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[Maker_of_pixels]

Hello TIGSource forums...

I am a developer of an Indie game, and I, upon googling my way to advertise my new game, i found this. Please read ahead, you won't regret it.

SteamPunk Online

The game takes place in a steampunk universe, where humans use the steam engine to create aircraft and tanks, with machine guns and wings and stuff... if you dont know what steampunk is, you will today. It is online for 232 players or so... thats not a typo. Because of the sheer size we are going for a 2.5D graphics style.
The game relies on 2 airships on opposite sides of the map, 116 players per team must work to destroy the other airship or defend their own. For this, they use 7 different classes attuned for different roles on the battlefield. An alternate victory mode is called Escort, where a civie aircraft must be escorted to the end of the map.

• Pikeman: Wearing medium(back and breastplate) armor and carrying a long pike, the pikeman comes into his own, as long as the enemy stays away from the inside of his pike, during which time it is useless. He can deploy his pike by drilling it into the ground, making for an effective wall of defense.
  Because of this, the pikeman is optimized for a defensive class, and good numbers of them can easily defend.
• Musketeer: Wearing light armor(thick clothing?) and carrying the musket, the Musketeer has the longest ranged gun in the game, making him an effective equivalent of a sniper. Players as Musketeer should make use of hiding and aiming for the head. A skilled player can be an unstoppable musketeer. Can be offensive or defensive.
• Knight: Wearing Heavy(Full Plate Armor) armor and carrying a long sword, the Knight is an offensive class meant to counter the effects pikemen can have on an army. Because of his sword he can wade through the pikes length and easily kill the pikeman. He is also the most staple choice for melee combat.
• Niquette: Wearing Extra Heavy(3-quarter plate) armor and carrying a blunderbuss, the rough equivalent of a shotgun, Niquettes are to slow to go on the offense, so instead they are best staying behind and gunning down lighter opponents. Niquettes are the best close-quarters soldier, thanks to his heavy armor and shotgun.
• Arguebusier: Wearing Medium(back and breastplate) armor and using the Arquebus, the Arquebusier is the opposite of the Musketeer, intended to be a offensive class, they are decent short-range and long range fighters.
• Crewman: Wearing no armor and carrying a revolver, the crewman is there to build defenses on the airship, as well as to pilot aircraft and vehicles. Because of this, he is an all-round class, as long as he is in the skies or building a machine gun emplacement. He can build an entire citys worth of 35 planned buildings. 5 of which are done.
• Machine Gunner: Wearing Ultra Heavy(1" 3 quarter plate) armor and using the gatling gun, the Machine Gunner is only for the defense role. While he can mow down many enemies he can only attack while deployed, which takes 10 seconds and makes him vulnerable. He also can't shoot enemies above or behind him. Because of these, no player as the Machine Gunner should even leave the airship's view. The bright side is that he can survive 2 headshots from a musketeer.
• UPDATE! Anti Tank: As I just realized that there was no way to counter the crewman inside a tank or other vehicle, I came up with the Anti tanker, equipped with 3 weapons: A flamethrower(anti air) pistol, and a hand held cannon, which is inaccurate and puts out a shitload of recoil, but whatever it hits, including terrian...
  ...explodes.

We need ideas to help balance out the classes a bit more.

It has a unique, advanced, and large combat system, making use of 250+ melee combos, headshots, area damage,
blocking, 3 kinds of melee basic attacks, and special attacks. Large battles. Advanced Physics/Gore engine. Destructible terrian, ragdoll, dismemerable limbs...
Makes use of a unique stamina, armor, and health system. If you have 50% or less hp and 100% stamina you heal slowly, however, blocking, attacking, running and getting hit will reduce stamina. Armor protection is calculated by the physics engine.

Before I ask for your help, I have some artwork and such to show you. Screenshots will come when the server fixes:

Pikeman Class Icon:
Armless Pikeman(armless because of the engine):
Musketeer Class Icon:
Armless Musketeer(Because of the engine)

Screenies soon...

We need team members. Right now, its just me, as lead programmer and head of the project, IrishHitman as writer, MISERY as backup artist, and a few testers.
We are in bad need of graphics artists and writers. 1 person can't do all. Each member is admin on a server.
If you wanna be an artist, use this template for characters:


UPDATE
You can visit my forums for this at: http://steampunkonline.myfastforum.org/index.php
The website is: http://steampunkonline.110mb.com/index.php

Storyline:

The year 89 EV (Époque de vapeur):

The Kingdom of Gallia.
The military and the middle classes rise against the King and the Church.
A starving population supports them with zeal, as the taxes placed on them by both the King and the Church cause widespread hardship.

Nobles and leading clergymen are rounded up and executed, their property seized.

The first truly democratic state in history, the Republic of Gallia, is formed on June 20th, 89 EV. The National Assembly of Gallia finds itself in control. Shock and utter disbelief hits the world as the former world power falls to its own people.

On July 14th, the King and Queen are captured from their castle-palace in the centre of Gallia's capital Lutetia. Lutetian citizens drag the Royal Family through the streets to the City Hall, where the decision is made to imprison them in their massive palace outside the city.

By 92 EV, the country is stabilised by the Assembly despite every powerful country on the planet cutting trade. Rumblings start in other countries, the seeds of further revolution. War approaches.
On 20th April, 92 EV, the Republic of Gallia declares war on the Kingdom of Raetia. A pre-emptive attack, as Raetia and Germania are conspiring to invade within the next two weeks anyway. The attack is repulsed easily as the Gallian military is still heavily disorganised.

The consequences of the move are felt worldwide.

Timeline from 20th April, 92 EV:

April, 92 EV:
20th: The National Assembly of Gallia declares war on Raetia.
21st: The Duchies of Germania declare war on Gallia.
22nd: The Kingdom of Belgica declares war on Gallia.
23rd: The Holy State of Italia declares war on Gallia.
25th: Gallian forces launch ground attack on Raetia and Germania, but are repulsed. Gallian military leaders begin to contemplate the use of airships.
30th: Germania completes its invasion two provinces in Eastern Gallia.

May, 92 EV:
7th: Successful raid on the Holy Capital by Gallian airships, mass conscription introduced in Gallia.
10th: The Dual Kingdoms of Iberia, the Kingdom of Britannia, and the Rus Empire declare war on Gallia.
11th: Gallia successfully retakes the provinces seized two weeks previously by Germania, using every airship in the country to drop troops directly into the fighting.
12th: Mass construction of airships begins in Gallia.
13th: Successful raid on Londinium, the capital of Britannia. The palace of the king is set alight by Gallian troops.
17th: Full Gallian air and ground offensive on Belgica begins. The Holy State attacks Massalia in Gallia, but retreats due to supply problems.

June, 92 EV
7th: Belgae people rise up after massive defeats by Gallian forces and the introduction of conscription by the monarchy. The Belgae Royal Family flee to Britannia.
8th: Gallia proclaims the Republic of Belgica as a client state. Germania launches an attack on the ground, but are utterly defeated at Verodunum in Eastern Gallia.
11th: The Britannian navy is repulsed off the coast of Belgica by Gallian airships and naval vessels.
15th: Britannia introduces conscription, the provinces in Hibernia and Caledonia start to rebel.
24th: The Republic of Hibernia is declared, Britannian forces begin to attack their former territories. Hibernia calls to Gallia for aid.
26th: Gallian airship forces are deployed to Hibernia, Iberia attempts to take the Gallian province of Aquitania.
29th: Gallia routs Iberian forces at Burdigala, and invade the Holy State.

July, 92 EV:
5th: Gallia takes its colonies in the New World from the Royalist governors, the war turns global. Gallian military commanders in the New World meet in Nova-Lutetia to plan the offensives there.
6th: Britannia begins experimenting with airships for military uses in Eastern Hibernia.
7th: Germania begins to build military airships. A successful Gallian raid on the Britannian airship experiments in occupied Hibernia results in the loss of all of Britannia's airships and half of her military tacticians.
8th-24th: Gallian forces make good progress on all offensive fronts. The Holy State of Italia and Iberia are subdued, becoming republics allied to Gallia.
25th: The first clash of airship deployed forces between Gallia and Germania at Treverorum results in a draw, but the advantage is firmly placed in the Germanian side.
30th: Germania launch an airship raid on Lutetia.
Heres a todo list:
Generic
- Main Menu - Almost Done
- Weapons - Not started
- Sounds - Not Started

Voice Acting
- Contact me with a PM or email if you wanna voice act.
- Intro Voice acting done. Moving on soon...

Art - 25% done
Story - 95% done
Music - 0%
Wanna Show your support for SteamPunk Online?
Then copy/paste one of these banners into your signature.

Code:

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Code:

[url=www.steampunkonline.110mb.com][IMG]http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii318/allofhunter/soeditest.jpg[/IMG]
[/url]

[/url]

Hows the game coming?
The more Green bars there are, the closer to completion. If its not obvious enough.
|||||||||| 12% Done.
Current Stage: Getting the engine together and fixing up the website.

Here is the latest alpha: http://willhostforfood.com/?Action=download&fileid=80009

This project has gone on for months, and has been advertised many other places. Some graphics and artwork are already finished.

Thank you for reading,
MoP

[JamesGecko]

Welcome to the forums!

You need to check in here. :-)

[MikeDee]

wrong forum, this should be in devlogs.

[LazyWaffle]

Innovative name

[michael]

pretty nifty, art doesnt look anything like steampunk though 

[Maker_of_pixels]

281 Views and only 4 replies? Seriously? I'll have to advertise elsewhere.

[FishyBoy]

281 Views and only 4 replies? Seriously? I'll have to advertise elsewhere.

Kids these days.

[Alec]

uh...

[Afinostux]

uh...

Fruity fresh is all.

[Moth]

281 Views and only 4 replies? Seriously? I'll have to advertise elsewhere.

Okay, maybe if you actually responded to what feedback people have given you, you'd kick up some conversation and generate more interest and drag in some more replies. As it stands you just made a topic to "advertise", as you have stated, implying you think this forum is some sort of free ride for publicity which will be the harbinger of hot chicks and 13 year old boys swooning all over your AWESOME ONLINE GAME.

It's not, most of us here are busy making our own games. I'm surprised you even got any constructive feedback at all with a first post like this. Yet still, you reject what you've gotten, which is amazing considering this was some random devlog/advertisement for your game that came out of NOWHERE, and it's not even in the right forum. Beyond that, your only reply is threatening the community that you'll pack up your lemonade stand and take it elsewhere because you haven't gotten a savory number of replies on your shameless, ego-stroking plug. Do you expect that to make everyone gasp in unison and scramble to tell you how great this looks, lest we face the dreaded fate of the two post advertiser account leaving our little shanty village of a forum? No, it just makes you look kinda shallow.

Do you just want a bunch of mouth-breathing fans? This isn't the place. Go hit up Yoyogames or something.

[Maker_of_pixels]

281 Views and only 4 replies? Seriously? I'll have to advertise elsewhere.

Okay, maybe if you actually responded to what feedback people have given you, you'd kick up some conversation and generate more interest and drag in some more replies. As it stands you just made a topic to "advertise", as you have stated, implying you think this forum is some sort of free ride for publicity which will be the harbinger of hot chicks and 13 year old boys swooning all over your AWESOME ONLINE GAME.

The feedback given here wasn't nessacarily useful. By now I have figured out this is the wrong forum, however I have yet to see an admin or mod come to lock/move it to the Devlogs, as I don't want duplicate threads. And neither do you.

And yes, I have made a topic to advertise, mainly because someone else had advised me to come here. If you want, I can point you to him and you can point shame on him.

I believe this forum is for indie games, and from what I know thats true. All the information I got from the one who told me to come here, was that I'd get a lot of love and more feedback. Thats all I was expecting, because I've been told that.

It's not, most of us here are busy making our own games. I'm surprised you even got any constructive feedback at all with a first post like this. Yet still, you reject what you've gotten, which is amazing considering this was some random devlog/advertisement for your game that came out of NOWHERE, and it's not even in the right forum. Beyond that, your only reply is threatening the community that you'll pack up your lemonade stand and take it elsewhere because you haven't gotten a savory number of replies on your shameless, ego-stroking plug. Do you expect that to make everyone gasp in unison and scramble to tell you how great this looks, lest we face the dreaded fate of the two post advertiser account leaving our little shanty village of a forum? No, it just makes you look kinda shallow.

I understand that this forum is for developers and players to discuss indie/commercial games, is it not? And your surprise in that I got anyfeedback seems alittle overdone. In another forum, I have 40+ pages for this.

I may admit that I have rejected what I have got, which is a few replies saying that this is in the wrong forum. I know that, but as far as I know I have no power to move this to Devlogs. Also, your link doesn't work because you put quotes around the URL.

Warning? You consider my post a warning? The answer is yes, obviously. What I implied was that i had 281 views, and only 4 replies, which, on any forum, regardless of size, is amazing. Naturally, I felt the need to post that, maybe get some attention so that this would finally be moved.

I did expect more. Yea, I understand that because I put this in the wrong forum that I would get only "this is in the wrong forum" replies. Yes, I expected some people to start conversations and contributing, as every other forum(including a few similiar to this one) have resulted in such mannerisms.

EDIT: Oh, and yoyogames doesn't seem to appreciate ideas like this one.

Now anyway, someone move this.

[falsion]

Listen, people don't really care how many views you got on whatever forum. The problem is that you are sounding like you have an ego (a really big bruised one). And you right off the bat said you're here to "advertise" your game idea. Or in other words, you told people that you're not willing to contribute much to this place, which if you read any of the stickies, is a big no-no here.

Anyway forget it, shrug it off and move on. Try to get to know people around here on this forum, make some friends. Once you're cool with everyone, perhaps they'll end up playing your games anyway. But the way you're acting now is not going to win much respect. Contribute to the forum, actually talk to people and start conversation, don't think of it as ad space.

[Derek]

Chill.  Like Mr. Freeze.  And don't bump your own threads.  If you get 40+ replies on some other forum, then good for you.  We don't need to hear about it.

 

[William Broom]

I am a developer of an Indie game, and I, upon googling my way to advertise my new game, i found this.

And yes, I have made a topic to advertise, mainly because someone else had advised me to come here. If you want, I can point you to him and you can point shame on him.

Discrepancy!


Anyway, the reason you didn't get many responses out of all the people who viewed the topic is probably because we have seen this kind of thread many, many times before: Big ideas on the internet and not much real work being done. Now, don't take this the wrong way: I'm not saying this is how you are, only how you appear. Some telltale signs that set off the alarm bells are:
- Large and difficult project without any mention of developers' previous work
- Incomplete dev team, seeking to recruit key members before they can proceed (though to be fair, a programmer in search of an artist is better than an artist/designer in search of a programmer)
- Dev team includes several members with peripheral roles like writers or 'designers' (why do you even need writers for an online deathmatch game?)
- Features that don't seem to be properly considered or thought out, but based on impulsive "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" ideas (I'm talking about the 216 players here)

So, after giving you a bit of a lecture like this, I felt it was only fair to download your alpha and check it out, if only because nobody else on Tigsource was likely to do so. And I have to say, it doesn't look good. First of all, you're working in Game Maker, which is a fine development program but not really suited to creating a multiplayer game on the scale you're thinking of. Secondly, what you've actually done so far is mediocre at best. As far as I can tell, there are no features besides the most basic 2D platforming engine, equivalent to the example game that comes packaged with GM. Also, the character's controls are horribly sluggish and floaty. To be blunt, it isn't a whole lot to show for what is supposedly months of work.
Furthermore it seems to indicate a misplaced set of priorities when you have practically no features implemented, but there is a rolling credits screen. It's weird to see the writers credited in a demo where the only writing is... in the credits themselves.

Can I ask how many games you have previously developed and completed? If the answer is none, then I highly recommend that you set aside Steampunk Online and try your hand at making something smaller and more manageable. Your first game should be something as simple as Pong or Pac-Man. Then your second game can be bigger, and the next one bigger again. Eventually, you may come back to Steampunk Online with more experience, and you will have a much greater chance of seeing it through to completion.

[Maker_of_pixels]

- Large and difficult project without any mention of developers' previous work
- Incomplete dev team, seeking to recruit key members before they can proceed (though to be fair, a programmer in search of an artist is better than an artist/designer in search of a programmer)
- Dev team includes several members with peripheral roles like writers or 'designers' (why do you even need writers for an online deathmatch game?)
- Features that don't seem to be properly considered or thought out, but based on impulsive "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" ideas (I'm talking about the 216 players here)

I have some some projects in the past, 3 of which are completed.

The team is more complete now, I just copied/pasted this topic from my other thread, so some of it is outdated.

Every game has its own form of story, no matter what it is. Even the action movies, arcade games, have at least a 2 sentence story. Thats what a video game is; an interactive story.
If you want, I can link you to the story we have.

232 players in a match was not an impulsive idea. When the project started, it was meant for just 10 people to play. Then the team recognized games like Mount and Blade and TF2, where large numbers meant more fun. So we took a vote: 232 vs 10 players. We ended up with 5 to 2, 2 opposing.

So, after giving you a bit of a lecture like this, I felt it was only fair to download your alpha and check it out, if only because nobody else on Tigsource was likely to do so. And I have to say, it doesn't look good. First of all, you're working in Game Maker, which is a fine development program but not really suited to creating a multiplayer game on the scale you're thinking of. Secondly, what you've actually done so far is mediocre at best. As far as I can tell, there are no features besides the most basic 2D platforming engine, equivalent to the example game that comes packaged with GM. Also, the character's controls are horribly sluggish and floaty. To be blunt, it isn't a whole lot to show for what is supposedly months of work.

Game Maker can handle this. Especially with all the addons and extra utility. Some programming was even done in C++, before being transfered to GML. The reason so little work has been done on the actual game, is due to the server issues. My doubt made me work on the server before doing anything else, which resulted in failure. The server wouldn't allow connections, so eventually I gave up on that and decided to make an offline version and make it online with Hamachi.
If you did play the alpha, I ask, what bugs did you encounter? Obviously plenty, its an alpha; but the 2D platforming tutorial did not have those bugs. I coded the stuff myself, and some human error is involved in things like bad collision and the ability to climb up walls. The wall error is fixed now, and the bad collision checking is almost fixed...

About the credits, the writing is already done, so anyone who actually did submit ANYTHING to help was credited.

However, I will admit that I perhaps gave a lack of information related to this project, and not enough thorough explaination. I soppose I should give this more time before showing off what has been done. Refine it alittle.

[Hempuli‽]

Aplodes to great response from the author; great way to show that you're really giving thought to the work. I wish you luck with this project; it's indeed quite a big piece to swallow at once, but we'll see how it comes out!

[Nate Kling]

232 players online in one battle field sounds cool but im pretty skeptical.  Im not a programmer but Im pretty sure that to check collisions and send that data over the network for every player as well as bullets and anything else in realtime is pretty hard to do for 232 players.  It seems like if this was possible to do we would have already seen games running with large amounts of players in a realtime but we havent at least not to that extent.  Correct me if im wrong but mmorpg's are possible because they dont really run in perfect realtime.  Small amounts of lag go unnoticeable. 

I could be wrong but maybe you should aim for a lower amount.  getting 232 people to play your game all at the same time would be difficult as well.  The idea seems pretty cool I like the idea of the game but I think its a bit unrealistic. Best of luck anyways keep us updated in this devlog ill be interested to see how this turns out.

[Montoli]

I'm a programmer.  And actually the part of this that makes me most curious is just... where did the number 232 (previously 216?) come from?  Is there something magic about the number(s?), or is it just "do we want Ten people.... or TONS AND TONS OF PEOPLE OMG ITS RAINING PEOPLE NOW?"

[Maker_of_pixels]

It came first from 10 people. We said hey, 5 people per team would make us the laughing stock of every online game in existance. I wanted to see something new, a game with lots and lots of action. The max I could set it to was 255, and we decided on 232 because it was an even number.

[team_q]

This is really ambitious! Good luck!


-Unsolicited advice-

Cut some Classes:
Pikemen - useless, pikemen are for defending against horse attacks, with airships and things it seems pretty pointless to have them, particularly when their most effective when not moving, when every other class save one is a range fighter. Even un changed, it seems like every class can easily mess the Pikemen up.

Knights- Knights are cool and all, but they fail the same way as Pikemen, range attacks will consume them, don't bring a knife to a gun fight, even if you have a really awesome knife.

Machine Gunner- 10 vunerable seconds before you can even fight is a recipe for a passed over class.

Arquebusier or Niquette- essentially the same class, also it should probably be reworked so that he is faster, not being able to hit while slowly lumbering forward is boring.


you need to up the Steampunkyness! So far its pretty much that Airships exist, which isn't really punkish. Where is the steam powered dragon? Where is the City that floats in the sky? Where is the Crazy inventor who can turn the tide of the war if his inventions didn't blow up? Where are the steam powered automatons?

Your story shouldn't read like an Europa Universalis events ticker. A bunch of Jumbled around European countries boringly declaring war on each other doesn't really do anything for me, I think your story should have the scope of just the rebellion. Scrappy rebels against loyalists is an awesome theme. You need characters!

 
Your game play numbers are almost that of MAG, that is, way to large, you should have at most 16 on 16, best probably 8 on 8. With a 2D game, you don't have the advantage of the extra dimension so it will feel a lot more cramped.

It came first from 10 people. We said hey, 5 people per team would make us the laughing stock of every online game in existance. I wanted to see something new, a game with lots and lots of action. The max I could set it to was 255, and we decided on 232 because it was an even number.

Splinter Cell 2: Pandora Tommora was 2 VS 2 and that had some of the most interesting white knuckled multiplayer I have played. You don't need a insane player cap to have a lot of action, make the levels smaller.