Adding features and content in layers over time

[tourmaline]

As I browse around here, I often read posts related to text based game designs and quietly say to myself "really?" I want to post about it, but I haven't played a text-based game since the commodore 64, so I should probably not comment about something I'm not familiar with.

In one of my posts, it was mentioned that execution is king when it comes to the possibility of someone stealing your idea and becoming more successful than yourself.

Now I combine those two thoughts along with development time and an individual developer or very small team, and wonder if it's reasonable to release a game in stages. The extreme would be text-based to eventual full 3d first person, all bells and whistles. I don't think it's unreasonable to develop that way on the technical end.

Or, is this sometimes the hope when building a text-based game, as in the gentleman that does the NWE? I imagine it as your text based game is so captivating, that attracting and supporting extra resources to develop and maintain the next incarnation almost becomes natural. Like the hook in a great song.

[tourmaline]

I suppose this topic is pretty naive.

[hallsofvallhalla]

I do not consider Text based as the lowest level and 3d as the highest. People often think of games in the style of evolution. Since text came first it is the worse than 3d and 3d is the end goal.
I see them as equals and if you look at player bases you will find in some markets text based is actually higher on the totem. MMORPGS for instance. There are more people playing Text based than 3d. Some games have 3x-6x the player base than WOW. There are plenty of MUDS that rival even the new Star Wars MMORPG.

[Xaos]

I do not consider Text based as the lowest level and 3d as the highest. People often think of games in the style of evolution. Since text came first it is the worse than 3d and 3d is the end goal.
I see them as equals and if you look at player bases you will find in some markets text based is actually higher on the totem. MMORPGS for instance. There are more people playing Text based than 3d. Some games have 3x-6x the player base than WOW. There are plenty of MUDS that rival even the new Star Wars MMORPG.

Well that's because the new SWMMORPG is apparently ass

I agree with Halls though. I don't think text < 3d, nor do I agree that you can go seamlessly from text to 3d. In my opinion, you should either start out graphically with 2d or 3d and then build or start text and build, not start in text, build, go to 2d, build, go to 3d. You could do this, but you'd basically be re-creating 3 games. Think about it like this. In the text-based game, your movement consist of clicking an arrow and displaying the stage/area the player just moved to. So 2 screens, no actual movement, just a change in which screen loads. In 3D, you have to show all of the area, show more area on the outer area of the screen, show the character, show any enemies/etc. then program in movement controls (such as WASD) rather than just clicking. You have alot more work to do and you're basically re-creating a game in 3D, not "evolving" to 3d. I'd rather (and i'm sure 99% of developers) start towards the end direction, and not start towards a midpoint, if that makes any sense.

[tourmaline]

That's why I didn't make an uninformed opinion on the popularity of text-based games. It is good news to hear though, as I'm planing a game somewhere in the middle.

[tourmaline]

Booty as in awesome or booty as in diet vernors?

[Xaos]

Had to google Diet Vernors, but that one.

You could do something like I plan on doing and have basically a text-based game, everything is text-based, just use graphics to fool the user into thinking its a 2D game.

[rockinliam]

I think in terms of game design 3d and text-based games diverge quite alot, i guess you could take a text-based game and add in some 3d elements, but it would almost definitely be a lot more clunky than a game that's designed from the ground up to be either text-based or 3d.

I, as others have said, don't feel as if there is a progression from text to 2d to 3d and i think in alot of ways they are pretty equal, in what it takes to make something that is really fun and enjoyable. Also 3d development, atleast on smaller projects, is pretty easy. Just some c++ knowledge and some opengl (immediate-mode) function calls and away you go. Or even easier, just use Unity!

[Jackolantern]

Text-based games are definitely a completely different thing compared to graphical games. Because they are not bound to have an artist create piles and piles of resources just to create a simple city, for example, they can be much deeper and more complex than graphical games. They can also be much more dynamic. For example, in the MUD Achaea, there was a 3-day event where a new area was opened up for hunting, but a cave released wyverns into the world which were attacking and destroying the major cities of the world. If you think about how many art assets would be required to do this in a graphical game, it becomes mind numbing: the wyverns and all of their animations, fire effect animations, every piece of architecture in every city in 4+ stages of destruction. If a graphical MMO was to do this, it would have to be a whole new expansion pack that would either cost a big chunk of money up-front (such as WoW's Cataclysm expansion) or a F2P game with tons of freemium items to buy to cover the development costs. In a MUD, it was probably just a week of a single dev's time to code in a couple of new entities and writing up the new descriptions. In essence, the entire history of the game could be dramatically changed and a world-altering event could be done with what was likely just a week's worth of dev time. That simply isn't possible in a graphical game.

As far as the original topic, you could do that, but I have not seen it done that often. A text-based game just plays so much differently than a 3D game. However, I do know of one case kind of like this: Dark Age of Camelot. Mythic originally started as a MUD studio, and had quite some success with one of their fantasy-based MUDs centered around the Arthurian legend. They actually started with this text-based MUD's server and built it out into Dark Age of Camelot. But then again, a traditional MUD is much more like a 3D MMORPG than a PBBG is. A MUD is real-time in the same way a 3D MMORPG is, whereas most PBBGs are not, meaning the conversion to a real-time system for a graphical MMO would likely involve completely gutting the server to support real-time game features.

[tourmaline]

Thanks for all the insight from everyone. Prior to your post (Jackolantern), I've been thinking about this with the opinions thus far. I guess I'm not looking at it from a PBBG point of view. If I succeed, my product would function a lot like EVE, Earth and Beyond and the like; although the actual the game world and concept strays quite a bit from a space setting.

I've never played a MUD, although I've had friends that played for many years At some point they left the MUDs behind in favor of visual games, and talked about as a fond memory with no desire to return. That's why I was a little thrown off on the PBBG style. I do appreciate your comparison with game content. you can open up a whole new world without a huge cash reserve and financial outlook, or begging for dough on kickstarter.

I have played good ole pen and paper games, and I've read some of the GURPS rulebooks (which are great for stimulating ideas for game mechanics btw), and with semi-strategy games in mind, I think there is a straight path to adding more advanced gameplay and visuals in steps. Of course, execution would certainly be a huge barrier to success and not having your idea copied (as I believe you mentioned in one of my very first posts).

I have to look at game development realistically from my position. I have enough experience solving problems with code to build a decently engaging game, in a year, or two, or three. But with all facets involved in game making, I can't expect to completely master all of them in the time frame I hope to work in or release by. It just seems that one could code semi-open-end-idly (<-- spell check helped me that one even though I just made it up) to allow for additional layers of density and features. But I also won't be using PHP, but rather node, socket, etc, from the get go, even if I don't completely use the full potential of those resources. I think node and socket changed my view on game dev and made it seem like something impossible is now doable in a part time manner.

I have to say that Indie Resource has broadened my view on MMO game appreciation, even if it still feels to me like a small segment of gaming in general falls in to the PBBG and related bucket. I suppose with all the libraries and frameworks that make it so much easier to jump right in and build, there are and will be more games that fall in between and with different levels of sophistication.

I wish I had more time to play games. I really would like to try cubiverse, and I did sign up for the monster game. But it's either play or code in my free time, and I'd rather code.