01-13-2022, 11:08 PM
What is your vision for Shores of Hazeron as a game?
My vision for Shores of Hazeron is to create a game where many people can play and interact in a science fiction universe and role play science fiction stories: to be the captain of their own star ship, the emperor of a galactic empire, or an explorer roaming the universe. Game mechanics would provide all that is needed to build an empire from nothing, construct buildings, manufacture spacecraft, conduct diplomacy, wage war, and pursue adventures.
The foundation for doing this was to create a high level game of empire building and conquest. This would cause players to establish empires and build cities and manufacture spacecraft unique to their chosen style. The cities would be sensible and exist for specific purposes, such as harvesting resources or forming a nexus of travel.
Adequate uniqueness would require players to design the 3D models used for their buildings and spacecraft. It would also require the unique generation of all solar systems, suns, worlds, plants and animals. This enables true discovery, as players can encounter truly alien races, creatures, and architecture. The upgrade to the designer made this really blossom. I have seen spectacular alien ships and breathtaking cities, beyond anything I might have imagined; that was a dream come true.
Those cities and spacecraft create a setting that makes sense, to be used by players who inhabit the game universe but do not choose to be empire builders. These other players would pursue adventures, perhaps fight for the empire when called upon, if they so choose. Cities and their associated facilities would provide the infrastructure needed to support players who travel around in star ships, conducting trade and personal business.
Adventures would rely on a story system that adapts itself to locations based on the needs of the story, so all players are not drawn to the same few locations in the game. Anyone who has ever waited in line to finish a quest understands why.
Adventures are the least complete portion of the game, at present. This is the main reason there isn't much to do for the non emperor players. The software is almost to the point where this will become the primary focus of my development efforts. Short adventure stories aren't hard to write. I believe this part of the game will blossom once I begin working on it in earnest.
My vision was to create a continuous multi player game environment in which the scenes of Star Trek and Star Wars could play out. I imagined space battles at about the same scale as the original Star Trek series, where most conflicts involved two to four ships and a battle between six to ten ships was considered big.
My vision was to create a game space so large as to seem boundless, to eliminate the impenetrable wall at the edge of the game board. Small finite game spaces always become dominated by a single player who is then the "winner", like a game of chess or checkers, exactly what quickly happened when we implemented a restricted box for players in the galaxy. I did not want this which is why I resist things that enable a single player to dominate the universe.
I can probably never achieve this goal mainly because the server effort per player is too great. This game really needs a large number of players but I don't think that my servers can support it. I think they could support a large number of players if they were not all emperors building infrastructure. A balance could be achieved by charging a different rate for emperors ($10?) vs citizens ($1?). Then we find ourselves back to the lack of adventures.
This fire might never get started but only ever exist as a spark. But I don't need a raging fire; even a spark is bright in the dark. It was fun having a small group of players on line. It fit my vision better than HSS. So that's why we are here again.
My vision for Shores of Hazeron is to create a game where many people can play and interact in a science fiction universe and role play science fiction stories: to be the captain of their own star ship, the emperor of a galactic empire, or an explorer roaming the universe. Game mechanics would provide all that is needed to build an empire from nothing, construct buildings, manufacture spacecraft, conduct diplomacy, wage war, and pursue adventures.
The foundation for doing this was to create a high level game of empire building and conquest. This would cause players to establish empires and build cities and manufacture spacecraft unique to their chosen style. The cities would be sensible and exist for specific purposes, such as harvesting resources or forming a nexus of travel.
Adequate uniqueness would require players to design the 3D models used for their buildings and spacecraft. It would also require the unique generation of all solar systems, suns, worlds, plants and animals. This enables true discovery, as players can encounter truly alien races, creatures, and architecture. The upgrade to the designer made this really blossom. I have seen spectacular alien ships and breathtaking cities, beyond anything I might have imagined; that was a dream come true.
Those cities and spacecraft create a setting that makes sense, to be used by players who inhabit the game universe but do not choose to be empire builders. These other players would pursue adventures, perhaps fight for the empire when called upon, if they so choose. Cities and their associated facilities would provide the infrastructure needed to support players who travel around in star ships, conducting trade and personal business.
Adventures would rely on a story system that adapts itself to locations based on the needs of the story, so all players are not drawn to the same few locations in the game. Anyone who has ever waited in line to finish a quest understands why.
Adventures are the least complete portion of the game, at present. This is the main reason there isn't much to do for the non emperor players. The software is almost to the point where this will become the primary focus of my development efforts. Short adventure stories aren't hard to write. I believe this part of the game will blossom once I begin working on it in earnest.
My vision was to create a continuous multi player game environment in which the scenes of Star Trek and Star Wars could play out. I imagined space battles at about the same scale as the original Star Trek series, where most conflicts involved two to four ships and a battle between six to ten ships was considered big.
My vision was to create a game space so large as to seem boundless, to eliminate the impenetrable wall at the edge of the game board. Small finite game spaces always become dominated by a single player who is then the "winner", like a game of chess or checkers, exactly what quickly happened when we implemented a restricted box for players in the galaxy. I did not want this which is why I resist things that enable a single player to dominate the universe.
I can probably never achieve this goal mainly because the server effort per player is too great. This game really needs a large number of players but I don't think that my servers can support it. I think they could support a large number of players if they were not all emperors building infrastructure. A balance could be achieved by charging a different rate for emperors ($10?) vs citizens ($1?). Then we find ourselves back to the lack of adventures.
This fire might never get started but only ever exist as a spark. But I don't need a raging fire; even a spark is bright in the dark. It was fun having a small group of players on line. It fit my vision better than HSS. So that's why we are here again.