Making a Video Game please HELP

[YouMissed!]

Right, so down to business. I, want to create a game. It will be just bascically a space fighting sort of game. Entire planets, you can just fly down through the atmosphere to land and walk around or drive around on the surface.


You can fight other players with your ship or on the ground.

That's about it, I am not getting into the details. It will be VERY complex. With lots of things to do, it will be an 'everything' game, sort of like GTA SA, with all kinds of mini games in game to play and do.

I am just learning how to program, well, was, but I stopped that a while ago when I had something coming up I had to cancel for. Now, I am going to finish my training in programming. I'm starting off with a basic lanuage and working on different languages from there.

I am going to get KNOPPIX, a linux OS to do the programming in.

A friend of mine wants to make the music for the game, and me and him will probably be the only ones working on it until I find it possible the game is a do-able thing, and form a team. That is, that everything works right, or at least in the most basic functions.

I can already model some in 3ds max, and want to use 3ds max for the modeling aspect of the game. There will be TONS of modeling to do. Entire planets (if only one planet ) will need to be planned, and mapped out.

Sooner or later as soon as I find the game work able, I will form a team. I don't want to just say 'I'm going to make a game, please help me and you will be so and so admin or in credits' or something, and then later on discover that the game is impossible.

I need your help halomods (yes I have been a member here before) with this. I know there have been projects such as this before by people who used and frequently visited this site and participated in the online forums.

The game has to be playable on Windows. Windows, being a widely used OS.

Now, the tricky part is the physics. I haven't decided what to do with spaceship physics yet. Whether to have a ship need o stay in orbit, or just make it so the ship can just fly wherever it wants. I think I'm going with the last choice. Planning orbits, and complex manuvers isn't going to be fun for ship to ship battles now is it?

The difficult part is how to do the physics. The planet or planets are going to need a rotation and orbit system. At the least, make them rotate, so they have night and day. The scenery, triggers, spawn points, players, and all that are going to need to rotate and stay with this planet. They are going to need to fall towards it when they jump off a cliff or eject from an aeroplane.

I don't know where to begin. There are several problems and contradictions that still need to be worked out. Like spaceship hierarchy (captain, lieutenants, crew, blah blah etc.) how to make a player gain a rank through skill, and not just be appointed by the captain. Unlike the clans you see today, where a guy just makes a clan and appoints whoever he heck he wants to be 3nd in command, I need it to be based on skill. To become a captain, you must pass tests, and start out as a fighter pilot, because all the captain does it fly the ship, pay the crew, and give out tactical orders.

Ships, are going to be like rooms. If you are on the outside of a ship and you go into the trigger infront of the airlock, you load the inside of the ship (like how you load the inside of your house in GTA SA) The inside of the ship will be a completely seperate room from the physical ship in space. They are only connected by a loadpoint/trigger.

I don't know what to do when I program this. Do I just start programming the physics? How do I do this? What do I program first?

I am hopin you guys can help me out. Or point me to a helpful source. I know of the Hostile orbit team, and a couple other teams I remember hearing about but I do not remember their names and do wish to bother looking up until later.

Somaybe you could give me a few links, pointers, offer some teaching in the basics of programming and modding.

no, I do not plan for the game to be multiplayer until later on in my life when I can sustain a massive server to host it all. Or maybe I will develop a system that doesn't require a host server.

Anyone from one of these 'game teams'? Care to help out? Tell me how you did it?


And yes I do have alot of time over the years to do this.

Thanks and i will be checking back here around 4:00 PM wisconsin time. NO I dont know what time zone that is, because I REALLY have to got right and get o to school. So feel free to post, comment, or whatever .

[Aquafina]

First off...Is the game going to be a MMO? Second. You cant just go out and say, " I want to make a game with space ships and you get to fly around a planet!" The main thing is, the game needs a story...If you need help with the story, ask me. Third. You cant just have a few people who are game designers....you need possibly hundreds to make the game. But the people need to be VERY GOOD.

[Spitfire]

Hes right. you need a unique story. where are you gonna get all the funding to make this game??

[KamakazeSpec]

my uncle owns a small game buisiness and needs ideas for games....give me EVERY detail and ill pitch it to him see if hes interested to get his little ants to work on it

[FonzieD]

Umm...it's pretty easy to start a game by making the actual things that will be in it first. Like the ships, or the people, so it will be easy to match with the physics.

[KamakazeSpec]

this is true but to mass produce it its gotta be bought by a larger company...you may know designing but you dont know marketing

[Dr.Cox]

my uncle owns a small game buisiness and needs ideas for games....give me EVERY detail and ill pitch it to him see if hes interested to get his little ants to work on it

here uncle heres my friends... ermm.. i mean my idea....

[YouMissed!]

Thank you for replying. Yes I am saying 'I want to make a game where you fly around in space and have an entire planet to walk around on'.

BTW I am 15. I don't have any money nor will I need any money. I will make it in my spare time. Of course I want it finished, but I know it will be a while before it is.

I have a compiler and 3ds max. It might be a *Bad* idea to make the models in 3ds max. You will know why. I can get gmax and model with that.

What I need help with is how to actually make the game. You can't just model a planet on one machine! The poly count will be enormous! I need a way to assemble the maps together into a planet. I am thinking maybe to create the entering atmosphere effect by a trigger type scenario. Whereas when you are far away you see a planet, but when you get close enough to not see the urve of the planet, the game loads a flat terrain.

That is not my ideal situation. I want ships to be able to shoot at each other from the ground into space using various methods. Another idea is to model a triangle of a geosphere. Build your terrain from that triangle and repeat a couple times. Then the game patches all the different tirangles together at the edges and they eventually wrap around to form a sphere. You get what I am saying?

There is a problem. With a game this size how will you ever meet anyone? You might need a very huge amount of players to fill the server! I don't have any way of hosting a game that size.

An idea I have is to have the players host the game. Say there is 10 guys on the server, the server is hosted inbetween the ten players. There is no main server. But what happens if they all quit?

Another idea I have is to do a player host server type thing, but I don't really want that because I want the whole thing to be controlled by me and not have modded servers, and people banning each other for no reason or for 'bad mouthing' people. A computer hosts a server over his internet connection and controls the server and so on.

Please feel free to post suggestions.


I want the game to be un like any other. In every aspect.

I hate RPG's. It takes no skill to farm, camp and invest months of camping and activity to reach a 'level'. I also want it so a noobie can't just start out and go fly a space ship. You have to work your way up to that. Not through 'levels' but through a money system. It costs a load of money for such and such vehicle and requires time to achieve.

But that brings in that annoyin RGP aspect of it. Going out and killing a monster, taking its meat, cooking it, and selling it for money or eating it to regain health.

I want there to be two aspects of the game. There is the combat aspect, and the miscellaneous stuff there because it's cool. For instance, it will be a first person shooter game. I'm aiming for 'realism' in alot of aspects. I need everything to be based on skill. That's why there is money, to make it very hard for a noobie to buy a ship and then become captain. The higher ranks will depend on skill. As I think I have said so before. The best fighter pilot will earn the captain's position. He actually flies the ship, instead of those stupid hierarchies you see in start trek and movies.

"skipper, turn 20 degrees to port" "Aye aye sir" *skipper manuevers ship*

We just can't have a player issuing orders like that. It would take to long and be very inefficient in a battle. Therefore the captain flies.

The game needs a way to gain money. I thought that attacking a random ship for plunder would be cool. Thing is, I don't want the person being attacked to be completely bankrupt when this happens.

I just had an idea. Anyways...

The phyics will be pretty complex. The planet radiates gravity, pulling objects to the surface. A ship being very heavy and being a large mass will have some gravity. You could walk on the outside of a ship!

Those of you worried about what happens when you die need not worry. I have "plans" for that to.

Suggestions on the prevalent problems? Anyone?

I will not, will not release any part of MY game to anyone until I see fit.


No I am not selling the game I want to make because it's fun.

[KamakazeSpec]

if it hits then youll get the money for the idea the copyrights everything...theres just no way you can make this on your own...im not a bad person and you dont have any reason to trust me but you ever wonder what could happen if you dont trust some1 who ends up telling the truth i can understand that you think im trying to steal your idea and i can understand if you dont want me to help...good luck making your game...my fingers are crossed for you

[gundamzuki]

By United States copyright law, anything written on the net and signed by a username is copyright of that user. Therefore Kamakaze CAN'T steal your game idea, it's already copyrighted. He's only trying to help give you a larger base to establish this game on. If he really WERE trying to steal your game, why would he even have bothered to say something in the first place, he could have just sat on the sidelines and taken it. Lighten up already.

[YouMissed!]

Kamakazee spec, I am sorry I said that. I honestly thought you were trying to steal my game. That seriously sounded like a way to steal my idea. For instance:

Orville wright: I am going to build the first aeroplane! I know how to, you need to do such and such to achieve lift!

Trickster: I will have my rich grandpa make it for you if you give me every detail.

Orville Wright: ok, I give you persmission to allow your grandpa to do this.

*several years later*

Orville Wright: Sir, can you spare me some change? I discovered how to make the first aeroplane, but got tricked by a con man into giving him my plans!

Passer by: No sir, everyone knows that Trickster invented the aeroplane! You silly fool!

See what I mean? It really sounded like a trick.

you ****, he almost did die.....

What do you mean?

I didn't come here to spam and flame people, I came here for help! I am sorry if I offended you Kamakzeespec! I thought you were trying to trick me!

I, am not a very trusting person. The last time I came here, some very well respected people I knew on the boards in fact were 'serial leakers' when it came to maps, and I do remember OldFaq's fight with a mod team who stole all his models.

gundamzuki, I did not know that, thank you for informing me! I know there are people out there who would read the whole post and just work on the idea off my plans. Regardless of copywrite law.

I am happy tro announce I" wrote my first program a couple minutes ago, without copy pasting any examples into the compiler! Even if it is simple.

[JK-47]

ok, im sorry about all the flame attacks

[YouMissed!]

No problem

[KamakazeSpec]

i accept your appology but i still stand behind my decision to leave halomods and about me almost dying...i got hit by a drunk driver while driving to my gfs house because she was scared...i have 1 working lung 5 broken ribs and a shattered leg

[YouMissed!]

I didn't know you got ran over! I haven't even visited this site in a looooong time not since July 10th... hope you get better!

BTW what was your GF afraid of?

[Aquafina]

Kamakaze, i hope you get better. I salute you. And this may seem...kind of mean, but your idea of a game kinda sucked...sorry if this hurts you but the game wasnt worth stealing.

[KamakazeSpec]

just afraid...she was alone and the power at her house was out for a while...it was 10 at night

[YouMissed!]

Kamakaze, i hope you get better. I salute you. And this may seem...kind of mean, but your idea of a game kinda sucked...sorry if this hurts you but the game wasnt worth stealing.

Whoever said that was it? I certainly said it wasn't.

The details are secret, and I'm not discussing them openly.

Going to need aloooot of stuff to make this. Artists, modelers most certainly, maybe some people to help work out the game play.

No there probably isn't going to be a story. I suck at stories so much. Anyway who cares? Not all games have to conform to strict 'rules' which, may be no more than simple expectations.

Not having a story would really make designing the game easier.

The main interests, or 'go getters' of the game is massive evnironments to explore and fight on, and do basically, ANYTHING.

You want to go cave diving? You got it. You want to go base jumping? You got it. You want to make a record and circle the globe? You fricking got it baby yeah!

It's all based on skill. Well, the fighting anyway.

[Aquafina]

The game still sounds fictional, you will need atleast one hundred designers, unless your delaying the game untill 2999

[Spitfire]

well good luck with your game u just lost a lot of possible help by saying that Kamikae can go and Die...