Homebrew MMORPG for DS

[IzzehO]

Alright that discussion for this has seemed to all but pitter out and I still for the life of me can't figure out why. It's a quite plausible concept. NOW, before you go down to the little box and start going "NO WAY - DS IS THE SUXOR POWER", consider first a less ignorant approach that there are more MMORPG's out there then WoW. What about a very basic 2D overview based game, FF style.

A very plausible example of an MORPG for the DS would be something along the lines of the good ole Playerworlds Engine. An open source engine for PC - I use to play it no lag on my old 24kb dialup with no lag on a P3 310mhz computer and it sucked a max of 10-15 megs of memory. I am seriously considering taking up the project - sprites and graphics are basically not needed thanks to the large amount of open source graphic sheets out there.

I don't know. I just really wanna be able to hop on my DS in my hotel room and hack and slash the crap out of some 8 bit monsters alongside a couple of friends in.. I dunno.. China or Turkey.

Ps. Playerworlds is an engine that has been remade countless times - should someone consider a port to DS I'm certain it wouldn't be hard to secure a source code. The playerworlds engine (with server) is available at www.onlinegamecore.com

In my honest opinion the only forceable difficulty is the DS's Wireless instability. Other than that I'm certain there would be a large enough built in audience to support the sort of game along with a generous enough community to pay for servers (which wouldn't be much for such a low bandwidth game)

 

[granville]

I'm pretty sure Ragnarok DS and Maple Story are MMORPG's. I'm sure there will be more once these come out.

 

[IzzehO]

They aren't MMORPG - both developers have announced they will be single player based. With the same amount of multiplayer functionality available for a game like LoZH. So you can stop hoping on those two

 

[granville]

They aren't MMORPG - both developers have announced they will be single player based. With the same amount of multiplayer functionality available for a game like LoZH. So you can stop hoping on those two

I think the devs said that they would include single player modes, but I never heard any confirmation that they weren't MMORPG's.

 

[IzzehO]

For Maplestory DS:
http://www.nintendic.com/news/1639

For Ragnarok DS (Read the comments):
http://www.dsfanboy.com/2008/07/30/ragnaro...d-of-the-world/

 

[FAST6191]

Just a thought but the P3 (I do not recall them being that slow either) is a powerful CISC machine with all manner of 3d/maths acceleration while the DS has a 66MHz ARM9 and 4 megs of ram.
http://nocash.emubase.de/gbatek.htm#dstechnicaldata

Anyhow do not some of the roguelikes feature multiplayer? (although it is not a multiplayer game *points to POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=about )

Failing that an mmorpg without typing (thanks Dreamcast for that memory) is tedious at best.

 

[Doomsday Forte]

Closest to MMORPG is going to be Phantasy Star Zero, isn't it? Sure, online play with others, but it's as close as we can get to it.

And even then, that's completely optional online too.

 

[IzzehO]

CPU power really shouldn't be an issue for a simple game like that though, correct? Typing is still rather doable with the bottom touch screen

I can type quite fast with the keyboard in Bunjallo (The one for DSOrganize is too small IMO)

 

[Dylan]

If there is a way to do it, do it

 

[psycoblaster]

here is something you have to understand.
I'll write it up without using weird terms so it is quite easy to understand.
When multiple devices connect, they have to constantly receive and transmit information that is required for the others to know. Now once this receiving and transmitting stops, that what we call disconnecting, and when this speed becomes slow under a limit, that's what causes lag. (well graphic lags are something else)
You know what RAM is, right? Any information you have are stored in the RAM. Somewhere in there. Now as more people connects, there are more information you have to receive, right? And we only have 4 mb of space for every little detailed information. But this 4 mb is not ONLY for the received data. Even the data that you are holding is contained in there. what will happen if this 4MB is like almost full? Say you have a computer with a 60 gig hard drive. If you fill it up with music and games up to about 58 gigs, you'll probably figure out that your computer is running slow.

And you won't be able to download more than 60 gig worth of stuff, because that's the highest capacity. When the DS connects to about 12 players (for example) and lets say the 4 meg limit was completely full. Now another player wants to come in, but if they do, then you can't receive any more data. then what will happen? I dunno. But there is a way to make an online mmorpg, but not with thousands of users that we see in computer games.

 

[UltraMagnus]

uh, your reasoning is flawed, most mmorpgs store most of that stuff on the server, only sending info on local characters to the clients

and, if memory is an issue, what about gba slot ram expansion packs? (like the ez3in1 or opera browser pack)

 

[TwinBlades]

WOW FOR THE FIRST TIME I'm really hyped about the nintendo ds. Finally theres a game thats like flyff,WOW, Ragnarok etc... Phantasy Star Zero seems really nice for the DS. Also the multiplayer 4-co-op is cool it's like Monster Hunter Freedom for the PSP. I wish there was a good RTS game for the DS because there really isnt any and I mean something like Starcraft, Warcraft, or Homeworld would be awsome.

 

[TwinBlades]

Good news for me I guess. The first "ACTUAL" RTS game for the ds.

 

[Sarvesh50]

if somebody maked a homebrew of this Game to play online would be awesome i am playing it with the opera browser now but it sucks

 

[psycoblaster]

uh, your reasoning is flawed, most mmorpgs store most of that stuff on the server, only sending info on local characters to the clients

and, if memory is an issue, what about gba slot ram expansion packs? (like the ez3in1 or opera browser pack)

now, for an example, an example of a game you are talking about is Ragnarok online. Even though stuff are saved into the server, you still need to be able to communicate with the server. Everytime another user levels up, how would you know he leveled up? Even though his level and his stats are saved into the server, you can view this information because the server tells you.
And one more thing, an online game needs a server, which can't be just made for free. Now who will pay for that?

 

[fgghjjkll]

MEEE!!!! j/k.
why cant you host the server on your pc and leave it 24/7?

 

[psycoblaster]

well you know that EVERYBODY needs to connect in one server.

 

[FAST6191]

well you know that EVERYBODY needs to connect in one server.

I would not be so sure, IRC (which a back of envelope type calculation says uses about the same amount of resources) works well enough on a distributed server concept (not sure how a MMORPG would deal with netsplits but it surely can not be worse than plain "server down" message).

Perhaps a system using the above but similar to the Phantasy Star Online concept of servers with rooms and ultimately games within them might be an idea. A spin on that could be a larger room on the server much like PVP and PVE stuff that exists in other games but solely for those wanting to attempt larger groups.

re: online storage. Cheating is usually the main reason for this (see diablo 1 ("trainers"), phantasy star online (egg blaster and what have you). Perhaps a trickle down type affair (while offline does not get used online passing certain milestones has a benefit (and if you want to get really industrious a bad side: 5% more experience but 5% less rare drops....) on the game).

re: UltraMagnus and memory issues. While I would certainly not argue ram packs have no benefits for some code they are quite slow compared to the main memory which makes things a bit more difficult. I have no experience programming these sorts of games (or even pulling them apart from a resources perspective) so it may actually work depending on what needs to be done.


My suggestion now then. Make a local multiplayer game (stuff like Diablo is great for network play or if you prefer something like crystal chronicles) ultimately with the intention of grafting on true internet play.

 

[kikuchiyo]

If there is a way to do it, do it

God bless you sir.

 

[IzzehO]

I'm glad to see some are optimistic about this

Seriously I don't see how the memory issue is debatable in this. Going back to the example of Playerworlds - it's a (I think) 16x16 map that allows only a single player (an 8-bit sprite) means that the DS will be limited t only having to show that map. The thing about playerworlds is that it's a client and server - not a game. So anyone wanting to start up there own server, design the maps and items, and host - is welcome to.

If you wanna see how plausible the concept is - http://www.secretsofmirage.com/ is a playerworlds remake that has been running for.. so many years now. :S