Hi all, I used to be part of a great online game that was free to play, and unique in its nature (as far as I know), in that no levelling up or collecting equipment was needed. Literally...an old player could return and with a new account, become a major factor to the leaderboard within 20minutes. It was basically a database thing, each player running a planet with about 25 building types and a finite amount of land. The buildings all offered some bonus to the players ability to expand, wage war, and support others. Heavily alliance based, it encouraged slick teamwork and coordination, and promoted a healthy community. The combat was a truly black art, with no setup being dominant...and only the a few people really ever mstering it. It really was great...I played a few other onine games but they all seemed weak in comparison and not my kind of thing. It recently ended because the owner didn't want to pay the site costs, even though it turned a profit. It had been in a long slow decline due to poor owners and petty feuds. It is partly spite that made the current owner stop hosting, for sure. It was real simple, I heard it was written in C something, and I can get samples of the code for anyone to have a look at. Basically I am interested in writing my own script for a similiar game, then using all the contacts I have from the old game to develop it with me, into the balanced masterpiece the old game was. Probably a more modern language would be better for this as it was written way back. The game enjoyed 12k users once, with something like 200 being online every night to wage war. That was back when the internet wasn't in every home. All that happened was it went stale. No reason why a bit of advertising and word of mouth couldn't pick it back up again. It was sold for $3000 at one point so if thats motivation for you..... I'm basically looking for a partner to help me achieve all this. I have very little experience with programming so its all a little over my head. Let me know what I can provide that might give us a better idea of the scale of the project? Thanks all, Dan P.s...it was called A*N*T*R*O*P*H*I*A..if you wanna research it a bit. I don't really want the owner to know about it at this stage, although I will be telling him and asking for his help.
I could try and buy from him sure...but he bought it for $3k I think. The way it was running...it isn't worth that much at all. Its been valued at around $500 recently I think. Maybe if he was willing to bargain its an option. Thing is...he is a pretty spiteful kinda of guy. The general opinion is that he bought the game to cheat at it. When he finally agreed not to play, he still used to come in as random accounts and bump his stats. Its an option but I'd rather not. He'll probably end up selling it to the highest bidder, which is how it ended up how it is now. Basically I'd just like to get an idea of how hard it might be to make another. Alot of the variables and formulas are known and the rest can be guessed. I think another reason not to buy it is that the way its written allows for little security. Maybe another language? I know one modern issue it faced was that it enforce 'one account per IP' with internet cell phones. If I am just translating....I don't need the website. I am not sure about the copyrights surrounding this but I know I could get the word out to the old community no problem. They'd find there way there...there is still an active forum that was independant from the owners.
