News: I (still) need a new name for the game.  It's turning into a kind of Command & Conquer clone, so I hope that gives you some ideas.  ANY ideas are welcome!

Idea number 1 (by RS): CheeseWeasel

C'mon!  We can do better than that.

Welcome to the online gaming development page.  We hope it helps begin to explain some of the ideas behind this project.  Our game is an online role-playing and combat simulation game.  There are two versions of the game - one is the original web based game and the other is a distributed network game.  A fairly fast connection (anything over 512 Kbps) is recommended for web based playing.

The network version of the game is designed to run on your computer, and only communicate with the server to share information with other players - which makes it a great deal faster than the original web based version!  The basic idea behind the game is that everyone plays on a shared area of land, but each player has the ability to create new technology, weapons, skills, materials - whatever you like.  It's up to you what you do with your land, objects and tools - you can build a little house and grow a pretty garden, or fashion a flame-breathing dragon shaped tank and go on a rampage!

There are several themed versions of the game, although they all work with the same software and the same principals.  The game has been designed to develop from the input of the players, depending on their imagination and skill.  The base game is a desolate world, just waiting for some serious technological development.  A few odds and ends will be left lying around that you can find and use, but the majority of the game design and evolution is up to you!

The fundamental drawback of this is that the first ten, twenty, or even fifty players will have to be adept at graphic design, have a head for logic or programming and be able to mould the game into a unique experience.

The first draft of the original game

Differences in gameplay - between web based and client/server

• The web based version is accessible from this site, but to play the client/server version, you will need to download the client program.
• Game interaction speed is massively increased with the client package, as you communicate with a server directly, and not through HTML.
• The client program makes use of Microsoft's DirectX technology, using a semi-3D graphics engine to display the world.
• The web based game is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on this public server.  However, the client game is located on our home servers and may not always be available.
• The server can actively take part in the games - by creating or moving objects.  The server is effectively an artifically intelligent player.
• There will be a function to chat live to other players during gameplay, so you can make friends with other players or employ team tactics to annihilate each other.

Technical details - for those who need to know

• The client game is Windows based - written and tested on XP Professional and hosted on Server 2003 Standard Edition.  The web based version is written in ASP, hosted on a public server and stores it's data in an Access database
• The client is written in Visual Studio .NET 2005, using ADO.NET database access at the server end to communicate with the database in SQL Server 2005.
• The client version is standard client-server architecture, and communication is via standard TCP/IP.  The web based version uses plain HTTP protocol to communicate with the site.
• A broadband connection is not required, but 56k connections will not be tested (because no-one we know has one any more!).

Competitions

When all servers and games are fully up and running, monthly competitions will be held amongst participating players.  The arena will be then be split into two halves;

1. You can play freely, interacting with all other players as usual.  Your points will be allocated and you will be entered on the main permanent scoreboard, but not on the competition scoreboard.

2. Or you can play competitively - scored with a monthly table - the top score each month winning a cash prize.  Unfortunately there will have to be an entry fee, starting at around 5.00 [TBC] at the beginning of the month, and dropping as the month goes on.  This enables later entrants to pay less, but also have less chance of winning!  The good news is that the top three winners will get the pot as prize money, minus 5% to go towards running costs of the servers, distributed 60:25:10 as follows;

Example prize money with 15 players paying £5.00 each
Total pot	£75.00	100%
Server fee	£3.75	5%
Third prize	£7.50	10%
Second prize	£18.75	25%
First prize	£45.00	60%

Of course the number of players can vary dramatically each month, but the third prize money will always be at least the fee paid, so that all three winners will at least break even!  A formula is used to calculate the entry fee for each day of the month, so that late entrants pay less.  All these variables make it difficult to predict exactly what the fees and prizes will consist of, but obviously with more players there will be bigger prizes!