Space Sim MMO

K

Kalfor

Spaceman
Howdie everyone... been a long time since I dropped by ;)

Well, there is a good reason for this (and also for my return). I have been working on a Space Sim MMO with IBM support for the past 2 years (the project has been going on a little longer) and we are finally approaching Gold stage.

So, why not let the people of the largest wc community hear from it? ;)

The game's name is Taikodom and the story runs around the mysterious "Restriction" of the Earth, when an energy shield of unknown origin prevented anyone from going into Earth and set off a deadly plague that killed billions. Survivors were sent to space, where humans already lived, in cryogenic statis. Now, 150 years later, these resurrects are been brought back to fight for the Consortium, a newly-born corporate-oriented space community struggling against piracy, renegades and fanatics. Can Humanity survive long enough to return to Earth once again?

http://en.taikodom.com

The game is currently under development. We got a "Live Beta" stage going on, where people may register to play the current version of the game. A new version is coming out tomorrow with some addons.

For now, you can go thru 100+ missions, travel thru Sol, Proxima Centauri and Barnard. Tomorow Ross 154 opens up too.

You can create corporations, upgrade your ships, etc. New updates come out each 6 weeks, usually implementing new missions, new space game and lots of new features.

Here are some screenshots
http://en.taikodom.com/Projeto:screenshots

I hope Ill see you guys in space!
- JMBeraldo
AKA Kalfor
 
interesting...

I have to say, my first thought upon entering the website was: "Is that a Homeworld 2 screen shot???? W..T..F??"

...but (there's always a but, right?) then I read more into it and it looks intriguing...

Can you expand a little more on it here?

What's the interface? Keyboard and Mouse? Joystick?

How does the player interact with the world?

Looks very interesting! :)
 
Howdie floundericious!

I hope the HW2 comment was a good one ;)
Art Department does an excellent job in giving form to what nodes (as we call specific parts of space) I describe them. They somehow manage to amaze us at each new release.

The interface is both mouse+keyboard as joystick+keyboard. They were going for a mouse+key idea, but the WC die-hard fans in the team (that includes the CEO and me ;)) asked for a joystick interface.

Now a little more about Taikodom. You probably saw on the website that the first phase, the space sim to be released next semester, is just a part of the whole project. There are already an ongoing graphic novel series and several short tales (Im not sure if they are all available in english yet), plus some novels we are working on. Considering one of our biggest supporters (IBM), english release shouldn't take too long. (The game is been developed in portuguese and english simultaneously).

Players are resurrects, brought back from 150 years of statis to help stabilize the Consortium. There are no nations, but large corporations, not many different from the japanese concept of zaibatsu. And the players themselves may join or create their corporations as the game progresses.

Twice during test phase player corps have created events that cause players themselves to react. First a mining cartel that tried to close up one mining belt and currently a pirate clan who caused the foundation of two security corps. All these events are been monitored and in both cases were integrated into the game universe story as we found it interesting. Yes, player-made events do impact in the game world, especially at this moment of development and testing.

At the moment there are several missions to be played, both part of the main plot of the game and secondary plots. What you got currently in this version of the test are simple and straight forward missions. A more robust mission system, with various objetives, group objetives and a tree structure comes in early 2008.

What will be on for release next semester? Several single-player missions, group missions and corporate missions, plus long-range expeditions that leads a squadron through a series of hard-core missions.

There will be player-created and managed corporations, with corp crests, alliances, fiances and a few surprises that takes some steps into the tactical and strategical gameplay.

An intriguing storyline with twists and bumps, developed by two science fiction writers (one of them a big space sim fan, erm, hello ;)).

No levels! No skill-based system! Its a Space Sim after all! Though there is progression not simply based on economics.

Factions and aligments that allows players and corps to pick sides, form their strategies and battle for their little piece of the Territory and the Consortium expands away from the Core.

Trade routes. The new colony station in Vega needs supplies and components and Horus Orbitats at Uranus produces them. Ceres is one of the largest mining areas of the Solar System and Behemoth Factories needs proccessed metals. What other routes exist out there? You may find out on your own.

Mining and crafting. While today mining is just hunting for asteroids (literally shooting at them), as the game goes Gold we will have specific mining equipment and the right place to look for some elements. These elements can be refined and manufactures up to the largest ships.

And more... Im talking too much already ;)
 
I downloaded it last night and spent some time playing around.

First...the visuals. Those screenshots? Game screen shots. I thought they were renders at first but this game universe really IS beautiful...and I think I was playing with the graphics on their lowest settings.

Second...the game itself. The NPC conversations need a little work, but the gameplay itself is easy to understand and get into. It lends itself very much to a "Freelancer" style of gameplay, but to be fair I wasn't using a joystick at first. I'd say, off hand, you're better playing with a keyboard and mouse, even if you're a dedicated joystick gamer.

I can't say much for the plot, as I've only done some of the tutorial mission, but getting started in the game was as simple as talking to two people to get some basic grasps of the game concepts, and then launching my ship. By the time I got around to playing through the tutorials I had already figured everything out, but the game really is fun to play with some stunning visual effects that make for a really neat little package.

Kalfor, if I can make a suggestion...since you're still in the Beta Page you should have a form somewhere for people to fill out rating the game and providing you with feedback.

I had a little trouble getting the installer to run, it hung on my system for about five minutes before starting the install, and the game is VERY slow to load up, but changing areas in game is a snap. In fact, I'd say it's an improvement over Freelancer, where there was some lag time waiting for a new region to load.

I've never been one to pay to play MMO games, and space MMO games particular have never caught my eye, but I think I'll be watching this one.
 
This looks really interesting and i'm really interested in downloading the demo, but what are the system requirements to run it? and will it run on a machine with Vista?
 
I'm running on a 1.8 GHz Pentium 4 with 1 gig of RAM, Win XP and a GeForce FX 5500.

I get a tiny bit of lag sometimes, but I'm also on a wireless-g network (none of our computers are hardwired).

I can't find system requirements anywhere on the website, or in the install files. It might be listed on the forums, but the forums are alas, all in Portuguese.
 
I tried to run Taikodom a few years (or months?) back, but the site was really dumb (in the sense that it was actually an obstacle to me getting to actually play anything) and the game was really, really user unfriendly. It seems it got better, by your description. I'm gonna try again!
 
I've found ALMOST everything quite user friendly.

What's not is the targeting systems...in the middle of combat they want you to hit space bar, setting your ship to fly in a straight line, then click on the target you want to target while it's rapidly maneuvering around (and trying to shoot at you) before you can lock it as a target.

There's also no hostile/friendly targeting, and cycling through targets with tab will send you through every target in range of your radar. A dogfight in an asteroid belt becomes quite a challenge, since the asteroids are target able for mining.

A quick hot key to target the nearest hostile would alleviate most of these problems. The best solution is to hit F to select the nearest ship, then use tab and shift/tab to cycle through available targets until you get the one you want.

I'm fortunate in that I'm playing with a HOTAS array, which helps combat this effectively since I can fly move shoot and cycle targets without having to move my hands all over the place.

EDIT:

Registering was a bit complex, the registration link in the game didn't seem to work to well, and took about 20 minutes to go through. You can avoid that by registering before you download the program, though.
 
First thoughts but still playing

So far I'd say it looks promising.
In a way alot like the old Earth and Beyond, currently tho I'd say the graphics fall a bit short of E&B at least at this stage. (the planets look a bit warped like they are bitmap images, they seem to bend a bit back and forth)

The controls are a bit clunky at best, but you can work around them.(tho something simpler might make it apeal to a wider audience)

Some things should be better exsplained to make things easier to start. Like I now have more then one ship but I can not find any way to sell or get rid of my old ship.

I have also noticed alot is still not in English but that did not hinder much.

Still even when saying all that It is still for the most part fun, after only a few hours playing I am about to buy my 3rd ship which will have about 550 cargo space so I can really start making the money.



I would ask tho if its possible that they add voice to all the NPCs as this really makes imursen into the game world a much more enjoyable experience.

Blitz

oh, if you play the game I am Jake Connor currently number 230 in the rankings for PVE kills.
 
Well i just got done downloading the demo, and it would seem my computer doesn't like it. I tried messing with the compatability function, but no luck with that. The only thing I was worried about when I was downloading the program was my video card. Its stock part that the computer came with so I'm not sure the quality of the damn thing. Everything else i should be fine for. My cpu runs at 1.8 ghz, and i have a gig of memory.
 
Hmm, this last rather large update that just happened with the game 800-900 seems to hang, it d/ls the patch fine but seems to freeze when it gets to the point where it deletes dirctories. I closed the update but the game still thinks its the 800 version and won't launch......Not sure whats up so I uninstalled the whole thing and am d/l the full thing again to try it....800+megs only about 17mins for me oh well Guess I'll try out my new 550 cargo ship the next day as it is rather late-early....am........zzzzzz:(
 
Hello everyone

Just a quick note before I can reply with all your questions

The server is offline at the moment for the update. It should be up in the afternoon.

On running on Vista, there was a chance in previous versions that it would not run on Vista (though it did run is most attempts). That is been looked into, but its not a priority at this stage of development.

Ill be back in a few with more answer! ;)
 
WCblitz said:
The controls are a bit clunky at best, but you can work around them.(tho something simpler might make it apeal to a wider audience)

I would ask tho if its possible that they add voice to all the NPCs as this really makes imursen into the game world a much more enjoyable experience.
Click to expand...

You've mirrored my two main complaints about the game. The controls need to be streamlined greatly before they will be effective for playing the game.

And NPC dialog feels like interacting with a computer menu, not talking to a person. Instead of a "Back" option to return to the main conversation menu, they should just present you with the list of questions again.

I don't know about anyone else, but NPC conversations hang for a while before they load on my system, and sometimes display the previous conversation I had at a station.
 
Jason_Ryock said:
You've mirrored my two main complaints about the game. The controls need to be streamlined greatly before they will be effective for playing the game.

And NPC dialog feels like interacting with a computer menu, not talking to a person. Instead of a "Back" option to return to the main conversation menu, they should just present you with the list of questions again.

I don't know about anyone else, but NPC conversations hang for a while before they load on my system, and sometimes display the previous conversation I had at a station.
Click to expand...

First I got the update to work finly it seems reinstalling it worked.

The responses do seem to take a while before they show up and have you noticed that when you fly to a new base and start a conversation with a new agent the txt from your last talk with the last agent from the other base is displayed first before the current one.(including the player choices.....) perhaps a txt buffer problem...

as to system reqments....

I'm running a p4 intel 2.4 2 gigs ddr with a old trusty ati 9800 256meg ddr vid card. with 6-16meg cable internet connecting. there does seem to be some lag but nothen that bad, atlest nothen that coused me to die yet. (not that I haven't died a few times just not from lag).

Blitz
 
Yeah, I died too, just once, before I went back and did the tutorial, which didn't teach me anything I didn't already know, but did give me some credits to play around with.

I'm also getting some lag, and until the latest update, I was getting some graphical errors, too (The moon appeared as a big white disc with no textures). The NPC conversations are buggy, just like you mentioned.

I think the only lag I'm getting is due to my wireless connection. A wire-less only home network is fine and dandy for web surfing, but online gaming really stretches a wireless connection to the max. I turned down the graphics options to see if I could improve this and saw no appreciable difference in the graphics, but I DID see a slight increase in performance when I did so.
 
I certainly understand it, but some of the MMO's on the market today have at least partial implementation of it (Guild Wars comes to mind)...

...more pressing, I think, is the fact that it's listed as an up-coming feature on the games website, though.
 
Prepare to shoot rocks!

No, it's not just a comedy spoof, I mean it literally. The best way to gain money in this game seems to be shooting rocks and mining what's left.

Now, I should tell you, I'm not a big MMO kind of guy. I did some SWG when JTL came out, and thought it was the best thing ever. The only problem was, to get to the PVP arenas you had to play through ALL The singleplayer quests and level your character way the heck up.

The only "true" MMO I've played is Guild Wars - which everyone knows, isn't really an MMO at all. Guild Wars gives you a sword and leveled enemies to fight from the first part of the game.

On the other hand, Taikodom seems to want you to spend a majority of your time shooting rocks to get better gear, all the while evading enemy ships....ALL of whom are better equipped then you are. The closest thing I've found to being "level friendly" areas is the protected zone where PVP damage is nulled.
 
Jason_Ryock said:
On the other hand, Taikodom seems to want you to spend a majority of your time shooting rocks to get better gear, all the while evading enemy ships....ALL of whom are better equipped then you are. The closest thing I've found to being "level friendly" areas is the protected zone where PVP damage is nulled.
Click to expand...

I quit EVE Online due to being pretty much required to mine 90% of the game-time, thanks to a few really well-thought patches. I understand a lot of people like to sit down and have a tranquil time with pretty things and no violence... but I've a lot of pent-up hostility to work out yet.
 
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