Print

[BigDogGameStudios]

Hello everyone!

Well for those of you who read my intro, you know who I am. I am the producer for Big Dog Game Studios for our project Kandar: The Eternal Realms. There are several reasons for this post that will become clear shortly. I lead a development team of 10 currently (some of which are still learning), and I have some pretty great talent. The problem that I find throughout many different game engine boards is that there is a lot of talent out there that ends up being wasted. Its very sad, and I try to pick up that talent where I find it.

Now, the main question I have is... what are you doing? For those reading this, are you a single developer or a small team that is hopeing to benefit from the use of Hero Engine, or perhaps you signed up to get the feel for the engine for a later project? Do you have a goal in mind.. or perhaps you are just shooting from the hip? If you have a goal, is it in your head or actually on paper? Do you have the ability to make that goal a reality?

We are all dreamers here, those of us indie gamers and small time game studios who have flocked to the Hero Engine because of what they offer and their fantastic customer service (And yes I mean that HE Staff.. I am not trying to earn brownie points! Well... maybe a few!). I have been a part of several communities, and have myself held many different licenses for various game engines. I have also seen many of those game concepts die, even some great ideas. So it begs to ask.. do you wish to remain a dreamer, or do you plan on doing something about it?

Enough beating around the bush here, let me tell you what my main goal is finally. There are two actually. The first is that I hope those who read this that are standing strong in their goal for game design break the eternal cycle of dying game projects and never give up hope. The other is simple, if you are a single developer or a small team that have some great ideas but not a lot of direction, perhaps you would be interested in joining forces. We here at BDGS are willing to team up with small teams and work towards several mutual goals. We are dead set in finishing our project, and if teaming up with others to make it happen more efficiently is what it takes, I am ok with that. If after our goal is finished and the combined groups have enough ideas to launch something else, I am very good with that too.

I do not want to see potential talent or ideas drift away, and I am hopeing you do not either. If you are a graphics designer, scripter, or team lead and are willing to discuss this with me, please send me an email to ericphillips@bigdoggamestudios.com and lets talk!

[Surface]

Yes, the key problem is getting the necessary amount of folks to finish the project.

I'll shoot you an email and see if there's something we can do together.

[RealityX]

First, I'd like to say what and awesome post by BDGS. I think he nailed it on the head, in that there are likely quite a few ppl here who may not have the focus needed or could use a bit of direction. With that I'll answer some of the questions posed by this post.

My Team consists currently of two people. My self as a coder/project manager/tech lead/web developer (geez enough hats eh =) and another who is our artist/coder. We will defiantly be needing more ppl as our project continues, but more on that in a sec.

Our project is a First Person Shooter MMO (think Global Agenda, Planetside, etc). It is set in a distant future where humanity has ruined our home world (surprise surprise) and has found a way to "start anew" on a different, supposedly unpopulated one (think Terra Nova w/out the crazy time travel stuff). You play the role of a member of the security force assigned to protect your particular factions colony and do harm to the other guys, so to speak.

I am currently working on some testing of the technology to make sure that HE will suite our needs, and it appears that it will. The other thing that Im working on is really getting our Game Design Doc (GDD) flushed out. Im a software developer in "real life", and the value of having a really well put together design doc is not lost on me. As such, we are waiting to acquire new talent till the GDD is finished. Once complete, it will allow us to really bring new team members up to speed very quickly, and should eliminate most of the questions that arise when new ppl join in.

So as far as the last question about if we have the ability to make our goal a reality, its a definite maybe  Currently we dont have the people to do it now, but will hopefully be picking up people a little further down the road.

[Surface]

    Our small team (currently three with three more to come onboard in the next two to three weeks) is working on WarWind.   We feel there's a niche market that isn't being met by the current or upcoming crop of MMOs.  To whit: an old-school EQ-style MMO with (a) clear cut classes (no talent trees or multiclassing), (b) non-instanced dungeons (easier to create and populate), (c) group-centric combat to promote socialization and community and (d) less - but more powerful = items (enough of the loot pinata).

 We're learning HE/HS/HB, writing the Design Doc and figuring out what we can and can not do - at this point we're aiming for a small-scale demo to see if we can scare up additional interest, team members and/or funding.

Good luck to y'all!

[RealityX]

    Our small team (currently three with three more to come onboard in the next two to three weeks) is working on WarWind.   We feel there's a niche market that isn't being met by the current or upcoming crop of MMOs.  To whit: an old-school EQ-style MMO with (a) clear cut classes (no talent trees or multiclassing), (b) non-instanced dungeons (easier to create and populate), (c) group-centric combat to promote socialization and community and (d) less - but more powerful = items (enough of the loot pinata).

 We're learning HE/HS/HB, writing the Design Doc and figuring out what we can and can not do - at this point we're aiming for a small-scale demo to see if we can scare up additional interest, team members and/or funding.

Good luck to y'all!

Sounds interesting. I hope you all take the EQ approach to language as well, was the best thing i loved about that game. As far as instancing dungeons, thats quite a trivial task in HeroEngine, all things considered. There isant that much more work in setting up an area to be an instance vice not an instance (so i've read). This would also lead to less "dungeon theft" so to speak where your team does all the work and the ninja's sweep in and grab the loot/prize. Just a few things to consider, but I would love to see ya'lls demo when its ready, as Im sure everyone here would as well.

[Gothrek]

Hi,
i think that all have the same prob.

we are 10, we working with unity 3d before HE, and we try to develop an historical MMO like UO.

We have ppl for concepts, scripts, and we just have all the anims for the models, searching more ppl for 3d and other for increase the team

[Unorthaparadox]

Boy, do we know what you mean. Be warned, TL;DR

Back in the day we started with E.S. mods and we were a small team of two. At that time, we were Nutfair and we thought, well you're all in the same boat, you know what we thought. However, as reality set in a little more we actually found a silver lining that wasn't there before. Our team has grown to four core members, but in reality our staff is in the hundreds, if not thousands. Because we spotted all this talent just stagnating around; graphical artists who were too new to sell high-end models, but were still excellent; programmers that are just trying to push their way through college; voice experts that just fiddled their time away on forums with no one to pay them any attention. That's when we learned that we can all help one another out and thus  Nutfair was no longer just Nutfair, but it was The Indie Movement as well. While we don't feel we're really at the financial point to advertise for new "actual" staff-members, we love to grab or purchase any indie publishing we can.

What was once a 1$ 3D model just wasting away online is now the core character design. What was just a free drawing from an aspiring artist that wants his name out is now the logo for a studio that hopes to push T.I.M to a new level. We love including everyone we can in any way possible. Different art styles, sound flows, and my personal favorite is the huge library of lore we have from old RP buddies. We learned that Nutfair needs T.I.M. as much as the other way around. And of course every single person gets well deserved credits. It doesn't matter if we just got a 3D model of a pebble in the background on a level you'll never see. T.I.M Nutfair is a studio that is powered by the masses just as much as it is by our staff. And of course we want to do everything possible to return a helping hand to the indie community, because this is where the heart of gaming lives. Not in million dollar companies wanting to increase their Q2 revenue with a new Download-pack, but with the gamers that got tired of saying "I could do so much better than that" and decided to actually do better.