3-D sweep

This is so cool!

From
http://joyardley.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/stunning-but-easy-3d-modeling-from-photos/

A way to backup your WoW account to your PC

Like get all the gear, toons, mounts pets, achievements.. everything in the armory. Later perhaps backup inventory, bank, vault

I seldom log on to my wow account anymore and may even stop paying the monthly sub but i love to bask o my past glory and see all my imba gear and achievements, my Lich King mount and such. I'd love to look at it even when offline.And let's face it, one day WoW servers will be switched off. This day is coming nearer and nearer. A way to have access to your past glory on Wow would be neat.

Second Life has "Second Life Inventory, an app that lets you backup everything you own on SL. And you you have full mod rights you can even upload stuff to Opensim Grids. Would be nice to have a similar way to backup your WoW life.

Would people buy an app like this ? Don't think so. SL Inventory is sold and sells well but it has the upside of transferring inventory between worlds. WoW backups based on armory info should be free.

A phone app that lets you fiddle with your pets and mounts would be fun. Like adding favorites and sorting them by place it drops (pets ui already does that on wow, but not the mount ui). Sometime to pass time on the train back from work before your raid after dinner.

Ah well, if only I had a "pocket coder" that followed me around coding my wild ideas :p

laptop water cooling pad ?

ideas to make money and to solve my eternally overheating laptop problem

All UR builds R belong to Linden

I wish I could say this was a surprise, but it isn't. On the newly revised Terms of Service Linden Labs has made a grab for the IP of things uploaded or built in Second Life

Except as otherwise described in any Additional Terms (such as a contest’s official rules) which will govern the submission of your User Content, you hereby grant to Linden Lab, and you agree to grant to Linden Lab, the non-exclusive, unrestricted, unconditional, unlimited, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, and cost-free right and license to use, copy, record, distribute, reproduce, disclose, sell, re-sell, sublicense (through multiple levels), modify, display, publicly perform, transmit, publish, broadcast, translate, make derivative works of, and otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever, all or any portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof), for any purpose whatsoever in all formats, on or through any media, software, formula, or medium now known or hereafter developed, and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed, and to advertise, market, and promote the same. 

ORLY ?

I don't think they can legally enforce this draconian TOS. HP has never told me they own any documents I printed on their printers. IBM and Apple have never tried to own what I produced with their personal computers. One would imagine that if it was as easy as what Linden is doing they would have tried already...

But the sad part is that the small builder, the struggling artist the independent musician can not afford a legal battle with Linden Labs and will have to just accept it. So for all intents and purposes, it is mandatory. I sure wish there was a place to complain about it though. This hits me as a very draconian and inherently dishonest, predatory practice.

Boy am I glad I gave up my sim. I'd rather give away all my content for free to Opensim users than let a multi million dollar company rip me off of my IP. At least it is MY decision and I'm the one getting the thank you notes.

Linden Labs goes after Minecraft

Linden Lab's Blocksworld: Not a Huge Moneymaking Hit So Far, But Pretty Big With Kids
Blocksworld from Linden Lab reached the top of the iPad charts last month, making it the company's first hit product besides Second Life, but according to leading mobile analytics firm Appannie, it's not sustaining in the stratosphere..  

the game is nowhere near a hit like Candy Crush Saga, which makes close to $1 million a day 

Even in it's own core competency - building - Linden Labs get's it's butt kicked by newcomers. It is a pity because there are very talented people at Linden but their corporate vision and product design teams have always been blind as a bat to what their target market wants. Blockword was targeted at kids ? Then why are kid friendly features missing ?  Why does Candy Crush sells so much more to kids ? Because they did their homework and made a game with kids in mind full of features kids love.

This kind of blindness has always limited what Second Life could be. It could have been a great game building tool. Or a corporate meeting / virtual facility tool. Or a virtual online college campus education tool. Or a 3D messaging system like IMVU. By trying to be all those things at once and more, it ended up being none of them. It also fed on the very same people who gave it it's charm and beauty. One wonders how it has lasted so long.

Is funny how Linden Labs is trying to go after building blocks 3 years after Minecraft showed the world what a simplified builder game can sell for.

Ironic because LL always had the technology and in house technical skill to do Minecraft, Blockworld or a simple no fuss building game. What was missing was the vision, and wisdom to go for a lower cost product.

Au's own book shows how very early in SL's history Linden Labs realized how people loved to build and would pay money to be able to build houses and tables and even simply make the terrain around their house more pleasant.

But instead of charging $10 one time to the customer and giving the customer the ability to build for free for years LL went high end. Building in Second Life, outside of 1 hour reset sandbox sims costs as much as owning a car.

Some builders are lucky enough to be subsidized by sim owners, modern Mecenas that pay the car cost to let talented people drive it. Yet like we have known since the middle ages or earlier, the relationship between patrons and artists is rife with tension. The devil in Da Vinci's Sistine Chapel looks eerily like Da Vinci's patron. I'm pretty sure a lot of builders in SL thought of similar ideas when building for an irascible sim owner.

People see all those sims disappearing and don't know the reason. Is simple: Owning a sim in Second Life costs as much as a car payment. Not kidding here.
A sim costs $1,000 downpayment, a car can be had for as little as that down. A sim also has a monthly tier of $295 per month which is also what a monthly payment for a car costs.
After 5 years owning a car, I am left with a valuable used car that can be sold for 1-3,000 dollars depending on the mileage. After 5 years owning a sim I was left with... memories.
A 5 years old car can be used as down payment for a new car. An abandoned 5 years old sim can not be retrieved. You need to pay the $1,000 all over again, absolutely no discount or consideration is given for the $15,000 or more you spent on the old sim.

I type this to show people why SL is dying: LL greed killed it at birth. By sucking artists dry, or making an environment were artists have to endure the whims of rich patrons who are then sucked dry by LL they made money eating their own in world creativity.

SL's revenue model was shown for what it is by a little independent programmer out of nowhere in May 2009. LL had a good run but there is no way people will keep on paying a car payment to build now that even Linden Labs itself is jumping on the bandwagon of low cost building games.

It is ironic that a company that had such a reputation for it's vision for virtual worlds failed to see the reality right under it's nose. SL is an extremely overpriced high end platform that lacks performance to be really used for high end games or anything more than "play barbie shopping" (oh and pr0n). 

Lowering the price substantially, even while cutting features was always the better answer. Or fixing the lag and cross sim issues that prevent it from being used by gamers or entertainers. Or providing real tools to protect corporations from griefers spoiling their broadcasts with.. Well Anshe's Chung interview is unforgetable. No serious company will risk having it's CEO or top brass exposed to flying pornographic objects.

 Linden Labs never decided on a target market and never lowered it's price enough for a mass appeal. High End products are niche by definition. By trying to be all things for all people - but only the rich people - Linden Labs got neither - the people and corporations who can afford a sim have left Second Life frustrated with lag and lack of security and lack of stability. The people who can live with a buggy less than perfect product can't afford to own a sim in Second Life, hence can't afford to build or to do anything but shop and enjoy the  entertainment there. But at this level of lag and stability the only viable entertainment that can be built in Second Life is role playing games, small artists galleries, small music shows and small scale porn / adult entertainment. Any area with more than 50 avatars will get really laggy so U2 can never play on Second Life. H R Geiger can never do a gallery showing even 10% of his work. We are left with vampires, Brin'O and up and coming music players, poets, graphic artists. And porn, lots of it, but also limited to just 50-100 avatars per place.

And now Linden Labs sees the decline of their product and Notch "eating SL's lunch" for years on end and wants in... When they had what Notch's had for a decade, but were never smart enough to sell it.

Linden Labs buries Second Life

oh did you see the latest from linden labs ?

2.k : You must not provide any feature that alters the shared experience of the virtual world in any way not provided by or accessible to users of the latest released Linden Lab viewer.

This item is a bomb. That says if a third party viewer shows you anything not in a Linden Lab viewer, it is a violation of the policy.
This single item seems to totally void the advantage and reason for the existence of third party viewers.

Oh but they do say that LL will work with 3rd party vendors to integrate functions on LL Viewer. How noble of them!

Linden Labs is basically saying "if you have a cool stuff we don't have in viewer 2, either you give it to us for free and help us add to viewer too, or we kick you from sl"
I have NEVER seen anything like it on 3rd party programs

isn't that necessary if there trying to make a stable viewer ?

Nope. Not at all

That is just it, it is just the opposite!!

The current policy gives Linden Labs the freedom to opt out of having to do niche things for users. For instance: builder tools. Builders are a small segment of Second Life users, but they are important. Because there is a 3rd party viewer that gives tools to builders the linden labs viewer doesn't have to have any of the "prim aligner" "sculpty maker" "blender Importer" and other esoteric tools that builders want.

But the new policy will make it illegal for 3rd party viewers to have ANY FUNCTION the ll viewer doesn't have. Who would take care of builders ? What about the "RLV" / Restricted Life user community ? LL viewer is not restricted and has no advanced prim alignment so no 3rd viewer can offer it.

I suppose 3rd party viewers could give free code to LL and help it add RLV and builder tools to the core ll viewer. Putting aside the unfairness of making independent software developers work for free for a multi-million dollar company, this also makes the LL viewer a very bad viewer.

Having no 3rd party to take care of niche users would force the ll viewer to be a bloated thing trying to please everyone at once, the facebook jokey, the fashionista, the builder, the role player. the university student... Trying to please everyone at once makes you have an exceedingly complex code with bad performance. buggy and ornery, hard to use, attending every niche's most basic needs badly, while pleasing no one. Sounds familiar ?

Second Life's failed model for server coding is now being imposed on the client side.

To give you an idea of how awful it is, let's imagine if IBM had done that when it licensed the PC technology. No one would be able to sell gaming pcs or graphics workstations, because every thing they sold HAD TO BE in the pc from IBM.

Alienware could never have existed. Neither would any good home pcs. Tablets ? Netbooks ? No niche product unless it was developed by IBM. IBM knew it couldn't control the myriad of possible uses for a PC, not even being as big as they were. Linden Labs on the other hand, seems determined to keep the 3D Virtual World space firmly under it's wings and has been smothering creativity on this area for years on the server side. Now it is trying to do the same client side.

It is an awful policy that will completely bury Second Life.

If Linden Labs succeeds on being the mandatory source of all innovation of client features, it will delay the release of new features or make it's source code a bloated buggy mess. Or both. And forget about easy to use, "kitchen sink" software is just too vast to be user friendly. If they fail, there will be an exodus from Second Life, as people migrate to better viewers on other platforms.

I never heard of something so idiotic

From what I understand even the very popular Restricted Life Viewer is now completely illegal. Because SL viewer is not restricted. [Note- apparently RLV is "exempt" from this policy, based on what criteria no one knows... ]

Talking about illegal.. What Linden Labs is imposing to 3rd party developers might be illegal. Anti-trust law might apply in this case.

They are inhibiting competition, "injuring" 3rd party developers and SL users alike all the while using unfair advantage to dominate the viewer market and prevent innovation.

Second Life: Tamed for Corporate Consumption - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

For Linden Lab, the joint project with I.B.M., it seems, is an effort to make its technology platform a common standard — the Windows of virtual worlds. But for many corporate uses, it is not clear that Second Life offers any advantage over competitors like ActiveWorlds or OpenSim, an open source virtual world technology.

For example, a corporate brainstorming session or product-design simulation exercise would be attended by relatively small numbers of interested people, company employees or partners, not the wider Second Life world. The advantage, though, may well become apparent if a company already has a virtual storefront on Second Life. Then, the corporate technology staff can avoid the mysteries of navigating more than one virtual world.
Second Life: Tamed for Corporate Consumption - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Architecture +: Private Worlds

From: The New York Times, April 2, 2008
Second Life: Tamed for Corporate Consumption

"I.B.M. and Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, are placing a stake in the ground today for corporate virtual worlds. The two companies have started a joint project to run Second Life technology behind corporate firewalls.


The goal, they say, is to offer companies “secure, flexible and customizable” 3-D virtual environments that are designed and controlled by corporations. The initial effort is a demonstration project, running Second Life technology on I.B.M. servers, behind a Big Blue firewall. But the companies plan to introduce a corporate offering before the end of this year, either as a product or as a service, presumably hosted by I.B.M.



Architecture +: Private Worlds

BOFH - IT Department from Hell

It's mid-afternoon, and we're in the middle of our annual 'improve the perception of IT' fortnight. Things are going just great.

The boss has a bee in his bonnet about my liberal interpretation of the promotional slogan 'delivering what the client needs'. Apparently, my helpdesk instruction sheets on how to deliver 'a damn good kicking' weren't within the intended scope of the motto...

He was in an even worse mood after the hand-proximity sensor on the line printer failed to operate while he was attempting to stop said instruction sheets from printing. The fast moving paper gave him a large and deep paper cut that he won't be forgetting in a hurry. And the PFY and I certainly don't know how that heavily salted water got into the first aid antiseptic bottle.

But his irritation began after spotting a publicity photo of one of the members of the company's football team (sponsored by the IT division) walking around with his football jersey untucked. Beautifully crafted, and costing enough to make a beancounter weep, the jerseys have a lovely little IT crest (a couple of crossed keyboards on a burning PC background, emblazoned on the left breast). The words 'IT - giving you more' are in large letters on the back. When untucked however, the words 'of a shafting' become visible. The boss was not impressed.

The PFY and I make no attempts to escape his wrath knowing full well that he has to pass the head of IT's room to get to us. He's not so keen on doing that since some complete bastard uploaded a new ring sound to the head's cellphone - a sound not dissimilar to that made by a lentil casserole after its trip through the digestive tract.

Accordingly, the IT department managers' meeting he attended this morning was a swift affair, and certainly not one that really should have been 'aired' as a live video conference and PR opportunity. Even the cafeteria staff saw it and wouldn't serve him the onion bhajis at lunchtime.

Not that I feel sorry for the boss. The whole 'improve the perception of IT' initiative was all his fault in the first place for mentioning that it 'must be about that time of the year' to the head of IT....

BOFH

Pew Internet & American Life Project

Where do you fit?




I got omnivore :D

Based on your answers to the questionnaire, you most closely resemble survey respondents within the Omnivores typology group. This does not mean that you necessarily fit every group characteristic.

Omnivores make up 8% of the American public.

Basic Description
Members of this group use their extensive suite of technology tools to do an enormous range of things online, on the go, and with their cell phones. Omnivores are highly engaged with video online and digital content. Between blogging, maintaining their Web pages, remixing digital content, or posting their creations to their websites, they are creative participants in cyberspace.

Defining Characteristics
You might see them watching video on an iPod. They might talk about their video games or their participation in virtual worlds the way their parents talked about their favorite TV episode a generation ago. Much of this chatter will take place via instant messages, texting on a cell phone, or on personal blogs. Omnivores are particularly active in dealing with video content. Most have video or digital cameras, and most have tried watching TV on a non-television device, such as a laptop or a cell phone.

Omnivores embrace all this connectivity, feeling confident in how they manage information and their many devices. This puts information technology at the center of how they express themselves, do their jobs, and connect to their friends.

Who They Are
They are young, ethnically diverse, and mostly male (70%). The median age is 28; just more than half of them are under age 30, versus one in five in the general population. Over half are white (64%) and 11% are black (compared to 12% in the general population). English-speaking Hispanics make up 18% of this group. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many (42% versus the 13% average) of Omnivores are students.


Pew Internet & American Life Project

Sculpty day at Second Life

In the afternoons of Saturday and Sunday, we'll turn our attention to building. Saturday afternoon, March 15 will see "The Return of Sculpty Day" – a five-hour lecture/showcase on advanced detail modeling tools and applications. On Sunday evening, March 16, we'll present "Modeling Light" – a special mini-symposium on light, shade and rendering led by Xenius Revere, formerly of Electric Sheep and now of 3Di, one of Second Life's most fabulous and innovative builders.

Dr. Dobb's Life20.net - The World of Second Life Development

New World Notes: New World Tableau: Final Fantasy X Tribute In Second Life

We've been blogged about!!!!

Yay!!!



New World Notes: New World Tableau: Final Fantasy X Tribute In Second Life

YouTube - 20 years of Final Fantasy Anniversay party at Second Life

On Dec 18th, 2007 the Final Fantasy series completed 20 years of it's launch in Japan. To commemorate the the anniversary we had a party in SL's version of Besaid.
Over 40 people came and rocked to FF themes with DJ Travi Nichols. Piro (Chocobo), FuSoYa (Tidus) and selena (Yuna gunner) won a contest held for best avatars. Second place went for Dahrk (Auron) and Leavana (Yuna Psychic). We think we broke the SL record for most people in costume playing guitar in a party ;)

All in all, a great way to commemorate the series and to promote the launch of the FFX sims on Second Life: FairChang Oasis, Fair Chang Isla, FairChang Reef and FairChang Zanarkand. We've had almost 20 builders working hard for the past 2 months to recreate Spira, the world of FFX, in Second Life. Adding our tour guides (tours are free) and security people we make a team of over 40 people working to get a fun area to roleplay and visit FFX on Second Life. Come see us!!!

PS: Many thanks to Cupids for lettting us use their live shoutcast stream for our party ^^

PPS: Many, many thanks to Square and it's people. ~ Thanks for the memories, SE

YouTube - 20 years of Final Fantasy Anniversay party at Second Life

YouTube - FFX at Second Life - Besaid Temple

Temple trials done by FF fan and SL builder bLaZe Hienrichs. I did the Fayth stone. Blue did the Besaid huts. Enjoy!



Second Life SURL


YouTube - FFX at Second Life - Besaid Temple

YouTube - Blitzball at Second Life! - Happy 20 years FF!

For those who haven't heard yet, to commemorate 20 Years of Final Fantasy, I have been renting two islands on second life where FFX fans all can RP or just hang out together pretending we are in Spira or Besaid island. And build stuff to make "Spira" come to life in Second Life

And building they - the ff fans - have!!! Little Blue here has an awesome replica of Cid's Airship and Besaid huts. Vincent Thunder of God has been helping us decorate Besaid's paths and walkways while Tabris has decorated the Kilika huts

I myself have done the Kilika huts and got a SL builder to do a summoner dance area for Kilika. But my most recent accomplishment is...

A fully 3D Blitzball!!!

Check it out



How did I do it ?

At first I bought a SL Soccer game someone had it and just put it on a spheric stadium. So it was basically soccer in a pretty sphere. Then I got the guy who built the soccer game to help me get the goals in triangular shape and such so it started to look more like FFX, but still was basically a 2D game in a pretty setting. Lately I have disassembled the entire soccer game and made a spheric stadium so the game turned into a truly 3D game. To make things more interesting I tried to make it all under water but visibility is pretty low so I made the field half water / half airborne.

The last step was tweaking the ball to be anti-gravity and more bouncy so it would truly bounce around all the spheric field. That made hitting the triangular goals next to impossible for me so I made the ball larger. Then flying to ram teh ball was hard because in SL the default flying position is horizontal, i.e. you have only your face to ram it. So I got a hover jet to help me move upright and made it slow motion to allow me more precise movements. And after all that...

Ta-Da!!!!! The game works as a charm


Come and join the fun!!!
Second Life is free to play but requires a relatively new PC (1 year old) and a download. My islands and Blitzball are also free to visit and play (Ignore the Pay Scoreboard message, it isn't necessary). Come see

NEW BIKANEL ISLAND
NEW BESAID BEACH
NEW KILIKA



PS: I need lab mice errr... volunteers, to help me test ways to make the Blitzball game easier. So if you liked Blitzball, come and play!

PPS: A great alternate game, even more fun then Blitzball is to arm a weapon and shoot the ball. It blasts it all over the sphere and it's much easier than to ram the ball with your body. Tons of fun :lol:


YouTube - Blitzball at Second Life! - Happy 20 years FF!

WildIsle - Multiplayer Online DNA Mixing & Creature Warfare Strategy Game Hall of Fame, round 2

Rank Player Cartel Score
1 chaosdrive Myrmidons 14,208
2 DrMoreaux AfterShock 14,195
3 HashBrown AfterShock 14,194
4 Peacemaker AfterShock 14,190
5 frosty [A] AfterShock 14,181
6 Incognito [A] AfterShock 14,180
7 TheJester Myrmidons 14,178
8 void AfterShock 14,172
9 Renmiri Wildmutts 14,172
10 Orca Reign of the Dragons 14,158
11 Shambert Myrmidons 14,147
12 Hudie AfterShock 14,133
13 shatterstone AfterShock 14,129
14 bsk8r The End 14,120
15 Clovis Titans 14,091

WildIsle - Multiplayer Online DNA Mixing & Creature Warfare Strategy Game

How I got to be one of the top ranked players in a MMO RTS

Here's how me, someone who never played an RTS before got a crash course on it and got into the top levels of a qualifying round.

I started this neat free online MMO that lets you be a mad scientist and mix DNA. It's kind of a simplified "Impossible Creatures" and the nice thing about it is that it doesn't require you to download anything.

Free + No Download MMO = Win


It is lots of fun, the game lets you mix animals DNA and create your own creatures, just like IC but the mixing is a lot more convincing: It uses a double helix of DNA with 22 genes for each animal and based on those genes you improve the creature's statistics such as atatck, defense, stealing, hunting.... Pretty cool.

The game also has the economy and strategy common to RTSs so you can buy / sell DNA and creatures and you build armies of clones to protect your lab and your Clan. Here's a video I did of the game tasks
http://ffproject.net/xfer/Video/wildisle.php


Pictures are pretty basic but the whole concept is pretty fun. And addictive!!! The DNA mixer works like a super duper version of those Vegas slot machines where you have to align 3 cherries or 3 lemons except here you have to align 22 slots, in an optimal way to get the stats you want. I spent like 3 days having the time of my life gambling DNA strands :D

I was happy with just making stronger creatures for myself and barely payed attention to the rankings and Clan wars, when I read on a top ranking player's profile an invitation / challenge. He would give 1 billion of the games's currency to anyone who defeated his defense army. Thinking it was a good way to test my creatures and get some game cash I decided to try.

I got creamed but managed to kill some of his creatures. I attacked again with stronger creatures, same result: 10 of his dead, 200 of mine. I tried again same results, then I got a message from him saying he would flatten me because I attacked him. I told him I was just doing what he asked, and he told me his profile was old news so I stopped. I stopped attacking and sold him some game credits so he would get 1,000 turns reclone the 90 creatures of his I had killed, sent him a PM apologizing and telling him about the game credits and went to bed.

To me that was the end of it. It wasn't. Turns out that the guy, Shambert told his cartel (Myrmidons) that "Renmiri flattened me" so when I woke up the next day all my armies were killed, my freezer was back to level 10 from level 20 and so was my mixer. I was unable to do what I like most on the game: mix DNA (Grrr...).

Anyhow, I saw the vicious attack, got pissed and retaliated. I attacked everyone who attacked me but mostly "acidcpc" the one who attacked me most and lowered my freezer and mixer. I killed all his armies and lowered his freezer & mixer 10 levels just like he had done with me, called it even and stopped. I even had a nice chat with another guy from their clan and since he was being nice and only had attacked me like 3 times I asked why did they attacked me out of the blue. I never got an answer so I went to bed, thinking all was even

Big mistake... I woke up and chaos, the boss of Myrmidons was attacking me non stop. I asked why and he told me it was because I attacked acid. I told him acid attacked me first but he wouldn't stop :(

The nice guy from Myrmidons finally answered me that Shambert had told him and acid I flattened his HQ. Acid also wrote me that I'd pay for attacking Shambert and then him. They were also up in arms about me killing all acid creatures and therefore getting two very valuable DNA strands (attackers get DNA of what they kill, a very fun feature). They were worrying in vain, I could not get their prize DNA because after they downgraded my freezer, it was quite full and wouldn't store anything else.

Well, I was not in Wildisle for wars, but because I like to mix. And I had to admit, if I was acidcpc and someone in my cartel came crying another person flattened his HQ I would retaliate and flatten the guy. So I had a choice to try to stop this mess or go on in an all out war because Shambert went crying for mommy after inviting me to attack him. I chose to stop. I cloned a huge army which made their attack force lose 1,500 of their creatures. I then PM'ed Myrmidons boss saying I wouldn't retaliate his last attack if he stopped attacking from now on. He stopped. Peace at last!!!

After all this cloning and battling I climbed a lot in the ranks. I'm 5th (from 75th before) in the scientists and 8th (from 130th) in the military and I went to 29 overall (from 230th). I got a lot of experience battling and now I know which of my creatures are strong which aren't. So in balance it was fun, except for being back to a level 10 mixer and freezer and being unable to mix.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it ;)

WildIsle - Multiplayer Online DNA Mixing & Creature Warfare Strategy Game

Roboguy's guide to making MMORPGs

"You're here because you just asked how to make an MMORPG on a forum, or you asked for a team to make an MMORPG and provided little/no information about your project"
Or "Roboguy's guide to making MMORPG posts"


Disclaimer: I haven't actually made an MMORPG at the time of writing, so I can't claim to be an expert. However, I can provide some help on what to learn and what information to provide to get a team.

If you're here because you asked how to make an MMORPG, read List 1; if you asked for a team, and provided no info, read List 2.



List 1:

* Learn a programming language (such as C++ or Python (which is better for beginners))
* Learn a graphics API (such as DirectX, Win32 + OpenGL, or SDL + OpenGL)
* Make several games using the programming you've learned, including a few networked games and RPG or two
* Once you've done all that (which may take a while), read List 2

MMORPG

OGRE 3D : Open source graphics engine - Home

Over the course of the last 6 years, OGRE has grown to become one of the most popular open-source graphics rendering engines, and has been used in a large number of production projects, in such diverse areas as games, simulators, educational software, interactive art, scientific visualisation, and others - take a look at what others have been saying about it. It's free, so why not try it out?


OGRE 3D : Open source graphics engine - Home

Kaneva and Ogre

It says it's public so I'll paste some of it here. This is cool for a million reasons but my main is: a 3D MMORPG environment that lets you import XML and do your own games ? Woohoo!

Kaneva Ogre XML Importer

* Introduction
* Generate and Import Ogre XML files into Kaneva Game Studio
* Importing Zone Objects
* Importing Actors
* Importing Character Elements
* Ogre Limitations in KGP Beta 2

Introduction

Kaneva introduces support for the Ogre XML format in the October 2005 (Beta 2) release of the Kaneva Game Platform (KGP). Ogre XML is an open format based on the XML standard and developed by the community around the Ogre 3D open source engine. The format is used to store 3D models, which can be static or use skeletal animation (skinning).

Ogre XML is supported by Kaneva Game Studio for both static and animated models. Models in this format can be easily imported into your game in the same way as models generated with the Kaneva Exporter for 3ds max. In general, Ogre XML files can be imported in place of the .arw, .arb, .dim and .him files generated by the Kaneva Exporter for 3ds max.

There are a variety of tools that can be used to generate models in the Ogre XML format. These include:

* Blender (an open source modeling and animation tool)
* Autodesk 3ds max
* Autodesk (formerly Alias) Maya
* Avid Softimage XSI
* Newtek LightWave
* Milkshape 3D

Importing, exporting, and conversion to or from Ogre XML format is provided with different levels of support for each of these 3D modeling applications. Most of the plugins or conversion tools necessary are provided as open source by different developers and are not supported by Kaneva.

Generate and Import Ogre XML files into Kaneva Game Studio ...

(more at the source)

KanevaEditorXmlImporter < Public < TWiki