At Last!! Minions of Mirth Has done it!!!

#21 Had a chance to pop in the world again last night. Josh gave my party boots of the cheetah and we zone into a desert city. mummies, scorpions, and beetles a plenty.

It took another min to get used to not type /a /w in the chat bar LOL. Dont know how Josh knew I was still doing that LOL.

I went back to the main city zone of trinst and starting talking to the locals. I spoke to the Jailer and he wanted me to go into the sewers to kill some giant wererat.

but I had to ask myself were the prisoners better off being eaten by a giant rat or hanging out in the elements for the jailer's amusement. LOL But since my party was weak, Josh graciously turn the aggro off on the monsters so they can sit there as my group chicken peck them to death LOL.

Looking forward to seeing others apply for the Alpha Test. its actually pulling me out of WOW. :))

JohnH

#22 I agree, it's totally cool walking around in there. Unfortunately I have to pack up my computer today for a long trip, so I won't be able to join you all for a bit. Will be interesting to see if it'll play ok over a 56K modem when I get there!

#23 My 2 cents on a point thats mentioned, but glossed over:
If anything else, Josh is an extremely fast learner/coder. He will completely understand the inner workings of just about engine before most of us even get the shrinkwrap off.
Originally, he decided TGE would require too much work for this particular project to succeed, and thus played (and nearly completed) the game with a VERY large amount of other choices. I've lost count, but it appears at least 5 engines have made a go of this venture. And the final result? Torque. This is perhaps the most ambitious project on this site, with among the smallest team, and very limited funding, and yet it will come to fruitation very soon. With Torque.
So to all who ask if TGE can do MMOxxx or xxxRPG, the answer is a resounding HE** YES IT CAN.

#24

Quote:
So to all who ask if TGE can do MMOxxx or xxxRPG, the answer is a resounding HE** YES IT CAN.

And to finish the above sentence...

But you better be ready to work your ass off and know the engine you're using inside and out, and be ready to spend alot of time working on it.

#25 Wow. this game looks VERY impressive.

How heavily was it influenced by EQ? It reminded me of it a lot. Also, I'm assuming a lot of the animations/models in the video were just placeholders. Am I correct?

Other than that...I can only say WOW.

EDIT: I think even more impressive/exciting is the fact that this thing is only in Alpha. I can't wait to see it become more and more polished.

#26 *Blush*

The web page is very outdated.

Here are some newer screenshots and information. We are WAY BEHIND ON OUR MARKETING MATERIALS... all in due time, or something. :)

We've been adding stuff like character portraits (instead of the eyeballs):





(Thanks Poser, a GREAT indie tool!)

The models in the video are sprites... We are contracting for 3d models. The game will also feature a material based clothing system.

Everquest, Diablo, Morrowind, Wizardry, Might and Magic, MUDs, the game has many influences.

-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games

PS: Here's a link to the Quake2 (heavily modified) era video: Minions of Mirth Quake2 Era Quicktime Movie

#27 Bah! I'm cursing my job for not allowing me the free time to write some quests... I'd love to help you guys out with this. There hadn't been any update for a long time and I was starting to fear the worst for your project ;)

Glad to see it's still going stronger than ever. I'll see if I can skip some sleep here and there and work on some quests ;)

#28 Oh...I didn't realize the video I had been watching was Quake II tech. That was pretty impressive for Quake II I'd have to say.

#29 Oh...I didn't realize the video I had been watching was Quake II tech. That was pretty impressive for Quake II I'd have to say.

#30 It was more like Quake 2.5 (Q3A Shaders, level size limits removed, multiple levels served in the same process, rewrote large chunks of the tool chain, etc) In hindsight, I put WAY too much work into the Quake2 engine.

I've made many modifications to Torque. Though, nothing like what I did for Quake2. Torque is a much better fit and is awesome in production. Realtime game editing simply cannot be beat. I am so glad we are using Torque. The Garage Games community is fantastic too. We've received such great support and it really makes a difference.


I don't have an exact date for beginning the Open Alpha Test. The alpha is rock solid in terms of stability. I've played 4+ hour sessions online with people without so much as a burp. The primary concern is opening the doors to players. Players are not going to understand some things about the alpha. We want to address these before we get tons of "Huh? Wha?"

I've played a bit too much Minions of Mirth this last week. The problem is we're making the game I want to play ;)

-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games

#31 Josh, these are the best games to work on : those we want to play, and appeal to vast amount of other people too ;)

I'll try to pop in on the server this weekend sometime
Keep on Torquin' !!!

#32 Josh, awesome job. :) I'm excited to see where this goes.

#33 @Nic: I agree. The game writes itself some days...

@Josh: I'm really looking forward to demoing MoM online for GG. If anyone wants a demo, just shoot me an email and I'll make some room in my schedule. :)

-Josh

#34 I've been waiting for today, finally get to get it up and running, hopefully will have a dedicated server up later tonight (after I put a new 160 gig hard drive in it)

#35 Josh, where is modding fitting into your picture of MoM? Sorry if you've answered this question elsewhere, at the moment I can't recall reading anything about that.

edit: Duh, I could've just read the thread. NM. :)

edit2: okay, question you've probably already answered in this thread #2: have you considered creating a Torque Mmorpg Engine out of MoM?

edit3:

Quote:It was more like Quake 2.5 (Q3A Shaders, level size limits removed, multiple levels served in the same process

That last bit sounds pretty interesting.

#36 I don't think the Sony/Blizzard model for MMORPG works for indie studios of modest staff/budgets. We've had to come up with something a bit different.. at least in structure.

For multiplayer, we're stressing player run persistent worlds with extensive mod support. We have exposed the RPG creation system, and the alpha version comes with the dedicated World and Zone Servers. The entire Torque tool chain can be leveraged as well... it should be cool :)

We may create some official servers, like Runescape, which have a nominal monthly fee. This would be after launch... and maybe after the first expansion is done. This depends on a number of factors... I would like to give players yet another option as to how they play MoM.

We also fully support single player, which I think is going to be very important.

The game is quite stable in single and multiplayer even at the alpha stage. I contribute much of the stability and progress to using mature technology, such as Torque, the Twisted Framework, SQLite, etc...

The FAQ skims the surface of some game concepts and may be interesting.

As far as licensing the technology, for now the best I can give is a resounding maybe.

-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games

#37 Here's a production shot of a player model. Players will be able to choose from normal, muscular, and heavy body types. This is the muscular human male. What is also being shown here is the material based clothing system and some swords from Tridinaut's excellent Weapons Pack.


I am so excited to be getting to this point. Feel the burn baby.

-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games

#38 Darn you Josh Ritter,
I have no doubt my team will waste countless potential project development hours playing your marvelous Minions of Mirth!

/me pushes project completion date out to next year.

#39 Josh, do you still need testers?

#40 Looking great Josh! I really enjoyed playing the Alpha, thanks for considering me in the first release. I was pretty blown away by the scope of MoM and depth of the RPG System you have going in Torque. Torque + Talent = Awesome RPGS. :-)