To achieve this, a game must have a marketable core component. This is the invisible motive that gets consumers to play a game. It’s not hard to deduce what this is; however, video games surprisingly aren’t diverse enough to draw attention. In fact, the more diverse games are, by and large, the more popular they are. It seems that MMORPGs these days are similar, this is because their marketable core components are the same.

I’ve devised a list from games that I’ve played. The list goes on and on, most of them are in the same categories.

What do you think?

• EA’s SimCity Franchise : Watching Growth (Garden-like)
• Magicka : Creative Diverse Customizability
• EA’s The Sims Franchise : Watching Growth, Domination
• Active Worlds : Creative Construction
• Second Life : Immersive Chat Room
• Blizzard-Activision’s World of Warcraft : Perceived Infiniteness
• Microsoft’s Freelancer : Perceived Infiniteness
• CCP’s EVE Online : Perceived Infiniteness
• Minecraft : Deep, Perceived Geologically Complete World (Perceived Infiniteness)
• Maxis’ Sim Earth : Domination
• Microsoft’s Age of Empires, Chess, etc. : Duality Strategy

The magnitude of this is the simple fact that, if they have not updated by now, nobody cares enough about your site to update anyways. On top of that, and more importantly, you are preventing anybody to get any information from your site (other than you have terrible customer support.) If you don’t support it, then let them view the site as it appears on IE6. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you do block them, there is something wrong with that.

You might consider them blocking IE6 from their site as “not a large problem”; however, users of IE6 do still exist. It comes down to the fact that, if they’re still using IE6, they don’t care how your site works. Don’t block them from seeing it. Even a broken site yields information. A page that tells them to upgrade sends the message that you’re marketing department is incompetent.

Virtual Reality has several definitions. However, in relation to the products we may discuss, virtual reality means a fully editable world or collection of worlds. In this sense, there are very few programs that fit it. Even so, we will only discuss two products. One, Second Life, because it is the largest. The other, Active Worlds, because it is the oldest.

The history of Virtual Reality goes back to Worlds, Inc. In the early 90′s, Ron Britvich, a programmer working with Peregrine Systems, created a program named WebWorld. It would become the idea behind the product “Knowledge Adventure Worlds,” a product that was marketed from a merged team including the founder of Peregrine Systems, a developer from Knowledge Adventure and another developer from Kinetic Effects, Inc. [1] Knowledge Adventure Worlds was renamed Worlds, Inc soon before the release of the product. In 1995, Worlds launched AlphaWorld and Active Worlds was born. Since then, Active Worlds has not changed very much. While it has slightly improved in graphics quality, the browser itself remains much the same. However, it still has a marginal following behind it and is one of the few products of its kind that have remained for so long.

The largest Virtual Reality that exists today is Second Life. It was released in 2003 and remains the most popular Virtual Reality to date. The actual product is slightly different from Active Worlds in that it has a major focus on socializing rather than open-ended creative construction. While you can still construct buildings in Second Life, it is far more expensive and much less easy. Second Life also does not support multiple worlds like Active Worlds does. What Second Life does well; however, is its superior file sharing system, as well as its unique in-game model development platform.

What ideas are they based upon?

Both virtual realities are focused on the idea that socializing in a 3D environment is more stimulating than in a 2D environment (like Facebook or any given forum.) In that respect, I think virtual reality improves the sharing of creativity while it also limits the social aspect. Socializing in any virtual reality is more difficult than in Facebook or in any other 2D platform. This is because a 2D platform represents an infinite, boundless plane for socializing. That means that any set of people anywhere can talk without having to worry about if they are close enough. This, I think, is the flaw in socializing with a Virtual Reality. Without the ability to find and talk to people without needing to be near them is the reason that 2D platforms are far superior social platforms.

Beyond that, both Active Worlds and Second Life attempt to portray themselves as a method of business premises or an environment friendly to eCommerce. They are neither of these things. In fact, they are both a terrible way to run an eCommerce business or, for that matter, run a business from at all. Even if the only two options for a business and an eCommerce were that you can have a website or you can use a Virtual Reality, a website would be far better. For one, you do not need the special client that is required to even view the content you want the consumer to have. Secondly, you, again, portray the content in a world where space does matter. That way, you can never portray the data as efficiently as you can on a website. In the instance of business meetings in Virtual Reality, like mentioned, you would need the client. On top of this, there are a lot of more specialized methods of sending corporate data than a 3D world. Companies would go for these rather than the limited applications of Virtual Realities. Therefore, in this context, Virtual Reality is not a very good method for running an eCommerce business or presenting critical business data.

What is Virtual Reality good for then?

Virtual Reality has a specific purpose, it can be used for socializing (however, no Virtual Realities currently are efficient enough), it is definitely not for eCommerce Businesses and it should never be used as a replacement to the internet. What it is, is a good platform for creativity, and if done right, a wonderful platform for making very editable and distributable 3D games.

Where does “Andromeda Media Universe” come into this?

Andromeda Media Universe claims that they are a the future in Virtual Reality. They are a group of people who are self-proclaimed experts in their field. Even if you look past their vainglory, they make very few good points. They incorrectly target the social aspect without thought on how people socialize. However, they do acknowledge that both Active Worlds and Second Life have deep problems. Why are they mentioned? Because they are the closest so far to discover that the real secret of Virtual Reality is that it has very little use in the current form. It needs something other than socializing to draw people to it and something other than socializing to keep people there. Facebook can succeed because it is a perfect social platform. Virtual Reality is an irreparable social platform and will never be as efficient as a 2D platform.

No one yet has done it correctly. Perhaps it is because it cannot be done?

It’s now been exactly four years and four months since the project Voided Alliance was started. Looking through the original code, there’s so many problems. There are things that I didn’t understand about PHP in it, there are places that are so un-optimized that it is painful and there are places that are so disorganized that even I, who wrote the script 4 years ago, cannot figure out what is going on. Now, four years may not seem like a long time for most people, but for me, it represents the bulk of the years in which I learned about the science of programming. Before now, I wrote truly awful code (and I probably still do.) Voided Alliance is testimony to that.

The Actual Design, Graphically

First, I will start on the layout and design of the game on a high level. At first glance, the layout is old fashion and very ugly. Tables are used; however, they are not used well. There are places where text is vertically aligned in the table. There are no background images and the page is nearly entirely black. The header image is an old Truespace 3 render with a terrible “sun.” On top of that, the lens flare is extremely bad. The font used in the Voided Alliance text is a terribly cliché font with an ugly bevel. The menus are long and confusing and the tables’ colors are bold and painful to look at.

The ugly Voided Alliance Layout

The Actual Code

The actual code, as I have already said, is disorganized and inefficient. Get this: the largest file served by the server is the index.php file. It is loaded every time and it really is over 7,000 lines long. Now you are starting to get the idea on how inefficient this code was. However, putting that aside, the game had a surprising amount of features. Some of them were hard to use and / or hard to get to, but they were interesting.

Disorganized, Long Index File

In Conclusion

Looking through it on the old Auburnflame website, I fixed a few bugs here and there (can’t help myself.) After that, I remembered how interesting it was to make the game. Even though Voided Alliance is badly coded, it seems like that never hurt its popularity. However, I will advise people from now on: Get VA Revolution, not VA Ruby (and definitely not the original code.) Voided Alliance Revolution contains code fixes from 2008 that were pretty major security fixes. I love Voided Alliance; however, it has ran its race (it didn’t come in at a bad time, either.)

Don’t Be Alarmed

I just want to inform you not to be alarmed. I might put updates in, I might not. However, when I am not working on school and work, I am thinking of different methods of applying certain functions into the game. My school and work comes first, but Xeno 4 comes second. When I have time, I will add features into the game. There are no other projects Lurous Productions is working on right now. There are no other projects I am working on right now. It is only Xeno 4. If I am not putting updates into the game, it is because I am studying or I am at work.

We’ll Resume Heavy Work

Don’t worry, once I am not as busy at school (or it gets out) I will devote the extra time into Xeno 4. Xeno 4 has the best chance of success that I have seen in any of my projects I’ve worked on so far. I have the most of the resources, the tools, and the knowledge to complete it. The only resource I don’t have at the moment is time. However, I will have more time later on and once that happens, Xeno 4 updates will come out much faster.

I’m not saying that you won’t see updates. I’m saying don’t expect them to be fired out like they have been in the past.

Stay tuned!

Now this all depends on whether Oracle can get Java running again. I think they wouldn’t have bought it if they didn’t have a plan to make it useful again. I personally don’t use Java so I can’t say whether or not I like it, but the statistics don’t lie: Java is losing speed rapidly in the Programming arena.

Now, of course, this is all theoretical and far from scientific. If anything changes, that date will change too. If Oracle improves the language, it might even gain in strength.

Xeno 4 is a video game that is designed to run on your internet browser. It will be similar to a flash game in that respect. However, it will be a lot more dynamic and interesting than the usual flash games. A normal flash game is quite linear with one goal, this game will be a multi-faceted, multi-goal game.

It is quite difficult to describe if you’ve never played an online multiplayer game. You could, of course, visualize it as a social game like on Facebook; however, even there, the comparison is lacking. Facebook games are less linear than flash games (normally) but Xeno 4 would be several times larger than most of the Facebook games combined.

Okay, it is “larger.” In what way?

If I remember correctly, most Facebook games (like Mobsters) are similar to: Create a character; Start fighting “fellow Mobsters” and use up activity points; Just choose from a small list of activities (Buy Guns, Buy Ammo, Buy Slaves, Buy Women, etc…) and do that until you run out of money or activity points for the day. That, in my opinion, is so linear that it amazes me that any person would play a game like that. However, to each their own. You can, though, see that would be a repetitive game. Anyways, I digress.

Xeno 4 will be large because it has a setting. The Mobster-Grind-Like games may claim they have a setting, but unless it’s 2D or 3D and visual, it’s not true. In that case, you have an address, not a setting. In Xeno 4, you would physically control your ships or fleet. In there, you can fly around a system or you can leave that system and go into another system in the galaxy. There are a lot of systems; however, I will go into that later. You can just assume now: there is room to grow… for a long time.

Uh huh… How is it different than “Mobster-Grind-Like” games?

The main difference is that combat will not be a one-shot deal. It will require strategy and knowledge of how combat on this game works. This game, when facing a player, will not be a “play to not use my mind” game. (However, there will be very simple computer players, I expect.) The best combination I can think of would be a chess game combined with an RPG’s set of skills. However, again, that’s not a perfect analogy.

Another difference is this game will be 2-dimensional and nearly fully interactive. The Mobster-Grind-Like games, if you recall, are a lot of “Click to fight.” With the result: “Okay, you won, 21 Exp to you. Grats.” That is not the way Xeno 4 will work. On top of that, movement is also not done by clicking: “Go to store”, “Go to warehouse”, or “Go home,” etc. It will require you to actually fly there. However, again, this is not a game you can play with your mind on other things. Well, at least, you can, but you won’t get everything there is to get out of it.

This one will probably be one you care about most: This is not a Facebook game. I know it sounds like I am making one, but it isn’t. This is as an external game as Google is external to Facebook. They are not related. I am only using the comparison of a Facebook game because most people have either played them or been spammed the hell out of by them (or both!) .

Good, now explain what makes your game unique.

This movement system is not unique. In reality, I will be the first to blame Eve (and to be fair, they weren’t the first either) for this movement system. However, I thought that, while Eve was big, it was too small. In my opinion, space should not be “full” of people. Space is mostly empty and thus should remain so. At this moment, I believe, I have created the largest game world on the internet. (However, please do not go spouting that around. I’ve done 0% industry research on the subject.) At the moment my game is approximately 12 times larger than the Eve Universe and containing nearly 70,000 systems. There are maps around if you look hard enough, especially on our blog.

The synthesis of all of these ideas will create a hybrid real-time/turn-based strategy/Roleplaying Online Browser game that will be exceptionally dynamic and, hopefully gripping and fun. The idea behind the creation of this game is because I have seen too many static, linear games like Neopets, Farmville and several of the Facebook “Mobster-Grind” games. If all else fails and it doesn’t become popular, at least I will have something to play (even without any players) when I want to do something. I plan to be an active player on the game and probably, if the game becomes popular, I will not promise that you may not run into me under a different name.

Hope to see everyone there. If you still have questions, I will be glad to answer them.

Another thing that has kept updates slow is the fact that I have broken down and bought Flash CS5 (yes, I will never support illegal downloading of software that companies put so much effort into making. For more information, see my Anti-Open Source Foundation/Anti-GPL rants.) I figured as it was the only thing I didn’t have in my tool belt, I might as well get it. I will not confirm nor deny that I may or may not use Flash in Xeno 4. However, I will say that you should not expect the game to work on mobiles like Apple’s iPhone ™. I expect everything will turn out fine.

Like I said, you can expect the new Xeno 4 theme to be up by Sunday this week.

Thanks for reading!
Eric

I’ve made some progress on Xeno 4 these past two weeks but we still have a while to go. So far, I’ve moved Project: Ant over to Xeno4.com. I have also transferred the registration system and made use of the Galaxy Map. I linked the systems and created an interactive galaxy map. I organized the game panel under four panes. After that, I started work on the path finding for inter-system navigation. However, there is quite a bit left to do.

Firstly, I must finish my algorithm to create each system’s native structures (asteroid fields, ice range, and gas collections, planets, moons, the star)  as well as the system’s man-made structures (satellites, star bases, space stations, mining plants, space-anchored bases, etc.) After that algorithm completes, I’ll start work on moving within and without the systems. Then, I will update the pane to include your approx. location within the system and your position in the galaxy. After that, I will start work on some sort of communication (chat.) Once that is finished, I will work on fleets and enterprises. After those are implemented, I will start on creating various ships. After that, I will design a docked area page. That page will hold various tools for your ship and yourself. On that page I will add hangars for multiple ships, cargo storage for off-ship storage, a market to sell in, as well as a way to customize what is loaded on your ship. After all that, I will start on the battle map.

That’s all for now, once these are done I will post another list.

I told everyone that I would have a full sized map with jump gate lines, unfortunately, my algorithm is not yet ready to iterate through 186,000 jump gates. Therefore, I am going to give you the largest image I could create.

Don’t worry, it still looks sorta cool.

Click for Full Sized