¿Project Seven?

[Ganonator]

It's the question everybody is asking.
It's the game that nobody knows about.
It's the newest form of entertainment that AGN is apart of.

Project Seven is a massively multiplayer online real-time strategy game. Players are in charge of one race, trying to dominate, send missionaries, and spread commerce across the universe.

The game is designed to be played for a few hours or a few minutes at a time. You may just want to check in to make sure you aren't being decimated, or you can do a little damage to opposing races yourself.

Want to set up trade relations with foreign planets? Want to control governments, scientists, and agriculture? Want to run an interstellar drug cartell, a hyperlinking business for quick commerce, or destroy entire planets with the push of a button?

I would like to say "Well now, you can play it!," but that would be grossly inaccurate. Today, I just finished player logins and accounts, so my testers can have that privilage before the rest of you. ;)

Here is the latest screenshot: http://www.thedpshack.com/p7/layout619.jpg

You know most of the people on the team, but here's who is working on what:

Producer / Lead Programmer: Ganonator
Programmer: DarkDragon
Lead Artist: Jajuka
Music Director: Dechipher
AGN Testing Manager: BigJoe

Other people on this project:
Master Ghaleon, Glitch, theplustwo, Britannianhero4, Solaris_Omega, Zorch

How can I get involved?

Project Seven is still in development, so not much until later beta stages in September.

But I really want to help out!

Hold on tight there, tiger. My testers haven't done anything for almost a month! If you really want to help, ask some questions. I've purposely left out key details in this post.

Plan for an October 1st release.

[Master Ghaleon]

This game will take over my free time ;)

[*b*]

Other people on this project:
Master Ghaleon, Glitch, theplustwo, Britannianhero4, Solaris_Omega, Zorch

how could you forget me? am I really that unimportant to the whole thing?




kidding

[Ganonator]

well, if you're name didn't start with a *, you would have came up on my user search ;)

[deathbyhokie]

so what kind of scale are we talking here? are you a planet, fighting on a galactic scale, or are you a continent, fighting on a planetery scale, and then fighting on a galactic?

[SixTen]

This looks incredible. I have been looking for a game like this for a while.

[Orion]

Looks real nice, Ganonator. I can't wait to see how this turns out.

[Rainman]

Very interesting. I love the layout you have. It really looks like a professionally made game. I probably don't have much to offer, but as a learning programmer, I'd really like to see how this game was made. :shrug: Any information on gameplay?

[Great Warrior]

This sounds very interesting. I would really like to know more about it. I know my girl is not going to like it. :p

[Ganonator]

so what kind of scale are we talking here? are you a planet, fighting on a galactic scale, or are you a continent, fighting on a planetery scale, and then fighting on a galactic?At first, you are just your own planet learning the ropes of the game, researching technologies, and explanding your society so you can begin interstellar travel. Once there, in the initial run of the game, you won't be interacting with a planet on it's continental level. You just have a god-view of the planet, and most decisions made will be simple enough to do from space. You can research different spaceships, and then you can control them from planet to planet. If that is still totally confusing, don't worry. The actual gameplay is hard to explain.


Any info on gameplay?It's an RTS, but you aren't interacting with individual troops. Resource management is done on a broader scale, so I can set it (and forget it!!) and leave the game knowing that the resources are still being collected.

Battle: Although this aspect of the game is still undecided, it will most likely resemble a starwars 3D battle where you just go at it with other players. I don't know how it's going to work, really, since it's one of the pieces that my artist and I are still deciding on.

When you make a ship, you will be able to create it from researched parts. It's sort of a 'create your own monster' flipbook of design ideas when you get the final product done.

Again, we know what the game is, and it's quite difficult to explain. The more questions we get, the better off we will be.

[Rainman]

It seems to have a broad scale, but how are you working to make the interaction engaging and exciting? Sure I'd bust a nut over macro managing a plantery civilization, but perhaps I'm weird. Are you going to have pretty effect to showing the wars/commerce/whatnot occuring? How willl navigation of the universe occur? Is the universe finitely big and only holds a certain number of players or is it infinitely expansive?

[Ganonator]

The game is mission based in the beginning until you get enough resources to go universal. In fact, the first mission is a planetary mission to land a man on the moon. You research the parts, you build your ship, then you control it from the cockpit through an asteroid field to get to the moon unharmed.

At first, the game will be finite - maybe room for 50 players. As it grows, it will be able to support about a thousand, and planets will be added all the time to the server as more people join.

[Rainman]

What happens when a player manages to dominate the universe? Is it server reset time? Are you providing safequards for developing planet civilizations inorder that established ones don't completely decimate them within hours?

How is everything layed out? Are there solar system, galaxies, universe? If so, how many players per system? Will there be empty planets up for grabs for anyone to colonize?

How are you planning to pay for all this? (server upkeep being the chief concern) Will the game become Pay to Play?

Heh, lots of questions. :P Sorry my imagination is running wild. This has also rekindled my interest in a couple game projects that me and Toolie thought up years ago. Of course that was way before either of us were able to program at all. It's hard to find any resources on the programming needed to create a game.

[Ganonator]

What happens when a player manages to dominate the universe? Is it server reset time? Are you providing safequards for developing planet civilizations inorder that established ones don't completely decimate them within hours?

How is everything layed out? Are there solar system, galaxies, universe? If so, how many players per system? Will there be empty planets up for grabs for anyone to colonize?

How are you planning to pay for all this? (server upkeep being the chief concern) Will the game become Pay to Play?
Each real world day is equivalent to 100 years, so people 'dominating the universe' is improbable. I'm sure a lot of player balance is going to be needed to ensure there is enough interacting with players. New players joining the server will be in a safeguard mode until they get enough resources to save their planet from incoming attacks.

There are solar systems, galaxies, quadrants, and a final universe. I would imagine about 100 players to occupy a galaxy, but the final numbers will be realized as the game is actually played. There will be lots of 'empty' planets with valuable resources and energy sources that will be up for grabs.

Oh yea, you guys haven't even heard how you 'win'
The game is based on Energy use, Capitalism, and Religion. You are ranked in the game based on the number of planets you control that have a religious shrine built on it (sort of like Wonders in Ages of Empires II ). Even though you may be awesome at destroying people's shit, you aren't going to be high on the server unless you spend time praying.

Money is not an issue. At first, I'm running it on a basic cable connection, and I don't suspect that many people playing it to have an issue. If it gets HUGE, I might charge a small fee, like $10/yr, to cover the hosting costs for a greater upload rate. This would be a while away though. In tests, we can have >30 connections with no noticable lag at all. This will probably change when we get things actually working.

[Archibaldo]

So is going to be kinda like "Masters of Orion"?

[Ganonator]

So is going to be kinda like "Masters of Orion"?
Dispite finding absolutely no media on the current release, I read the specs on the other one, and it doesn't even come close. It might have the same overview, but the player interactions are totally different.

[Dark Nation]

This (from what I've seen so far) looks like a cross between StarCraft and OGame (www.ogame.org). Quite cool. :)

[deathbyhokie]

When you make a ship, you will be able to create it from researched parts. It's sort of a 'create your own monster' flipbook of design ideas when you get the final product done.

Like Alpha Centari?

and do you invade with generic people, or can you get special kinda of ground units?

also, will i be able to buy/sell/gift tech. and units? for example if i don't want to openly attack Person A, i can feed Person B units on the condition that they attack person A for me (whether they do or not is another story)

[MANDRAG GANON]

Anyway I'd be able to help out artwise on this at all? :shrug:
Also, will beer be a big part of this game?

[Master Ghaleon]

Also, will beer be a big part of this game?

The only way that beer is involved is when I come home and go straight to the fridge. Grab a yuengling and walk to the computer and launch an all out assault on ya while i drink it down ;)

[SixTen]

Yuengling!

Perhaps after a particularly tough conquest yoru armies will 'have a big drunken party' to celebrate, and for a time shortly afterward their response time and fighting effectiveness is reduced.

The bigger the victory the bigger the party, and thus, the worse the hangovers afterward.

[Dechipher]

Haha, that's actually a pretty good idea. It will make things more challenging for the super powerful players.

[SixTen]

Haha, that's actually a pretty good idea. It will make things more challenging for the super powerful players.
At least for when two super powerful players have a mass battle. Factors involed would be stuff like the size of the armies in comparison to each other, as well as the actual numbers of troops involved. The closer these two numbers are, and the more troops that survive after eliminating the opposing army would call for a very large after party.

Whereas if you totally wipe the floor with an opponent because you outnumber them ten to one, then there isn't much cause for celebration. In this case when one side is grossly outnumbered then the absolute troop numbers shouldn't be much of an issue, seeing as a victory is expected by the larger army anyway. Now if the underdog wins then that would also call for a great celebration.

I'm gonna guess that if this is implemented then players will build have backup armies in case they score a stunning victory with one army, rendering them practically unable to fight, they have other forces nearby so as not to be defenseless.

[Ganonator]

Nah, the beer is just there as a placeholder. I guess if I really felt up to it, I could put it in as an Easter Egg to let you AGNers uncover.

There actually is no such thing as 'ground units'. Everything you research is for space, at least for version 1.0. I would imagine this game to go to a starcraft-esque ground battle system when people are attacking homeworlds in later versions. That's still to be decided.

[Master Ghaleon]

Once P7 comes out, I am hoping that I'll see the majority of the SE people playing along with everyone again. A weird kind of reunion just in a different game :)

[Ganon's Minion]

This looks very interesting, to say the least. Keep us posted, and I look forward to seeing more screenshots and details.

[Link 101]

This is looking very invredible. I can't wait until it is playable. I would also like to see the SE players play this game. It would be pretty cool.

I have a question that was spraked by SE. Will you be able to form like treaties or anything with other players and their planets. Or perhaps like the guild system in SE, can you join forces with another planet officially. WHat I mean by this is instead of like HELPING another player do something, can you like...make a pact of some form or something? So maybe you can have like an Ally list and maybe an Enemy list.

I know probably every player would be an opposing force and possibly an enemy. What I mean by Enemy list is like...players who are of most threat or who have attacked you the most. I think it'd be a cool thing to have.

[Ganonator]

It's definitely not out of the question to put in.

Just for you guys, I'm at the point where a player could create a new account, log in, and fool around with the technology system. You can zoom the camera around the universe, see stats on planets, and stats on other players.

You've always been able to chat w/ other players that are logged in.

My biggest setback right now is the lack of art. I'm at a point where I don't want to work on interface because I don't have the right widgets to go with it.

I don't know when an official release is going to be, but I will try to keep you a little more updated that once every 3 weeks.

[Dechipher]

Maybe this thread should be stickied...?

[Master Ghaleon]

Maybe this thread should be stickied...?


I second that

[slef]

will you be able to attack specific areas of an enemy, such as resource gathering or research facilities?

[Ganonator]

well, you don't zoom into a planet that close, but i could see it happening later in the game's development.

Stickied.

[Master Ghaleon]

The game will just get better and better. Once we bring the base game to AGN, the updates will just insure the success of this game.

[Ganonator]

For the public:

Here's a couple of screenshots that will explain the power and potential of this project.

The first screenshot:
http://www.thedpshack.com/p7/field1.jpg
Here is a regular starfield that seems quite dense. It contains a lot of stars in the background, and it's a pretty cool image for a game.

http://www.thedpshack.com/p7/field2.jpg
Here is the same starfield, but labeled. As you can see, my personal home planet, Dranakia, is labeled in red, along with the largest current star that is monitored by the game: #950. The scope of this project is amazing.

Yes, it says 3 FPS, i understand. There is still a lot to do. Consider this build a very early pre-alpha ;)

[Kairyu]

Yes, it says 3 FPS, i understand. There is still a lot to do. Consider this build a very early pre-alpha ;)
Is this game going to require a fairly powerful PC or graphics card? Obviously you can't have specifics numbers yet, but do you have an idea?

[Master Ghaleon]

Yes it will. Ganonator would know more then me but If you cannot play WoW on your computer then i dont think you will be able to play this game.

[Tygore]

Well, unless this is released within the next two weeks, then that's a problem for me. Otherwise, once I get my new laptop, I'll be eagerly waiting to take on the universe. Or something to that extent.

And the game needs some internal reference(s) to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, simply because you can't have a space-baced game hosted by a geek-based site(face it, people) and not reference it. Maybe have your world develop its own language, and to communicate with other worlds you have to discover the Babelfish.

[goKi]

Let me know if you need me to test, Russ. I've got quite a few computers to test it on, and an interesting connection and location.

[biggiy05]

What's the word on this? Is it cancelled, on hold, stuck in a fat guys ass? Haven't seen ganonator for a long while either.

[Goat]

Russ is busy with school, thats about all there is to it.

[biggiy05]

Russ is busy with school, thats about all there is to it.

Gotcha.