Developing HomeWorld into a Massive Multiplayer Online Environment

[Siber]

What happens to concept art delivered on a voluntary basis depends on what terms the company decides to accept them under. That aside, I don't think anyone is trying to say that future Homeworld sequels should be exactly the same as existing games, though I think if I were to be put in charge of relaunching the franchise I'd strongly consider an updated HW1 as a starting point. We just don't, generally speaking, agree with you about the direction it should evolve in.

[Avetorian]

I'm down for a HW1 update, I'd love to see the fall of the Kushans showcased either through a compaign or introduction or ship logs you could find via sending salvagers to wrecked ships in Karos graveyard. I remember my first time seeing Karos graveyard, all those wrecked ships always made me wonder what kind of battle went down to cause all that.

[Dryson]

I am currently learning how to design ships using a 3D prog called GMax to render the models.

I will be using HW:1 as the platform for the background.

This is what I plan on doing:

1.Design a whole new series of ships based upon splinter races that have come about as a result of the Homeworld story. This will be an entirely new universe set apart from the original storyline. Basically the races have mixed and have charted into new and unknown areas of space. The descendants of the original HW now immersed in a bitter fight for survival must band together against three newly discovered races the Xenoran, Muanaran and Dreg. The Xenoran are a male dominated race that keeps their woman bound to sexual slavery where the woman is seen as nothing more than a vessel to produce offspring for the male cast. The Muanaran are a female dominated race that keeps their men bound to sexual slavery where the male is seen as nothing than a vessel to produce offspring for the female cast. The Dreg are the combination of both Xenoran and Muanaran that have broken free of their clans to start their own race in hopes of bringing equality to the Frontier. All three races are constantly in a state of war with each other until the day that the unknown scout ship arrives in the New Exxodan Empire.

Considered an outsider you and your fleet of ships quickly find refuge in an isolated part of the system and begin to create a foundation of existance. The races of Foundation are the Terrans, Anabaters, Telerans and Phillarans.

-Terrans : Mix of all the other races of Foundation, generally thought of as the governors and politicians of Foundation
-Anabaters : Traders by nature. Some have even heard of transport ships heading into New Exxodan territory their holds returning full of unusual stuff
-Telerans - Generally speaking the Telerans are industrialists but very apt at combat.
-Phillarans - The artists of Foundation that bring a sense of the Universe to the rest of races of New Genesia (the total of Foundation territory) through their music, sculptures and other forms of artwork.

Some of the major design changes will be :

All new mothership designs for each race as well as new ships

More animation involving gun turrets.
New types of weapons such as the Sub Atomic Particle Accelerator

Ship and missile trails will be more trail like instead of just lines of color.

Multiple maps where a Slipgate must be used to access the new map.

Three new types of resources that will allow for better fuel performance as well as new ships as result of harvesting gas and particle reactants.

Market that will allow you to purchase scripts for your ships to add lethality to your fleets along with new ships.

It will probably take two years to complete this mod but once finished it should bring life back to the HW setting.

Anyone that is interested in assisting with the mod can contact me at HWTheEdgeofEden@gmx.com

The name of the mod will be HW:The Edge of Eden.

Hopefully if I can get people interested in it the expansion will include planetfall missions as a seperate expanison called HW:The Edge of Eden - Planetfall.

Work completed:

Background story.

Race backgrounds and professions.

Race ship design philosphy.

What is needed :

Mappers - The overall map is extreme - upto 2000 different solar systems to develop each with their own personality such as systems with high levels of radiation, black holes, systems that reduce the functions of ships as well as enhancing their performance.

Ship designers that can take a hand drawing and turn it into a 3D model as well as adhering to the race specific design philosphies set forth for each race.

So if you have some free time to spar even a few hours on the weekend and are looking for something to do get in touch with me.

[Fenra]

Just sayin... You might want to contact Relic if your making a total redesign *based* on the homeworld universe. Not sure if copyright violation? >.> Someone correct me on this though, depends if he's making a total conversion mod or a whole new game, sounds like a whole new game to me.

[DrysonB]

It's just an expansion of the Homeworld One platform.

Basically all the will be changed will be the ship models and their .shp files along with adding new missions where race that is chosen will create a completely different gaming situation and outcome.

I have compiled the total number of outcome interactions at 42.

For each race scenario they are 16 missions/maps

This brings the total encounter outcome in at a measely 672 maps.

But first things first.

Does anyone know where I can get a working HSWE file?

All the ones that I install give me a "Runtime Error 91, Object variable or With block variable not set"

I have the hwse141beta2 version installed.

[DrysonB]

Back on topic then.

Anyone have any new ideas on how to bring HW back to life in the gaming community?

[Fenra]

Let me put it this way:

Have you contacted Relic or THQ to make sure that this use of their IP (In this case, the engine, not the game itself) is okay? I'm all for bringing HW back into the gaming community, but honestly "Space-RTS" isn't a buzzword in gaming that much anymore. Not to say people won't play it, I just feel that people find the latest version of SC2 to be more appealing. Which I don't really know why, it's basically a rehash of SC1 with newer graphics and compatible with the new b.net.

[Makemap]

MMO Homeworld would not work. Plus it would be MMO Strategy. It would not sell nor will it continue the series properly. There are already enough MMO's other there to be satisfy with.

[DrysonB]

The only MMO's out there that are near HomeWorld and of any mention are EvE Online and Star Trek:Online. Converting HomeWorld into a MMO RTS in a similar manner of EvE Online would bring in new players.

Otherwise HomeWorld will be regulated to being nothing more than a RTS that will slowly dissolve over time.

Mark these words from this date : If HomeWorld does not evolve it will not be around in ten years. Mods will no longer be created. And the reason why? Because the fanbase didn't like change.

The fans no excepting change is also the main reason why you can only buy HomeWorld from Amazon.com

Want to see a success? Look at World of Warcraft. The online version went from a simple RTS similar to Home World where you collect resources, upgrade and fight to the World Wide platform that it is today.

I think that production of HomeWorld needs to be taken away from Relic and given to an new age developer to keep it going.

[Aesaar]

World of Warcraft ruined a good story.

This thread has been nothing but you regurgitating the same points and basically ignoring the people who explain why you're wrong.

Homeworld did not die because it never became an MMO, it died because nothing could be done with the license for a while (because it was owned by Sierra), and by the time the license came back to Relic, their time and money was better spent elsewhere. If Relic was to make an MMO now, they'd do far better with 40k than they would with Homeworld.

Seriously, if you want EVE, go play EVE. Going MMO is not actually the answer to everything, believe it or not.

[Sparki]

Think people are thinking too big as a hypothetical HW MMORPG is always being set next to giants like EVE and more.

In my opinion, a smaller scale MMORPG works wonders, even the horrid ones out there survive well enough. As I mentioned often in the HW3 wish thread, HW might be best if it were to start off making smaller games, slowly introducing everybody back to a classic they most likely never heard of. But there has to be a decent model and concept. Starting with what would make the game awesome etc. for unclean who don't know about HW and are perhaps even too tainted from the ages long play of WoW, Eve and other stuff.

Nevertheless, I still find it imperative to have several games of HW - instead of pointing with the finger around what is most canon than thou. HW universe is big enough to make seperate standalones, so I don't see a problem with that. But aside to all that would make it awesome, I think a movie or featured animation or whatever would be necessary as it really would get people uptodate like a Previously on xyz... recap.

Heh, in fact, putting all cutscenes together with some duct tape just might do the job already :P.

But back to such MMORPG...
Publishers are damn important unfortunately, especially when its a big one like THQ, EA or other similar ones. With THQ's financial troubles earlier, I doubt they can churn a big MMORPG - not even hype it to oblivion like Age of Conan and The Perfect World and then crash (lol).

Let's not forget that each MMORPG is cursed by endless waves of trolls, broken mechanics that screw gameplay and more.


In short, I'm all for it, but there has to be a team of experienced developers next to our beloved HW creators =).


/Edit
Like an "XCOM" game of HW.
Some Action-Adventure game of HW.
Classic RTS with those missing functions and features of HW2.

Just examples to mention that come in mind.

[Elowan]

hmm, why not try to put in a good main-story to follow and add side-quests or events (like in GW2) ?
Could be great!

[Sparki]

Depends.
PVE-orientated things won't keep players tied to the game forever. Roughly guessing, half the gamer's nation has been part of WoW for ages. The actual story + public quests part have to be well written and fun (which is quite relative and in the many eyes of beholders).

Nonetheless, any MMO-orientated type of game has to be sustainable both for the developers as well as for the players. We must not forget that the market is quite saturated with free2play scifi games. While I have great anticipations for anything HW related, it has to be something special enough for "the unclean".

I won't repeat what I said just above, but somewhere, a team-oriented mmo would be interesting.
Big question still is what type of gameplay would it be. Moving people around through ships, being the actual ship, etc. - and how to do such without being just Eve Online in blue.

[Mikali]

I don't think a HW2 MMO would be possible without being entirely laggy. There are simply too many commands and too many ships to be controlled. I.e. too much data flowing through the pipe in real-time. Maybe if the game were turn-based.

[DrysonB]

Not in this day and age smaller competitive based games are out the door.

Full fledged MMO's like EvE Online are the future of gaming because they give gamerss the oppurtunity to engage in wider story base than a 6P setting.

Gaming is no longer about 6P playing on a small board. Gaming is about experiencing what alot of different gamers are doing at any one point in time just like in real life.

The reason why WoW is so popular is because it doesn't involve the gamer to have to think about anything other than grinding in a certain area to make gold. Not very inventive or thought provoking.

But if HW were set in the MMO Class gamers could embark on any type of career such as market mogul or someone who watches the market buys and sells items in different areas to make their profit or the industrial list that employs people to mine minerals so that his researchers can build armor plates and ships.

If HW did become an MMO with game play based upon a market system where the player could build their ship from the hull up adding customizations to it I think alot of gamers would throng to it.

One thing that EVE Online does lack is the alien vs. human factor that alot have requested.

If a Beast faction were introduced into MMO play than the alien element missing from EvE Online would be present in HW.

...the only reason that people lose interest in games is because they play them all the time which sets into motion a repetative value that makes the game boring. Also those who game the same way everytime cause theirself to lose interest because they will not endeavor to something different which would bring a new sense of excitement to the game.

[DrysonB]

The reason why WoW is so popular is because it doesn't involve the gamer to have to think about anything other than grinding in a certain area to make gold. Not very inventive or thought provoking.

But if HW were set in the MMO Class gamers could embark on any type of career such as market mogul or someone who watches the market buys and sells items in different areas to make their profit or the industrial list that employs people to mine minerals so that his researchers can build armor plates and ships.

If HW did become an MMO with game play based upon a market system where the player could build their ship from the hull up adding customizations to it I think alot of gamers would throng to it.

One thing that EVE Online does lack is the alien vs. human factor that alot have requested.

If a Beast faction were introduced into MMO play than the alien element missing from EvE Online would be present in HW.

...the only reason that people lose interest in games is because they play them all the time which sets into motion a repetative value that makes the game boring. Also those who game the same way everytime cause theirself to lose interest because they will not endeavor to something different which would bring a new sense of excitement to the game.

[Obsdark]

Truth, make it an MMORPG would kill the history, but no if Relic make another revolutionary twist on the industry (again) and make the first 3D MMORTS with Free faction history formation.

Somethink like, the character main character is him's mothership, and he can use different tipes of, acording to him's preferences, like for example, is different use a miner-class ship (like the mothership of Cataclysm) to use a Specialized combat-class ship, just think about it, if you add to that the chance of be a merchant, a rogue or be part of a merchant/rogue/national faction, the game can make him's own development, and with him's own development, i mean if a faction can invade a planet, conquer it, exterminate the population &/or repopulate it. you can do it all!

Just think on the chances, it can be done a sistem of regeneration of resources, and with some Beast NPC's to fight, not for levels (because is an Massive multi-player Real Time Strategy, don't forget it) you can have TONS of fun.

Imagine also: your faction conquer "Higaara" (or other planet) and then rebuild/build another Starport different to the one before and start a plan to conquer the universe.

The conquer by part of your race of them make interminable wars on the universe, plus if you add the value "inhabits" or "population" like a resourcer who must be colected from the planets or colony ships of your race.

What you think about it?

[Volken32]

I'm working on a MOD for a Space-sim game called Freelancer . It's not the newest but it supports modding. It supports servers and infact the number of players depends on the server so a large number can play at the same time. So anybody who's interested in a Homeworld MMO will not be dissapointed. You can follow the development here:

the-starport.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?start=0&topic_id=5079&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&status=&mode=0

All of the aspects of homeworld will be included in the mod, such as weapons, ships, systems. You'll be able to raid transports with friends, participate in large scale battles, fly all the ships from the original Homeworld. Note, this is still in development but I'm working on it as hard as I can.

[DrysonB]

Homeworld can be continued based upon the ending of HW2. The ending of HW2 see Sajuuk being unleashed to defeat the Vagyr but more importantly that fact of The Gate of Aaran leading into a vast network of connected systems using hypergates can be tweaked into many new mods and new single palyer missions that would introduce new races for and against the Hiigaran the Kushan, Bentusi as well as setting the stage for the rebirth of the Second Makaan. After all the Vagyr forces did retreat. Such a retreat would be into the unknowns of space where they would ultimately find The Gate of Aaran where they would access the new network of systems to spread their propoganda about the Hiigarans coming to destroy the new races just like the Vagyr were almost destroyed theirselves.