for producing bland cookie-cutter games. If they had something more stylized and unique-looking, I think it would help the public image of the overall product.
But we’re trying to open up this space for independent developers who don’t have $20 million lying around.
Corey, wouldn’t it be nice if we did though?
I really like this idea, it makes me think of the way ultima online is way more than just a game that EA plays. There is a community of well over a hundred thousand who play it on one player server or another. These communities are extreemly tight knit groups who may play other games, but will never stop what they are doing now. I have looked into those groups because they are not limited by the game code, of course everything is isometric and “old” but if you can tap into that creativity (which sounds like the plan) then you have found a gold mine.
I might agree with you some on your website btw (with all due apologies of course) you are following a corporate model while aiming towards an audience of free thinking gamers. I’m not saying go G4tv.com; but it might help to aim for the middle ground.
And a Post Script, I did not know that you only charge a percent of the subscription price, brilliant plan; if you can get the kids to jump on and get help to build these worlds then there is a real chance they can make something they’d feel good about charging for.
And if you read all this thanks for listening to my drivil.
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[...] Comments [...]
[...] OK, from the preview video, I think he’s missing a very vital middle point… Yes and no. Yes because making content hard. No because that’s not what Multiverse is about. Taking WoW as an example, it’s (more or less) bug free. I haven’t played in a while, and when I did there was the odd loot bug, but no real showstoppers. So their technical framework is more or less worked out. WoW’s current (and the classic MMOG) problem is that players are consuming content faster than the devs can create it. The point of Multiverse is to allow MMOG development to be almost entirely content creation by providing technical building blocks. As an indie dev, you won’t need to pay top dollar for a team of quality network coders and database coders because Multiverse has done that for you; you can concentrate on your environments and quests and whatnot. They’re basically trying to be id/Epic, but for the MMO market. Id/Epic makes the killer FPS engine, and provides a set of game creation tools for them (UnrealED), and dev houses like Raven can then make content for it, with relatively little technical work themselves — only extending the engine where it serves their content like adding melee weapons to the Quake 3 engine for JK2. There’s some good points made in the comments on Raph’s blog entry for this demo about how what Multiverse is trying to do is effectively make an OS for MMOs (though putting my dev hat on, it looks more like a framework like .NET than an OS). There’s a problem though. If their frameworks can’t be extended, then you end up with a bunch of cookie cutter MMOs that have different graphics but play exactly the same way. I remember seeing a few boxes in EB a few years back that claimed to be “game creator tools” allowing you to make an infinte number of games. Unfortunately for them they basically allowed you to make custom skins for less than half a dozen game types, none of which were particularly satisfying, and the products sank without trace. If it works though, we could end up seeing a mod scene for MMOs as good as those for the banner FPSs and games like NWN and WC3. Which will be good as it will also force the current big MMO players to keep up with the popular innovations rather than maintaining the status quo. NB. Assuming Multiverse succeeds in what it’s trying to do (which I do hope it does, despite the strong smell of snake oil), it won’t solve the consuming-content-is-quicker-than-making-it problem, it will just allow a greater variety of content and playstyles to be created and come to market in the first place. [...]