Duatiu

Just a brief non-progress update

2011-09-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated the blog in a while and unfortunately I don't have a lot to report. The programmer who was working on Duatiu became busy with other things and hasn't been able to contribute anything new for quite a while. This was just when we were trying to finalize the new lighting solution so, as of right now, the engine doesn't have anything but flat shading lighting at the moment. A little bit discouraging.

I did, at least, get sound and projectiles in, so I've been having fun running around shooting things.

For myself, I too am extremely busy with my 'day job'. Also, I just got a new puppy and rather than working all my weekends on the project I have been taking him for walks at the park and doing other outdoor activities.

I have not, however, given up on the project, it's just going along at a much slower pace. I was able to get an initial integration of Detour and Recast for AI pathing working, so I'm pretty psyched about having that in.

My next push will be to get some actual game play in, enough to call in towers and shoot at them as well as other players. Of course, I need to get some kind of lighting solution back in again too.

I will probably spend a couple of weeks full time working on it over Christmas break.

Just a brief update

2011-07-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update so people don't think I've abandoned the project. For the past few weeks I've been working on server architecture. Today I have a server running which has 22,000 objects in the world and can maintain a real-time spatial awareness system for every one of 4,000 simultaneous players. I can connect to that server and as I run around the server updates me with current information about all of the objects around me. This whole system currently consumes only a miniscule amount of CPU to accomplish this. This isn't a trivial thing to do. I'm pretty happy with the data structures and algorithms I created to support this system.

On the graphics front we have decided that instead of use POV-Ray to produce the high quality precomputed radiosity solution we are instead going to use V-Max for 3D Studio Max which produces extremely high quality results. In support of this I wrote a tool to extract all of the lighting from the original source textures and was able to auto-generate tens of thousands of lights for the interior sections of each game level.

Here is a screenshot showing the quality of the pre-computed radiosity solution

Here's a screenshot showing the radiosity solution modulated with the diffuse textures

Here is a screenshot of the Osiris tower that Sam Scott has done for the game.

A Brief Fly-Over video of the Duatiu Game Level

2011-06-28T11:11:00.001-07:00

Quick development Update

2011-06-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

(Note: Still looking for a webmaster; to create the Duatiu website, a community manager, to host the Duatiu forums, and a public relations person to help promote this project and draw in talent. Email John W. Ratcliff)

Just a quick progress update to let people know how things are going. Since my last post here are some things that have been accomplished.

I have established Duatiu LLC, a limited liability corporation for the project.
I have opened a Duatiu LLC checking account and have a credit card account as well.
I have spoken to an accountant and tax expert about how to best manage the financials for the company.
I have applied for a trademark for Duatiu LLC; the application is in process
I have contacted Electronic Arts about getting a release from my previous contract to make sure there is no conflict of interest regarding this new game. They have agreed to do so.
I have contacted an attorney, Tom Buscaglia, 'The Game Attorney' about getting my royalty agreement in place. He is drawing up the contract now.
Sam Scott has been generating 3d art for the project. He has already produced art for the five basic module types and he has modeled the Osiris tower seen above.
Les Simmons has been doing sound design and has produced a number of new sound effects for the game.
My son Alex has been learning action script so we can move forward on the user interface components for the game. Here is a link to his first action script that demonstrates how the damage, shield, and power indicators might look. Just click on the image to see it in different configurations.
Shawn Presser has been making great progress on the graphics engine. We now have the entire 4 kilometer game level rendering with 100 territories. It has a nice skydome, fog, and excellent baked in lighting and shadows. On my machine it runs at over 500 frames per second. We need it to run this fast because the bulk of our GPU/CPU budget will be going towards the 1,000 simultaneous players, weapons, modules, towers, and effects.
Shawn is currently working on writing a patching system so that we can make sure testers will always get the latest binaries for the game. The patcher will be hosted on Amazon S3 cloud services.
Jared Freedman and I have had several brainstorming sessions on the meta-game design for the game. Some things we have come up with that are promising include the following. First of all the game will have an economy. You will need 'credits' to purchase supplies. These 'credits' will be easy to come by and accumulate as you gain and control territory. These 'credits' are directly analogous to how you play most tower-defense games. Over time credits accumulate in proportion to the rate of success you are having in the game. There will never be a case where you feel so resource starved that you cannot play. On the other hand, there will be certain items which cost a high number of credits that will be worth saving up for. When you acquire credits you can choose to keep them all for yourself or share a portion of them with the entire team. This way your team can collectively make large purchases with strategic value. One of these purchases will be for a 'mega-tower'. In normal game play smaller towers are placed strategically throughout the play-field to capture and control territory. However, if a team has enough credits they can purchase a single massive 'mega-tower' which is powerful enough to control the entire territory by itself. Another game enhancement is that power and credits will be able to flow to adjacent territories through binding points at the corners.

So, I'm pretty pleased with the progress so far. Though we have met our key milestone of getting the entire game level rendering we are delaying releasing it until our patching system is complete. Hopefully we will be releasing it sometime early next week. The level geometry will be fairly close to what the final game will contain. Things which will not be fully realized are the following. Jump pads will not yet work. There will not be any interior lighting and, in fact, the lighting will not be nearly at the quality the final levels will use. The base textures will be quite blurry and it will be some time until we have the final textures completed. The elevators will not yet be functional.

Finally, I want to update you with information about the revenue sharing plan for people who contribute to the project. The original ideas I described in my first post were overly complex. After speaking with the attorney I believe we have a much simpler way to accomplish the main goals that I was trying to achieve. What I wanted to design was a revenue sharing plan where everyone who contributed to the project would get reimbursed for their time invested as quickly as possible. I believe we have accomplished that with this plan.

Duatiu LLC will create 10,000 'units' in a shared royalty pool. These 10,000 units will be distributed to the contributing project members as a reward for their time invested. Revenue is calculated as income from players less the core operating expenses of the servers and transaction fees.

For the first half a million dollars of revenue generated by the game the 10,000 units will be reimbursed at a 70% royalty rate with only 30% of revenue going back into the corporation to promote and improve the game. After the first $500,000 of revenue, this royalty pool will be reimbursed at 40% of revenue indefinitely.

Using this formula each 'unit' would earn $35 for the first $500,000 of revenue generated and an additional $20 for each $500,000 revenue generated after that.

I hope to have the legal agreement within the next couple of weeks. The royalty units distributed will be viewable on a publicly available spreadsheet.

Student Artist Samual Scott joins the Duatiu team!

2011-06-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

Turret Error from Samuel Scott on Vimeo.

I am pleased to announce that Samuel Scott, a student the Savannah College of Art and Design, has joined the Duatiu team. Sam attends school with fellow artist Lauren Ratcliff and that's how he was introduced to the project.

Sam will first be working on the artwork for modules and towers; key components for the strategic game play in Duatiu.

Here are some samples of his 3d modeling work.

Check out some more of Sam's work on his Vimeo page located here.

Duatiu Territories and POV-Ray sample

2011-06-08T16:28:00.000-07:00

Duatiu Territories and POV-Ray sample

Download the POV-Ray sample data Gold2.zip here

It's a small file, only 4mb. Once you unzip it load 'gold2_POV_scene.pov' and run it. If you have problems running the scripts; contact me.

Below are renders of the first 10 territories for Duatiu. I am also including all of the POV Ray script data needed for one of these levels; 'Gold2.zip'. I would ask POV Ray experts to please download this script and do their best to tweak both the interior and exterior lighting. Only adjust lights; nothing else. The base diffuse textures are preset and cannot be changed.

In addition to some really nice exterior lighting (hopefully lots of radiosity and multiple light sources) I want to see how nicely you can tune some interior lights. Whoever does the best job coming up with a lighting solution, and is interested, I will be able to pay to tweak lighting for all of the territories.

Territory 1 : Aswan

Territory #2 : Luxor

Territory #3 : Karnak

Territory #4 : Memphis

Territory #5 :Helwan

Territory #6 :Giza

Territory #7 :Cairo

Territory #8: Untitled

Territory #9: Untitled

(This is the territory for which you can download the POV script data.)

Territory #10 : Untitled

Duatiu Hires its first artist for the project!

2011-06-06T09:20:00.000-07:00

Logo Animation from Lauren Ratcliff on Vimeo.

Nepotism is alive and well in the world of self-funded gaming projects. It doesn't hurt that my daughter is amazingly talented. Lauren's first work on the project is to design the Duatiu logo; both the static 2d art at well as the motion media version as seen above.

She is also going to help with the tedious task of creating hundreds of new high resolution textures for the game.

Welcome aboard Lauren! And check out her website.

Duatiu Artwork Needed

2011-06-05T20:36:00.000-07:00

You may have already heard about this from seeing some of my posts recently, but I have decided to start a game project on my own; entirely self funded. It's going to be a massively multiplayer online first person shooter/strategy game similar in tone and scale to Planetside.

It's based loosely on the game design of a single player game I did for Electronic Arts back in 1997. I have always loved that game and I have always wanted to do a new version, but in an MMO setting. This is a 'for profit' venture. I'm sinking not only a lot of my own time into it, but also a lot of my money as well. It's important to me that I do this independent of a game studio and independent of external funding. (To be honest, this effort was inspired in part because of people constantly harassing me to come work for them or join their startup company. It occurred to me, maybe, I should just start my own company instead!)

The biggest blocking factor for me right now is 3d art. I have a modest amount of 3d modeling, texturing, and animation that needs to be done. Probably the biggest ticket item is that I need three unique character models built, textured, rigged, and animated.

I'm looking for artists who might be willing to work with me for a share in the profits. I've set up a system where the share of the profits is an accurate measure to the share of the contribution.

My business model is to release the game as early and often as possible and to begin charging money for it as soon as there is enough game working that it seems justified. Our general ball park goal is first playable by January 2012 and, hopefully, generating revenue by March 2012; in time for GDC.

My business model is also extremely modest. The game needs only 500 regular players for it to 'break even'. I define 'break even' as meaning that everyone who contributed to the project at least gets paid back a fair and reasonable amount for the time they put into it. If the game gets 2,000 regular paying players it will mean a tidy profit for everyone who was involved. If lightening strikes in a bottle and it gets 10,000+ regular paying players it would pay off very, very well for everyone who contribitued to its success.

The game is targeted specifically at a narrow audience of first person shooter fans who want a massively multiplayer gaming experience with a deep, deep, strategic element. One of the key elements of the game design is that there is a deep underlying 'fairness' built into the game play. You do not kill another player in this game design by firing a single sniper bullet. Instead you literally, and I mean quite literally, dismember them piece by piece in a battle which might last several minutes. It's a style of game play few first person shooter fans have ever experienced. And, I know from experience, that it ends up being an extremely addictive kind of game play. Since the kills are so much harder earned, and fundamentally fair (meaning no kills by lag), there is intense stratification in this style of play.

Another extraordinarily unique element of the game design is that it will have AI agents which rival human players. In fact, to the server, there is no difference between an AI agent or a human being. The AI server will talk to the game server *exactly* the same way as a human player. The AI will have no access to any information that a human player doesn't also have and, therefore, will never cheat. The AI will produce some interesting emergent qualities which some people may experience/interpret as emotion, grudges, and just plain viciousness.

And, here is the key. Since the AI will rival the game play of a human player, I will make sure that the server is, at all times, populated with at least 500 players! Always. The maximum number of players for a single server is 1,000; but the minimum is 500. The world will always be filled with action and you can switch between fighting against human players or AI players completely organically as the game play evolves.

Will this game appeal to all of the first person shooter fans in the world? Probably not. Will it appeal to one in ten of them? Or even one in twenty? Maybe so. It's all an economy of scale and if your MMO title can hit 'break even' with just 500 regular players; it's not that hard to imagine a game design which could fill this niche.
This is game I have been wanting to make for 15 years and I'm now getting really serious about making it happen.

If you are a freelancer and able to work on outside projects; I would really love it if you would consider contributing to this project. If you can't work on it, either due to conflict of interest or lack of time, please recommend any junior artists you know who might be looking for their chance to 'get a break into the game industry' and expand their portfolio.

Please let me know if you are interested in working on the project, or no anyone who might be. This is a non-paying gig. People who contribute to the project will receive a share of the profits, measured by shares of stock awarded for their creative investment.
There's a chance I could pay a modest amount of money, more like minimum wage level, out of my own pocket to students who want to work on the project but can't work for free.

I need a modest amount of 3d modelling work done for Duatiu. Most of it is based on original source artwork; but the artist should generally think of this source art simply as 'concept' art. I have included links to Wavefront OBJ files with the source 3d geometry where available. Wavefront OBJ files can generally be imported into virtually an 3d authoring package. None of these 3d models have been textured. Many of them are insanely low poly count. All of them could be modeled at a much higher polygon density. Each one needs its own texture which should be use no tiling. You can make the texture pretty much as high resolution as you wish as I can always downsample a texture; it's upsampling that's a pain in the ass.

The textures should all fit the general theme of the game which is a kind of mix of high tech machinery with ancient Egyptian artifacts. So long as you think 'Stargate' you will be more or less on track. For the textures, feel free to make heavy use of Egyptian hieroglyphics as well as Illuminati/Freemason symbolism.

The following 3d models have no pre-existing concept art or design:

HellHound : This is a wolf like dog / companion, which will walk by your side and attack an enemy on command. Will not stop attacking that one enemy until it has been killed. If it kills the enemy, and lives, the hell hound will return to your side. Need concept art, 3d model, character rigging, animation (run, walk, attacks, sit, etc.), and texturing.
Cat : This is a 3d model of a cat which acts as a sentinel / protector. Needs only a 3d model and texturing. Cat should look like a sitting sentinel with piercing eyes. It attacks by shooting beams of light out of its eyes.
MegaTower : This is a massive tower of incredible power. Needs a deployment and running animation. Needs to be designed in compliance with the requirements for APEX chippable destruction objects (needs a destroyed model which sits inside the non-destroyed model). Damage is indicated as the outside of the tower is destroyed in bits and pieces.
Barrier : A barrier is a concrete barrier which can be deployed for cover/protection of to block passage through tunnels. This too needs to be a destructible/chippable object.

The Ahnk : Wavefront OBJ File : Needs to be textured.

The Ahnk is the Egyptian key of life and death.

At four locations in the city there will be an Ahnk rotating above the ground. Currently these locations are random, but they will be specific locations when it is finished. There should be no real secret about where the Ahnks are. Everyone playing should know where they are, and since they rotate high above the external battlefield they are pretty easy to spot right now.

Ahnks present some interesting strategic decisions.

Here’s how they work.

(1) If you shoot an Ahnk and make it explode, it will do damage to any robots in the vicinity. *MASSIVE* damage. Instant death for anyone nearby, including you of course if you aren’t far enough away when you shoot it. So...it would be strategically relevant for you to shoot (with long-shot) an Ahnk that one of your opponents is near. An Ahnk takes a fair amount of firepower to destroy, the same as a tower. So it’s not like you just peg it once and it explodes. Ahnks will only appear out in the open, not inside buildings.

You could weaken an Ahnk to the exact point it needs just one more shot to explode and just wait for your enemy to come by to fire that last shot.

(2) To activate an Ahnk you step directly underneath it. You will hear a sound effect play and the Ahnk will fall from the sky. When it hits the ground it explodes. For *each robot* in the vicinity the Ahnk will grant either life or death. There is a 1 in 4 chance the Ahnk will kill you. A ¾ chance it will completely restore your health instantly. For example it could kill you but repair your enemy, or vice versa, or repair you both or kill you both, random numbers being as finicky as they are. I somewhat expect heavily injured robots to start running towards Ahnks as a last ditch desperation effort. Even though you can get repaired in the field by the sarcophagus, that’s generally not much use in the heat of combat.

There should be no secrets about the Ahnk, it should be an informed strategic decision in combat as to whether or not you want to activate it. That’s why the Ahnks should appear in specific known locations in each city, so that the combatants can include them into their decision making process. If you activate an Ahnk and are completely healthy, in addition to facing the risk of death, you have also wasted the chance to be saved in combat. Your call of course.

Little Gray Alien : Wavefront OBJ File

This model is part of the an easter egg portion of the game. This model could be redone at a much higher resolution. Needs new model and texture; does not need to be rigged with a skeleton. Should look as close to the alien in the infamous 'alien autopsy film' as possible.

BOUNCERS : Wavefront OBJ file; needs to be textured. www.duatiu.com/dutiu_source_art/betty1.obj

2 Bouncers per module. Only 5 Bouncers per team in a city at any given time.

Bouncers are designed to be similar to a “bouncing betty” type mine. They fire 16 bullets in a ring at their detonation point. When you active a bouncer it pops up in the air, then falls right to about the height of a robots head, and detonates. The detonation launches a circular ring of 16 bullets, that will hit anything in their way. The detonation itself also creates an explosive charge similar to a regular mine.

Bomblet : Needs to be textured Wavefront OBJ file

This is a bomblet which released from a cluster bomb.

Cluster Bomb : Needs to be new 3d art at a higher resolution and textured. Wavefront OBJ file here.

This is a missile you fire and it explodes only after it has fired a considerable distance. This means it needs a lot of flying room. The cluster bomb has to fly for 3 seconds before it is even activated. So you must be able to carefully gauge where it will explode so the cluster bomblets will saturate the area you believe the enemy is located.

When it explodes a pile of bomblets float slowly to the ground and detonate wherever they hit.

If the cluster missile hits a building and has flown for 3 seconds, it will dump it’s load right there. If it actually hits another robot after flying 3 seconds, it will dump the whole load right in his lap and will almost for sure kill him.. Great for clearing minefields or destroying modules out in the play field.

The All Seeing Eye : Needs an entirely new 3d model and texturing.

The original model was just a creepy looking eyeball. 'The All Seeing Eye' is a remote control camera that can be flown, indefinitely, anywhere around the battle field so spy on the enemy. The new 3d model should look like the infamous 'Eye in the Pyramid' like on the back of the dollar bill. The more Illuminati looking the better.

EYE OF RA : Needs to be textured; could be higher resolution. Wavefront OBJ link.

Will act as a sentinel. The “eye” rotates around in the air, shooting at *anybody* who is in it’s vicinity. The Eye of Ra, which is basically like the sentinel in Cyberstrike...except...it rotates *very* slowly, you can run around it if you are paying attention. It shoots out of both sides, at *all* robots in the vicinity. Meaning, if there are 4 or 6 robots in it’s

field of view, it shoots at all of them simultaneously. The cool part is that it’s fire range is very narrow, as it slowly turns, once it’s perfectly faces you, it sends out a rapid fire stream of bullets that can annihilate you in an instant! The actual 3d is about 400 polygons, the eye itself looks awesome.

MASHER GRENADE : Needs to be textured. Wavefront OBJ.

Masher grenades are just like Pineapples except they explode on impact. Just lots of practice aiming them. If you fire them straight forward while you are running forward or directly into a wall/object/robot right in front of you then you are highly likely going to take damage yourself. Mashers are extremely effective for taking out a robot’s shield

Ground to air missle : Needs to be textured; ok if it's a bit higher polycount. Wavefront OBJ.

This is the ground to air missile. The ground to air missile does not just go after the opposing team’s supply ships. If goes after anything that it above a certain altitude. This includes robots (Horus in a rocket-pack, or other robot in a sniping position), towers, and sarcophagus.

The ground to air missile leaves a beautiful smoke trail behind it. It takes 2 ground to air missiles to take out a supply ship. If you take out the enemy’s supply ship they will get a new one after only 60 seconds. Since it’s liable to take you 60 seconds to take his supply ship out you have to weigh the benefits of doing this. A ground to air missile fired at a robot, however, is going to be devastating if it hits them. It’s important to realize that there are many critical points in the game where having the opposing team do without their supply ship for 60 seconds is extremely damaging. So pick the right time to use this weapon.

Supply Ship : Delivers towers and modules onto the battlefield. This model should be completely rebuilt at a much higher polygon density. Wavefront OBJ.

The supply ship delivers towers and modules into the battlefield. There is only one supply ship per team and must be shared amongst all of the players. The supply ship can be destroyed and, if this happens, it causes a significant time penalty until under one can be deployed to resupply the team.

Each module needs to be textured; possibly slightly higher poly count but not really necessary.

There are five types of modules in the game. The first module type can be ordered from a supply ship and used by any player Anubis, Horus, or Sekhmet. The next three module types indicate, by shape, whether they can be used only by Anubis, only by Horus, or only by Sekhmet. The fifth module type cannot be ordered by a supply ship; they are artifacts which are seeded into the world in limited quantities as each battle begins.

This 3d model represents a mortar round. It needs to be textured and could, possibly be a bit higher poly count. Wavefront OBJ.

A tower for team Osiris. It needs to have a deployment animation as well as a continuously running animation. It also needs both a destroyed and non-destroyed version of the model suitable for use as a 'chippable' asset in the APEX PhysXLab destruction tool.

A tower before it has been deployed. Wavefront OBJ.

A viper's egg. This egg is placed into the world with the viper module. When it hatches a number of viper snakes are deployed. Wavefront OBJ.

PINEAPPLE GRENADE : Needs to be textured. Wavefront OBJ.

This is a grenade. You throw a Pineapple grenade and it will bounce along the ground and come to a rest. It will then sit there for about 10 seconds and then explode. The Pineapple grenades can be fired in an extremely rapid volley. Pineapple grenades will bounce off of the walls and react to the environment. In this fashion you can play more with the physics of how they react when you toss them.

All grenade explosions have been given a fairly narrow range for damage. This is for a number of reasons. Grenades are dangerous enough as it is, and I want using grenades to be more skill oriented. That you should need to really get the hang of aiming them.

To launch a grenade you set your point of view up, and how high your point of view is in the air controls how high the grenade is tossed.

Ra deployed tower

Ra tower before it has been deployed

SARCOPHAGUS : Needs 3d model; animation, and to be textured. Wavefront OBJ.

The sarcophagus is a repair booth. You must stand inside the middle of it for 15 seconds to get fully repaired. The enemy can destroy the sarcophagus before you are repaired. Anyone can use a sarcophagus, but only a single sarcophagus may be on the play field for each team at any given time.

The repair booth fully repairs your robot of all missing parts but it DOES NOT repair your shield. You get one shield, and you have to try to keep it intact throughout the entire life of that robot.

While you are being repaired you will hear an audio effect which indicates the progress. You will see the status display update towards green any damaged portion of your body. Any missing body part requires the full 15 seconds to be replaced. If you need to abort the repair process before it is complete you hit the letter “C” to cancel.

Once the repair booth has been used it will take 30 seconds before another robot can use it again. The repair booth will not activate on undamaged robots.

Scarab Beetle : Needs 3d model; animation, and to be textured. Wavefront OBJ.

Tracker Mines : Needs new 3d model and texture. Wavefront OBJ.

You get two T-MINES per module. There are only allowed 5 T-MINES in the city, per team, at any given time. A TMINE stands for “Tracker mine”. A devastating weapon. When this mine is triggered it fires 4 Tracker missiles into the air to hit any robot it can find. If a robot’s shields are up, a TMINE just isn’t going to do much. The Trackers will most likely get absorbed by the shields.

While entertaining, and dangerous, this mine is extremely useful to try to make backfire. You can use Minesweep, or try firing bullets at T-MINES on the play field and have them launch rockets after your opponent.

TRACKER MISSILES : Needs to be textured; higher poly density ok. Wavefront OBJ.

Trackers are like small self-guided missiles, but fired as bullets. Trackers have a 3 stage system, and are definitely not fire and forget weapons. You should never fire a Tracker unless you are aiming it at an enemy robot. A Tracker has an initial flight stage and then it becomes armed when a sound effect will play. Due to this initial flight stage, you can’t fire a Tracker at a robot standing right next to you. Once the Tracker hits the arming stage, it should be near an enemy robot, because if it cannot find an enemy robot, a short time later it will attempt to acquire anyone it can, which might well be you.

Once a tracer is on you, there is little you can do. Some evasive tactics are as follows.

1. Shields. A Tracker, or any bullet, which impacts your shield does the same amount of damage. Trackers should only be used against robots who have their shields down, or large gaps in their shield.

2. Stealth. If you are in stealth mode, which is used for radar invisibility then Tracker won’t see you.

3. Jumping, rocket pack, and other radical changes might allow you to turn outside of an incoming Tracker. If it misses you, it might re-acquire somebody else. In fact, it might be good to close with any robot you know is using Trackers.

4. Energy pulse. A special module called REPULASR will repel incoming bullets, but only when they are extremely close to you. More than a single energy pulse might be required to evade a Tracker. Somewhat like using chaff, but energy pulse actually causes incoming bullets to be re-vectored away from you. If someone is shooting Slowblo’s at you, this would be a great strategy because you might cause the Slowblo to go right back towards them.

Trackers have been specifically designed to have many characteristics of a bullet type weapon to distinguish it from the many true missiles which are available to Sekhmet. Trackers take strategy to use properly, you get a very limited number of them, but if they hit, they do a LOT of damage. Trackers are completely useless indoors.

The UFO : Part of the Easter egg involving the crash of a Roswell style UFO replete with little gray alien bodies. Needs a whole new 3d model and texturing. Wavefront OBJ.

VIPERS : Need new 3d model; animation; textured. Wavefront OBJ.

When you activate this module it throws out an egg in front of you that likes like one of the eggs from Aliens. It then cracks open, and 5 vipers start writhing out, 24 frames of animation in a slither, purple and gold stripes! Extremely creepy! The egg will sit there until another robot comes by. Once the vipers are loose they will mill about that area and will approach any robot they find, including you if you happen to be around. They will bite the feet of your robot potentially inflicting a lot of damage if you aren’t paying attention.

Vultures: Needs new higher res 3d model, flying, landing, taking off, and feeding animations. Needs to be textured. Wavefront OBJ.

In each city there will be roughly 5 vultures. When they see a battle in progress they will begin circling overhead. This acts as an indicator to other players that a battle is taking place. When someone’s arm gets blown off intact, one or more of the vultures will swoop down and begin ‘feeding’ on the debris. If you shoot at a vulture it will immediately fly away. It takes about 5 shots or so to actually kill a vulture. If you do it will begin spinning while it falls to the ground. Wherever it hits it will create a small explosion that could damage anyone nearby.

Project Scarab

2011-06-05T12:31:00.000-07:00

Calling all S.C.A.R.A.B. players from the past. Please contact me as soon as possible! I can use your help and enthusiasm. Click here to send me an email.

I was quite gratified to see that the web site for Project Scarab is at least still alive.

Just a little progress update

2011-06-03T09:23:00.000-07:00

I have made some big decisions to move this project forward in the past 24 hours; and these decisions involved committing thousands of dollars out of my own savings to get things off the ground.

First, I have formed a limited liability corporation, under the name 'Duatiu LLC', which will have 10,000 shares of stock to distribute to partners.

Second, I filed a trademark application on the name 'Duatiu'. I expect no difficulties since the name is a coined term and doesn't show up anywhere on any search engines.

Third, I have come to an agreement with partner Shawn Presser to work on Duatiu *full time* for the indefinite future. Shawn is being reimbursed for his time spent on this project as a combination of shares of stock and a modest amount of cash to help defray his own personal expenses.

This is a pretty big deal; having a talented software engineer able to work on the project full time should go a long way towards pushing the game to the next level.

Our current ball park milestones are as follows:

Within Two Weeks : A downloadable demo of the Duatiu game world. You will be able to fly a free camera and walk an avatar around the game environment. The visual production values will be close to the final product. Using precomputed radiosity, nice diffuse textures, and a high resolution detail texture, we expect the game environment itself to be very visually stunning. The game engine is being written exclusively in C++ for OpenGL. While it will initially run on Windows; it may at a future time run on a wide array of tablet operating systems.
Within Four to Six Weeks : Be able to connect to a server, hosted on Amazon.com, and walk around the game environment and see avatars representing other playrs.
Within Three Months : Be able to play a simple basic game involving calling in supplies, operating a shield, and shooting human opponents; all in a multiplayer environment.
Within Six Months : Functional AI agents running on the server; more of the actual game play implemented.

These are just back of the napkin estimates, but it does give you a general ideal of the scope and time frame we are thinking about. I'm extremely excited that Shawn has committed to working full time on this project. I expect good things to come from this soon!

It's really happening!

2011-06-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I have already received quite a bit of positive feedback in the past 24 hours about this project. First, a number of my friends in the industry have promised to help me out and that has been amazing!

So far I have commitments of time from:

Shawn Presser : Who is writing the core graphics engine and has already been working on the project for several months. Shawn's contributions to this project have already been amazing. We are currently working towards our first milestone to provide a demo that will allow anyone to run a character around one of our game world environments sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Jared Freedman, An excellent game designer, developer, long time friend, and all around good guy.

Billy Zelsnack : Billy is a well known figure in the game industry and a long time friend. He has volunteered to help with the game project when he can.

Charles Bloom : It helps to have good friends in the game industry and Charles, even though he is one of the top guys in the world he still took the time yesterday just to whip up a little bit of code I needed to solve a problem. I see shares of stock in Charles's future. Plus, he's a fellow Porsche fan so we have that in common.

John Miles : What has John Miles done on this project? Nothing. Does John Miles even know that this project exists? Probably not. Have I even asked John Miles if he will work on this project? No I haven't. But, as a life long friend, I'm sure he will help me out when I need it.

Wajih-Halim : A recent college graduate in computer science who wishes to help with graphics special effects on the game.

Ben Hesketh : Runs his own successful game company and contacted me from this website because he thinks the project sounds interesting. Ben has volunteered to contribute on the server code. The website for Ben's company, Compass Engine, can be found here. And a link to his recent game 'Bounty Island' can be found here.

Robert Sitton : Robert is a long time game industry veteran and was one of my key sidekicks when developing the game 'Planetside' for Sony Online Entertainment.

Joe Bizz : Musician and sound engineer and fellow UFO enthusiast. So how that networking shit works.

RAD Game Tools : The guys at Rad Game Tools are long time friends of mine, Jeff, Mitch, David, Brian, Sean, and others. They have always been extremely helpful in supporting me and my projects and it looks like I may be able use their latest product 'Iggy' to accelerate the development process for this game. 'Iggy' is an amazing product written by the the no less amazing Sean Patrick Barrett (one of the Gods of the open source community). 'Iggy' is an embedded Adobe flash engine that virtually eliminates the need to do any custom user interface programming. The entire user interface for a game becomes a series of Flash/ActionScript/FLEX data assets. This should greatly accelerate the development of the user interface for this game. Of course, that means that now, instead of looking for a GUI programmer, I need an expert who knows how to use these tools; but that seems like a much simpler hurdle to leap.

This is a really good start to the virtual team, but I still need some more artists to join the project. Hopefully when people see the caliber of people involved they will realize they are missing the boat if they don't hop on soon.

A Duatiu FAQ

2011-05-31T20:31:00.000-07:00

(Video of a little project I worked on...)

This post is designed to answer some questions I know a lot of people following this project are probably wondering about. If you have additional questions not answered here, please feel free to email me and I will answer as best I can.

Why is this project called 'Duatiu'?

The project is called 'Duatiu' because that was the original internal code name that I used when I was developing the game Scarab for Electronic Arts. I was actually kind of hoping the shipping game would be called that, but it was never used.

Of course that doesn't really answer the question 'why' Duatiu? The name is based on the Egyptian mythology of the 'Duat'. I just added the 'iu' at the end to coin a term; and, that's part of it. It's damned hard to make up a name that hasn't already been used by car companies or pharmaceuticals. The word 'Duatiu' doesn't seem to have been used anywhere, by anyone, for anything. I like how the sound of it rolls across the tongue. Is it the best name in the world? Probably not. Could I find a better name? Probably so, but I'm not. I picked 'Duatiu', and I'm sticking with it so get used to it.

The concept of the duat in Egyptian mythology is pretty hip. You can read a nice description on Wikipedia here. I will quote the introduction.

In Egyptian mythology, Duat (or Tuat) (also called Akert, Amenthes, or Neter-khertet) is the underworld. The Duat is a vast area under the Earth, connected with Nun, the waters of the primordial abyss. The Duat is the realm of the god Osiris and the residence of other gods and supernatural beings. It is the region through which the sun god Ra travels from west to east during the night, and where he battled Apep. It also was the place where people's souls went after death for judgement, though it was not the full extent of the afterlife.^[1] Burial chambers formed touching-points between the mundane world and the Duat, and spirits could use tombs to travel back and forth from the Duat.^[2]

What we know of the Duat principally derives from funerary texts such as Book of Gates, Book of Caverns, Coffin Texts, Amduat and the Book of the Dead. Each of these documents fulfills a different purpose and gives a different perspective on the Duat, and different texts can be inconsistent with one another. The texts which survive differ in age and origin, and it is likely that there was never a single uniform interpretation of the Duat.^[3]

The geography of Duat is similar in outline to the world the Egyptians knew. There are realistic features like rivers, islands, fields, lakes, mounds and caverns, along with fantastic lakes of fire, walls of iron and trees of turquoise. In the Book of Two Ways, one of the Coffin Texts, there is even a map-like image of the Duat.^[4]

The Book of the Dead and Coffin Texts were intended to guide the recently deceased through the Duat's dangerous landscape and to a life as an akh or blessed spirit amongst the gods. The dead person must pass a series of gates guarded dangerous spirits, depicted as human bodies with grotesque heads of animals, insects, torches or knives.^[5] These beings have equally grotesque names, for instance "Blood-drinker who comes from the Slaughterhouse" or "One who eats the excrement of his hindquarters".^[6] Other features emphasised in these texts are mounds and caverns, inhabited by gods or supernatural animals, which threatened the spirits of the dead. The purpose of the books is not to lay out a geography, but to describe a succession of rites of passage which the dead would have to pass to reach the afterlife.^[7]

If the deceased successfully passed these unpleasant demons, he or she would reach the Weighing of the Heart. In this ritual, the heart of the deceased was weighed by Anubis, using a feather, representing Ma'at, the goddess of truth and justice. The heart would become out of balance because of failure to follow Ma'at and any hearts heavier or lighter than her feather were rejected and eaten by the Ammit, the Devourer of Souls. Those souls that passed the test would be allowed to travel toward the paradise of Aaru.

In spite of the unpleasant inhabitants of the Duat, this was no Hell to which souls were condemned; the nature of Duat is more complex than that. The grotesque spirits of the underworld were not evil, but under the control of the Gods.^[8] The Duat was also a residence of gods themselves; as well as Osiris, Anubis, Thoth, Horus, Hathor and Ma'at all appear as a dead soul makes its way toward judgement. It was also in the underworld that the sun, Ra, travelled under the Earth from west to east and was transformed from its aged Atum form into Khepri, the new dawning Sun. Just as a dead person faced many challenges in the Duat, Ra faced attack in the underworld from the evil serpent Apep.^[9]

Why all the weird assed Egyptian crap?
I suppose that is a fair question. The simple answer is that it was completely arbitrary. I was trying to think of a theme which would provide a really rich visual motif. When I think of things which are part of ancient Egypt, I not only think of cool architecture, but I imagine deep gold colors and rich royal blues and purples. I think of stunning patterns in mosaics, textiles, and stone.

In short, I think it looks cool. What is a little bit annoying is that when the movie 'Stargate' came out in 1994 it was after I had already made these design decisions. But, I would forever be fated to have people think I did the whole thing based on the movie. That simply wasn't the case but the movie, and TV series, shows that there is a ton of cool looking visuals you can create if you mix ancient Egyptian mythology with modern technological devices.

So, for better or worse, Duatiu has a weird assed Egyptian motif which doesn't make a damned bit of sense but looks cool. Let's move along...

"Why are you telling everyone your great ideal, won't somebody just rip you off and steal it?"

This is just a complete miss-perception of the value of a 'good idea'. The simple fact of the matter is that every single hard core gamer, and there a millions of them, thinks they have the greatest idea for a game. I hate to bust their bubble, but nobody really gives a shit about your great idea for a game. Idea's, unfortunately, are a dime a dozen.

It's for this reason that I can publicly reveal my business model. I can publicly reveal my game design. I can publicly reveal absolutely everything I hope to do with this project and none of it really matters. The only thing that would matter is if some other team of developers took my ideas and then went and invested an enormous amount of creative time and energy and made their own game. In which case, I wouldn't be angry, I would be honored and impressed. The power and value of a good idea is only in its expression as a tangible product. If someone else made a game exactly as I describe here I would be the first person to be staying up late at night playing it. Because, at the end of the day, that's what I want out of this project; a great game I would love to play.

"If this game is just supposed to be based on the game design of Scarab, an Electronic Arts title, how can you do that, don't they own all the rights?"

It's like this. I was not, and have never been, an employee of Electronic Arts. My company at the time, 'John Ratcliff Games', created Scarab. My company owned that game, that game design, the programming and the artwork. 'Electronic Arts' owns the trademark to the name 'Scarab', they own the publishing rights to the game (which they did publish). For five years after the game shipped my contract with them stipulated that they had right of first refusal on future projects. That five years has long since expired.

And, while this new game 'Duatiu' is *inspired* by Scarab, it is a completely new product entirely. It is 100% new programming, new artwork, and is designed to be an MMO. So, while I pay homage to 'Scarab', I also pay my respects to 'Archon', 'Cyberstrike', 'Tribes', and 'Planetside'. These are the games, and the type of deep strategic game play in an action environment, which appeal to me.

If S.C.A.R.A.B. was such a complete flop, why are you trying to make another game like it?

That's a complicated topic. There is no question that Scarab was not a commercial success. There are any number of reasons for that; weak marketing not being the least of them. However, while it may not have been a huge commercial success it was both a technical success and a major game design success. The game, though it had limited distribution and marketing, had an insane rabid following of deeply, deeply, addicted players; mostly on the now defunct multiplayer gaming site 'Mplayer'.

At the time, there were hundreds of addicted Scarab game players who formed clans, set up websites, and fought endless battles in this tiny world.

The business model I am adopting for 'Duatiu' does not require that it be anything other than a 'flop' by big studio standards. In the big studio world, if an MMO 'only' has 40,000 players it is considered a dismal failure and the company considers shutting the servers down.

However, if Duatiu 'only' gets 2,000 regular players we are talking about a business which is going to generate $200,000 a year. Now, I don't know about you, but $200,000 is pretty damned good money. In fact, rest assured, for $200,00 a year I could easily quit my 'day job'; and, after doing so, I would devote my efforts to do everything humanly in my power to keep those 2,000 addicted players fueled with new content, new game design, and answer to their every whim and desire.

So, yeah, I'll take that kind of a 'flop' any day of the week.

And, worst case scenario, the game 'only' gets 500 regular players. That's still $50k a year and, while I might not quit my day job, that would sure be some nice jack to set aside in the bank for a rainy day, buy a fancy new car, or go on a nice vacation.

Do you honestly believe you can write an MMO by yourself without a budget?
It's kind of hard to answer this question without tooting my own horn, but so be it. Yes, I honestly believe I can because, well...that's what I do. I now feel officially pretty old. I turn 50 on October 12 of this year. I started as a programmer when I was 17 years old back in 1979. I was being paid as a computer programmer almost immediately and early on I developed software for a high school that managed report cards for all of their students. At East Central Community college I developed educational software for the mathematics department. (Here is a not particularly up to date copy of my resume.)

In 1982 I got a job at Milliken Publishing company and began writing educational software and games. Soon after that I developed software in support of core research in cardiology at St. Louis University. Shortly after that I began developing a computer game published by Electronic Arts.

Over the next ten years I developed three games for Electronic Arts as well provided technology and support to numerous Electronic Arts titles and many other game companies as well.

Later I went to work for Simutronics Corporation and was the lead software engineer on Cyberstrike 2 published by '989 Studios'. After that I started the St. Louis office of Sony Online Entertainment, built up a team of artists and programmers, and was the lead software engineer for 'Planetside'; the world's first massively multiplayer first person shooter. Next I joined Ageia technologies, a startup company which was focused on providing cutting edge physics simulation technology for games. This technology became 'PhysX' and the company was later acquired by NVIDIA corporation (to be clear I have had little to do with any of the core physics technology, I have primarily been focusing on tools and game engine integration). I briefly worked on an MMO game engine called "Hero Engine" and then ended up at NVIDIA corporation where I now work as a technical support engineer. My current job is focused on helping game companies integrate and realize the capabilities of the PhysX and APEX SDKs in their products; showcasing technologies such as destruction, clothing, and particle simulation.

So, do I think I can develop and ship a game pretty much 'by myself' if I set my mind to it? Of course I do; absolutely. I have a proven track record of having done it a number of times before and the only thing standing in my way is my willingness to dedicate myself to the project. I used to do this sort of thing when I was self-employed and had my own game company and, since then, a number of companies have paid me very well because I have the expertise and ability to do this for them.

I am at a certain time in my life where, at the age of 50, I am wondering about my future. I have made a very good living sitting behind a computer and programming it to do things which just started out as ideas in my head. I'm very good at, and I really enjoy it, but I'm not certain that is what I still want to be doing when I'm 55, or 60, or even older. In my life time I have written games that have gone on to make a great deal of money. I've done it before, and I see no reason to believe I can't do it again. My goal is to reach a point where I can sort of 'semi-retire'. I'll never really not work, but I want to be in a position where I'm my own boss and only work on what I want to, when I want to. And I want to have the financial freedom to take a sabbatical, or vacation, or just some time off to do things that are not directly tied to getting a paycheck.

Now, that's a pretty lengthy answer to a pretty short question. I have gone on at some length to make it very clear that I am not some 20 year old kid who just graduated from 'Full Sail' and 'wants to make a game'. I am an experienced veteran of the game industry, I have been working in this industry for over 30 years, I have a long track record of producing successful shipping products, including a massively multiplayer first person shooter. This is something I have thought long and hard about and I'm taking the project very seriously.

Ok, ok, I get it. You are an old fart who can program the computer. That still doesn't answer the question, how can you write an MMO, which usually takes a team of a hundred people a few years to make, by yourself?

This too is a fair question. The simple answer is because I'm not trying to make the kind of MMO that the big game studios are trying to make. They are creating an MMO designed to address a mass market with broad appeal. Their business model requires well over a 100,000 subscribers to justify their development expense.

A big studio makes a big MMO. They make giant investments in massive quantities of content, game design, character advancement, customization, and growth.

Meanwhile, I'm taking things a bit more literal. To me a massively multiplayer online game simply means that it's a game where a massive number of people can play at once on the same shared server. Massive being a relative term but, in my case, the design goal is 1,000 people per server.

My game doesn't have fancy content. It doesn't have character advancement and customization. There are no ways to 'level up'. My game is much more basic and limited in scope. My game is a first person shooter, one which I believe has addictive qualities. The server architecture and client architecture are simple, proven, and sound. They present no technical difficulties or challenges.

The only technically challenging thing I have proposed is the advanced artificial intelligence. However, frankly, I think AI is one of my strengths and that is a challenge I look forward to meeting.

I can't imagine there is anyone else designing a massively mutiplayer online game with a budget of only $250,000 that can break even with just 500 regular players.

I don't think anyone else is designing an MMO such that it will be considered a massive huge success, so successful that the principle stock holders will be able to retire, if they just get 2,000 regular players.

So, yes, I think I can create this smaller sized MMO, largely by myself, and atract out of millions of hard core gamers just 2,000 people who find this partiuclar gaming experience truly addictive.

How are you going to monetize this game? A subscription? Microtransactions? Advertising?

The traditional way to monetize an MMO is by using the subscription model. However, unless your game is called 'World of Warcraft' I wouldn't count on that. The new in vogue idea is that you let people play your game for 'free' but then you constantly gouge them with upsells in the form of 'micro-transactions'. In short, you nickel and dime them to death. For this scheme to be considered profitable you either (a) still need to get about $10 a head out of regular players or (b) shove so many millions of people through your game you make a profit by skimming just a tiny bit off the top.

Both of these models have all kinds of problems. First, the micro-transaction thing is really tricky. People get really, really, pissed off if they perceive that other players in the game can gain strategic advantage simply because they spent more money. People get really pissed at this. So..the game designers trying to create a micro-transaction model are sensitive to this concern. So, instead of selling you stuff you *need* to play the game, they try to sell you stuff that you do not need. Vanity items, houses, clothes, pets, etc. What game companies are finding is this is a damned tricky thing to do and you can go out of business before you get it tuned just right.

The other approach, skimming a tiny bit off a massive population, is very challenging as well. Not every game is going to be the next 'Farmville'. If the only way your game can be successful is because you funnel millions of people through it, and hope you can skim some money off a tiny percentage, you will find that your business model is remarkably precarious. Sure, there will always be a Farmville or two, but for every one of them the landscape is littered with hundreds of failed products. It doesn't help that everybody and their brother wants to get into the game of picking lint from the masses who filter through social networking sites.

That's certainly not the way I want to make my money.

However, there is one other business model which works, has been proven to work, but is entirely ignored by the big studios because it is considered simply too small for them to bother with.

Sure, it's nice to have an MMO with 250,000 subscribers paying you $10 a month. That's a good business if you can get it. However, it just so turns out, that an MMO with just 5,000 subscribers, subscribers who are so addicted to your game, love it so much, that they ain't ever going anywhere else, can provide a core business that can leave you jetting around the world once you have the system set up.

I won't name names, but I know people who run exactly such a business and ..let's just say I want what they have...

So, how is Duatiu going to be monetized? Wasn't that the original question?

Here's how. It works exactly like a video arcade machine. It costs a quarter to play 'Duatiu' for a half an hour.

If you are a hard core fan of the game, and play on average 20 hours a month, that is still only $10 you are paying to play the game; which is less than the subscription to most big studio MMOs.

Now, think about that. 20 hours of entertainment for $10. A movie at the movie theatre only gives you 2 hours of entertainment for $10. If you are renting a DVD then it's more like 6 hours of entertainment for $10.

All I can say, is that if you are playing my game for 20 hours, and are having a great time being part of these huge epic battles, then I don't think its fair to bitch about paying $10 for that level of entertainment. In fact, I think it's a very fair value proposition. If you get tired of the game, and stop playing it, well then you aren't paying anymore.

You will be able to play 'Duatiu' for free, however you won't have access to the supply line and, frankly, you can't do much in the game if you don't have access to the supply line (which provides ammo to fight with). You can play 'Duatiu' for free, scavenging the battlefield for weapons paying customers have left laying around, but I do not expect anyone to be doing that for very long. You will either convert to being a paying customer, or you will just leave and move on to something else. However, once someone experiences these epic battles which will take place on a Duatiu server, I think most will pony up twenty five cents to be part of the full action.

Do you really believe anyone is going to work on this project for free?

Yes, I do. Of course, as I have pointed out before, it's not really 'free'. Yes, they are working on the project without pay, but they are being compensated with shares of stock. The stock isn't worth anything initially, just like a lottery ticket isn't worth anything when you buy it. That doesn't keep people from buying lottery tickets does it? They buy a lottery ticket for a 'chance' at getting a big payout. People will work on this project for what is essentially a kind of lottery ticket. A share of stock is just that, a chance to share equitably in the profits of this venture.

I have spent some time in the past few days laying out my business model and describing what I am trying to do. It's up to each individual to decide just how big a chance they are taking. People buy a lottery ticket with just one chance a hundred million of winning. When you contribute your own creative energy to a project, and you know the chances of that project succeeding are in direct proportion to your own talent and skill, well, it's not quite the same thing as buying a lottery which is purely random.

I cannot make any guarantees for any of this paying off in the end. However, I can treat people fairly and equitably. I can share the greatest burden and risk on the project. I can make a commitment that I will not personally put a single penny of profit in my own pocket until every single other partner has been reimbursed for at least the time they put in.

So, if people aren't persuaded by the project proposal I totally understand. However, for young people trying to get a break in the industry, for free-lancers and independents who can afford to invest some amount of their time and, finally, to my good friends who know me and believe in me, for these people, yes I know some who will 'work for me for free'.

I have been a part of the 'open source' community for 30 years. I have written numerous magazine articles, book chapters, spoken at conferences, given away free source code, answered emails, and just generally gone way out of my way to be a nice guy. Not for any personal gain, but because that is in my nature. I am hoping that by conducting myself in this way professionally for so many years it will pay off in this way, that a select group of developers will be willing to join with me on this project.

And, hey, I'm not begging here. This is a real opportunity. I need the best, the brightest, and the most skilled. I won't hold it against you if you are only 20 years old, have never worked at a game company, and have no experience. However...you damned well need to be talented to contribute to this project and earn a share of the profits.

And, ultimately, in the end, if I can't get anyone else to partner with me, then I will just finish this game by myself. I will invest my own money to get the missing content I need. It will take me a lot longer to get the game to 'first playable' than it would if I had some more help. But I will do it. And once the game reaches the point that it is revenue generating, it will rapidly become self-sustaining.

Whether I march towards that end on my own, or with some additional help, time will tell.

But, I look at it from the other side of the coin. If one my my buddies was pitching me on their own game idea and was looking for help. Well, first of all, if I could, I would probably help them for free anyway. But, if I could help them and get the status symbol of some shares of stock in the venture, that would surely be a bonus.

So, I hope some people will join the project because if the shoe were on the other foot, I certainly would do so.

When is the game going to ship?

That's kind of a tricky question. First of all, technically the game will never 'ship'; meaning it will never be purchased at any store, online or retail. The game client will be free to download and play. The real question is when will first playable be available? Well, to me first playable, if you want to get really technical, will be when two people can log into a server and walk around the same environment.

And, my goal is to have that done as soon as possible (in a matter of weeks hopefully).

The real first playable is when a reasonable number of people can log into a server and shoot each other. Let's face it, once you can kill somebody, it's a game.

But, seriously, there will be a time when there is enough of the core game play (basic weapons systems, supply line, territorial control) that it will be a real game. Enough of a game that I wouldn't be ashamed of myself to ask people to pay a quarter to play it.

If I have to do this whole thing completely by myself, I would say probably at least a year from now. Depending on how many partners jump in and help, I would hope to get that down to six months.

But, know this, like 'Minecraft' this project will be developed in a completely open fashion. The fan base, and I certainly hope there is one, will be able to experience and monitor the development of the project on a day by day basis.

That's the end of today's FAQ. If you have any more questions contact me. If you want to be a partner on the project email me as well.

Job Openings for Investors in the Duatiu MMO

2011-05-31T16:05:00.000-07:00

(Note: I will soon post a 'FAQ' on this blog about the project, answering some basic questions like 'Why is this game called Duatiu?', 'Do you honestly believe you can write an MMO by yourself without a budget?', "Why are you telling everyone your great ideal, won't somebody just rip you off and steal it?" and 'Do you really believe anyone is going to work on this project for free? What, are you nuts??")

The following job openings are available for developers who wish to invest in the Duatiu game project. It is important to remember that these are not 'paying' jobs; but rather a partnership opportunity where your level of contribution will be rewarded with shares of stock in the company.

There aren't that many times in life when you can take a chance on yourself; a time when you can hope to achieve significant financial return simply by contributing your own time and talent to a venture. I don't need your money, what I need is your time and talent to make this project more successful than it would be without it. Each person who contributes to the Duatiu project will be rewarded in exact proportion to the level of that contribution. The worst case scenario is the project never ships or makes any money. In this event you have lost some of your own personal time but, at least, you have gained some experience and are able to add to your portfolio. In the event that the product does ship, but is not particularly successful (say garnering only a few hundred regular players), the business plan has been set up so that each contributor should at least be reimbursed for the time they originally put into the project and, of course, gain a credit for a shipping MMO. However, if the game is a modest hit, say gaining a few thousand regular players over the course of several years, then everyone who invested in the project should see a return on their investment of time many fold.

On the off chance that the game becomes a monster mega-hit (still only doing a fraction of the business of a studio MMO) and tens of thousands of players keep the game going for years and years to come, then each of the original investors will not only see a substantial financial reward but, perhaps, may even be able to make a career out of it

Example Scenario: Let's say you invest about a 100 hours of your time on this project; garnering you 100 shares of stock. Worst case scenario, you don't get a penny back, but you have some new content for your portfolio, a little bit of hard education, and a lot of experience.

If the game ships, and garners an audience of steady players, each monetized at approximately $8.33 a month, it breaks down like this:

500 regular players for five years = $2,500
2000 regular players for five years = $10,000
10,000 regular players for five years = $50,000
100,000 regular players for five years = $500,000
Now, that's a return on an investment of a 100 hours or work, or about two and a half full-time weeks. Most of you know the kind of subscription numbers an MMO has. I think it's fair to say that 500 players is a very conservative estimate. And 2,000 to 10,000 regular players, assuming the game has the degree of addictive action I intend it to have, is not totally out of line. In the studio world, 100,000 players of an MMO would be considered an abject failure by today's standards. In fact by today's standards, if an MMO doesn't have hopes of achieving 250,000 regular subscribers it's generally not considered worth 'bothering' with.

I feel strongly that an MMO designed to attract a core following of around 10,000 players who enjoy a certain kind of addictive game play is not a completely unrealistic expectation. (A note about monetization of this MMO. The traditional MMO model is with subscriptions; and today more companies are experimenting with 'micro-transactions' and other ways to skim a tiny bit of money off of a massive, massive, massive population of potential 'free' players. Duatiu will be monetized in a very old school way. Just as once, long ago, we shoved quarters into an arcade machine, Duatiu will be monetized in essentially the same way. Duatiu will cost one quarter to play the game for a half hour. If you are a regular player, who really loves the game, and plays if for 20 hours a month, then it would still cost you less than a subscription to a conventional studio MMO. If you decide not to play the game for a month then, unlike a standard subscription model, you won't spend a dime. It's simple, flat, pay-to-play. A quarter for a half an our of pulse pounding relentless MMO first person shooter action. That sounds fundamentally fair to me.)

Let me be clear up front. I am making this game. Whether or not a single person joins the team to help make it better I am still making this product. That is going to happen. However, the game will be better, and most likely reach a much quicker return on investment, the more people who contribute their creative talent towards it. If I have to develop and launch the game myself, up to the point that it begins producing a positive revenue flow, then I will most likely not be distributing any shares of stock. No shared risk, no shared reward.

My personal goals are as follows. At the minimum, I want to make this game simply because I want to play it myself; it's been a dream of mine for almost 15 years. Next, I would most certainly like a financial reward for my effort. And finally, looking long term, I would like to see if this game could become big enough to essentially support me 'in my retirement'.

It important to note that if you are currently a working professional in the game industry you are probably not free to join this project (it would literally require a legal document from your current employer stating that you are free to contribute to this project, and frankly, that is simply not going to happen). I am fortunate in that I am not currently employed by a game company and don't suffer from this conflict of interest. If you are a student, or a freelancer, this is an excellent opportunity for you.

If you are someone looking to get a break into the game industry this is your chance (if you have the talent required). If you are looking for a student project to work on or want to enhance your portfolio, you should strongly consider applying to be part of the team.

Below is a list of the positions available for people to contribute to this project.

Attorney :While it is my goal to keep this project as simple and straightforward as possible, nevertheless, all of the basic legal documents covering the limited liability corporation and disbursement of stock should be properly filed. I don't expect to need a giant investment of time from an attorney and, most likely, I will just pay for this out of my own pocket. However, if an attorney wishes to become a vested partner in the project in exchange for their legal services I am certainly interested in hearing from them. One thing I will not be needing is a non-disclosure agreement. This entire project is going to be done wide open and in the public arena. Using a grass roots promotion campaign, not unlike that of 'Minecraft', I plan to shout far and wide what we are doing on this project to anyone who is interested in hearing our message. That said, it is important to note that this is *not* an open source project. Members of the team will need to respect the intellectual property rights of the venture and refrain from leaking source code or content.
Financial Officer : As soon as this project begins generating any revenue at all we will need someone to manage the finances and make sure that all of the accounting is clear and above board and that all appropriate and necessary paperwork is filed with the various state and federal agencies.
Business Development : Even though this game is being self-funded, primarily through creative partners volunteering their time, still we will need to engage a number of companies as we push the game out into the larger world. The business development person will be responsible for engaging companies which might handle billing, hosting, and promotion of the product. Any part of the project that involves engaging outside companies will be addressed by this individual.
Producer : Creating a game like this has a lot of moving parts. Especially when you are trying to manage a virtual team which is spread out across the world. The producer's job will to be to assure that we have the resources we need to get the job done. He (or she) will be locating talent, tasking and scheduling content, reviewing submissions, and managing all of the elements to pool the resources of a diverse team in a focused manner.
Art Director : The art director role is critical. With all of the art being parceled out to a spread out team, it is the art director's job to make sure that there is a uniform look and feel to the content and to make sure that all of content which goes into the game is of an acceptable quality.
Web Master : This is one of the first positions I need filled right away. I have already purchased the domain name 'www.duatiu.com' and now, when someone goes to that URL they need to be greeted by a professional website which communicates the vision of this project and engages the online community well. The web master is not only responsible for establishing and maintaining the website but also setting up the message forums, wiki, and any other online components which are critical to communicating our project to the outside world.
Community Manager : Duatiu is going to be developed in a fashion similar to 'Minecraft'. Very early in the project, in fact the moment we have a minimal first playable version of the game, we will be releasing it to the community at large. Gathering feedback from that community and engaging them as we tune and refine game design is a critical role that needs to be filled.
Public Relations : This is another critical position which needs to be filled almost immediately. The public relations person will be responsible for promoting this project through all avenues that make sense. We have a dual goal, first of promoting the project to potential partners who wish to become vested in the project by contributing their time and talents and, second, we need to let the gaming community know about the project by creating grass roots awareness that a massively multiplayer online first person shooter is being created outside of the conventional big studio process.
3D Modeler : One or more artists who are expert in 3d modeling will be needed to contribute to the project.
Texture Artist : One or more artists will be needed to produce high resolution, high fidelity, and compelling textures in support of 3d art.
2D GUI Artist : Some conventional 2D graphics user interface art will need to be created.
Lighting Artist : Duatiu is using a baked in radiosity solution for global illumination. The radiosity solution is provided by running the game levels through POVRay. There is an opportunity for someone who is an expert in POVRay with a strong aesthetic sense for how to create dramatic lighting. Placing, tweaking, and tuning interior lights in the game levels is a talent we could use.
Character Artist : A character artist expert in creating detailed 3d models suitable for a real-time gaming environment is needed.
Animator : An animator who knows how to 'rig' a 3d character model and then animate it with all of the necessary motion for a first person shooter is needed.
Programmer AI : A programmer who specializes in artificial intelligence could be used by the team.Though I plan to do most of the AI programming myself, I can always use expert input from others.
Programmer UI : A programmer familiar with user interface programming is needed to implement the radar display, damage display, chat window, and other similar elements.
Programmer Graphics Special Effects : A graphics programmer expert in producing special effects using the latest vertex and pixel shader techniques would be invaluable. The game engine is written using OpenGL ES. There is no DirectX code, and in fact the engine uses no licensed technology. The design of the graphics engine is such that it can be feasibly, and easily, ported to as many other platforms as seems appropriate; especially for tablet based operating systems all of which use OpenGL. Moreover, the core graphic engine is being designed to have very minimal hardware requirements, so that the game can run on as broad a base of hardware as possible.
Programmer Server : A server programmer is needed. The duties would include writing a login server, a match making server, and integrating billing software and other account management systems to handle safe, secure, stable, and scalable systems.
Game Designer : Surprisingly, this is the one position I really don't need filled. The game design for Duatiu is pretty much complete. Any additional game design elements will be fine tuned live during the beta testing phase. However, there are a few elements which could benefit from some additional game design refinements and I would be willing to issue some shares of stock for this contribution.
Level Designer :Fortunately, the game levels necessary to launch the game are already completed. That is not to say I wouldn't consider some additional new game levels should the right person become available to author new content.
Quality Assurance : Quality assurance will largely not be a paid position. Duatiu will be a constant state of open-paid-beta from the day you can play it. This game will launch early, and often. It will benefit from continuous testing and refinement as we get feedback from the fan base which builds around it. All that said, however, there may be an opportunity for a QA person to perform to do some of the more well defined rote tasks as well as gathering and managing bug reports from the player community.

If you are interested in contributing to the project in any of these roles. Please contact me by email with a copy of your resume and a link to a website showcasing your work.

What is 'Duatiu'?

2011-05-30T13:58:00.000-07:00

This is a short YouTube video showing a protoype of what a single Duatiu server process and game world might look like. This video is designed primarily to give you a sense of the scale of the world.

Above is a short YouTube video showing some of the game play in the original game S.C.A.R.A.B. While the production values of the game art in 'Duatiu' will be dramatically higher, many elements of the core game play will be quite similar.

Duatiu is a project started by John W. Ratcliff. It is intended to be a massively multiplayer online first person shooter strategy game. It has its spiritual roots in games such as Cyberstrike, Archon, S.C.A.R.A.B., Tribes, and Planetside.

The game takes place on a single process server which can hold 1,000 players simultaneously. The game world is 4 kilometers on a side (4,000 meters by 4,000) meters. The game world is subdivided into a 10 by 10 grid of territories each 400 meters on a side. Each territory supports up to 10 players simultaneously.

The object of the game is to capture individual territories in an effort to take over control of the entire game world. A battle for a single territory typically lasts, on average, about 30 minutes. Once a territory has been captured, then players can move via connecting bridges to adjacent territories.

There are three basic teams involved in the battle. Ra, Osiris, and the Priesthood. Ra and Osiris are represented by human players and each human player decides which side (light or dark) they intend to represent. The Priesthood is represented by extraordinarily advanced artificial intelligence which can play the game with deathly skill. These are not your Momma's NPCs; not poor fodder to be easily dispatched with abandon but rather highly artificially intelligent agents bringing deathly skill to the game. It is important to note, however, that no matter how skilled the Priesthood appears to be, they do not have any fundamental strategic advantage over a human player. They are under the identical environmental restrictions (sight, sound, etc.) that the human player is under. In short, the AI never 'cheats'.

During game play, human players can choose to play the game co-operatively or PVP style if they wish. Really, the game is always PVP, it's just a question of whether or not you are trying to beat another human connected via the internet, or an AI agent which is hunting you down with ruthless skill.

The AI is more than just incredibly cold and calculating killers. During game play, you will find a wide array of personalities which will emerge from their style of play and attack. At times, a human player may feel that a particular member of the Priesthood has out to get just them. This suspicion might well be correct...

The design of Duatiu is intended to solve what many people perceive as a weakness of many massively online multiplayer games; and that is server population. Many games, such as Planetside, only reach a truly epic scale when the server population reaches a certain level. There is often a general perception that if a server is not sufficiently populated the game is dead, dying, or not fun or worth playing.

The design of Duatiu is such that there will always be, at all times, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, at least 500 active players on any server. Now, you may be the only human player logged into that server, therefore it becomes just you against 499 members of the Priesthood. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy...

But, the point is, that if the epic nature of the game play revolves around a server being fully populated with at least 500 combatants going toe to toe to capture and retain territory, you can rest assured that that degree of conflict will exist all all times. Whether you choose to band together with your friends to fight the Priesthood, or go toe to toe with your human opponents, will be an organic flow as the game evolves over the course of a long evening.

While it takes, on average, about 30 minutes to complete a battle to determine single ownership of an individual territory, the winning condition of capturing the entire server, the entire 16 squared kilometers of battle space, may only happen once every three months of so!!!

The game play on a single territory mirrors that, not only of S.C.A.R.A.B., but also of many conventional first person shooters where a group gets together and fights out a battle of dominance on one 'game level'. However, the way the game play in Duatiu flows from adjacent territories and always takes place on a single unified server brings a sense of epic scope that few have experienced before. And, while a team may not be able to directly advance to a neighboring territory until the one they are on has been captured, they can shoot across the short chasm that divides them, lob mortars, and generally wreak havok and possibly influence the pitched battle raging next door.

Once you have captured a territory and move onto the next, that territory stays captured until it has been challenged by another team. By building a chain of captured territory a single side (Ra, Osiris, or the Priesthood) can eventually dominant and own the entire server.

The winning conditions for a battle on a single territory are well defined:

(1) Kill every single human opponent on the opposing team three times.
(2) Kill every single non-human opponent (member of the Priesthood) once.
(3) Capture and hold the territory (through the strategic placement and management of towers) for five minutes continuously.

These are the three distinct winning conditions which require, on average, a pitched battle for roughly 30 minutes to achieve.

Duatiu an incredible investment opportunity for a select group of people who have what it takes to join the team!

2011-05-28T19:33:00.000-07:00

You ever hear those stories about the guy who wrote an Iphone game after working on it for just a few weeks and then made a million dollars? Yeah, I have too. In fact, I have not only heard those stories, I have a good friend who lived it. Ever heard a story about a guy who wrote a game in his basement, got it published by Electronic Arts, and then made a million dollars? Yeah, I haven't just heard that story, I lived it. Twice.

I think what is happening with the mobile gaming market is incredibly exciting. Once again a small team of developers can create new and creative games, independent of the studio process, and have the chance to make good money for their creative effort. While the big studios are quaking in their boots at the sight of 99 cent games, the independent game developer is salivating!

But, what if the game you want to make fundamentally requires a bigger team and a bigger budget? What can you do? Approach a game publisher? Not what I want to do. Approach investors? Definitely not.

The only other option is to try to use sweat equity and get a bunch of creative people together to devote enough time to create a game without resorting to a massive budget. Everyone together invests their own time with the hopes of being equitably rewarded when the product begins generating revenue.

Now, it just so happens, that I have a game I have been wanting to create for years and years. Well, technically that's not quite entirely true. I did create the game. I developed it and it was published by Electronic Arts. However, EA did not get behind the game and it was a complete and total financial failure. However, it was not a technical failure and definitely not a failure of game design. This poor, sorry, sad, little game developed a rabid following of dedicated players who were addicted to the game. And one of those addicted to the game was me.

I have been telling myself for over ten years that 'some day' I'm going to make a new version of that game. Or, maybe when I retire, I will do it. Well, I turn 50 years old this October and I'm starting to think I don't want to wait forever.

I started kind of working on the game off and on a little bit on the weekends. I created a what-if prototype and then a friend of mine started volunteering some of this time on the programming.

I really, really, want this game to see the light of day, but I don't know how to make it happen. If someone were to ask me how much money it would take to get the game out, I could imagine it might cost as much as $250,000.

Last I checked, even though I'm doing pretty well financially, I have no where near that kind of money to throw at a pet project. And, it's kind of hard to buy the quality and quantity of art that I need to finish the game with just a few grand out of my own pocket.

Realistically, the only way the game is ever going to see the light of day is if I engage a publisher, find an investor, or form a small team willing to invest their own time and creativity to help get this thing out the door.

Since I don't want to deal with a publisher, or raise capital and try to subcontract out a bunch of work, I have decided to try the latter route and find a small team of enthusiastic and creative individuals to contribute to the project.

I spent a lot of time today thinking about ways a partnership could be formed that would be fair to all parties involved. In the end I think I have come up with a very creative, fair, equitable, and rewarding way this virtual team could be formed.

So, first of all, what is the business proposal at hand?

The proposal it to create a massively multiplayer online first person shooter and strategy game that generates at least $250,000 revenue over a five year period.

The game design is based on my original game S.C.A.R.A.B. Of course, the game S.C.A.R.A.B. was deeply inspired by the game design of Cyberstrike by David Whatley of Simutronics. S.C.A.R.A.B. was a first person shooter strategy game that was a little before its time. It has strong parallels to games which came later such as Tribes and Planetside.

I won't get into all of the details of the game design right now, but suffice it to say I have little doubt that well executed this game could garner a rabid following of addicted game players.

And, that is the key with this business plan. Back in the 1980's a successful hit game might be one that sold 50,000 to 100,000 copies. The entire budget for the game might be $20,000. Today, a game must sell millions of copies to be successful and is comprised of a massive teams and budgets surpassing some Hollywood movies. That's kind of crazy if you ask me. Back in the 1980's, for various genre's of games, there were always 50,000 or so people who would buy every game that matched their particular interest. Submarine games, every submarine game, would sell at least 50,000 copies. If you could make a decent submarine game on a fair budget, it was a safe bet to make a return on investment. But, today, no game company would consider a game with a market of only 50,000 users.

Something similar started to happen with MMOs. The expense of producing an MMO skyrocketed. Eventually the market wouldn't sustain so many MMO subscriptions, so the industry started moving to a challenging and difficult revenue model of 'micro-transactions'.

My thought recently has been, whatever happened to just shoving a quarter into an arcade machine? Why not make an MMO which is monetized as straight pay to play. If you play the game constantly for a month, then you would end up paying about the same amount of money as if you had a subscription. And, if you didn't play that month, well it didn't cost you anything.

The key to making his work is simple. Addictive game play. If you have a game which is just plain completely addictive to play, especially an MMO, and the number of players you need to break even is modest, I believe you have a formala for success.

So, let us imagine an addictive massively multiplayer online game. You have invested $250,000 into the product and your worst case outcome is to break even in five years. How many players do you need?

You need an average of 416 players generating about $10 a month of revenue.

Think about that? Today, an MMO isn't considered 'successful' unless is has at least 150,000 subscribers!

Now, let's say the idea of only making back your original investment over a five year period is hardly what you would consider success. Let's say the game is so addictive to play that out of the seven billion people on the planet, and hundreds of millions of gamers, you can craft a game that is completely addictive for, let's say, 2,000 players.

Now, all of the sudden, instead of $250,000 over five years you are talking $1.25 million dollars. Obviously no publisher would intentionally design a massively multiplayer game where their expected a subscriber base that was just 2,000 players.

On the other hand...if you and and about five or six of your friends could create such a game and split the revenue...that's not such a bad equation at all. You may not be retiring in Belize but it's certainly some nice bonus money for a great creative project you did on the side.

And, while you couldn't necessarily count on it, what if the game did become wildly popular, say Minecraft popular, well then you would all become so rich you wouldn't know what to do with yourself.

But, let's be realistic here. Let's say that a small dedicated team of artists and programmers create a home-brewed pay-to-play MMO that only attracts on average 500 players a month. Over the course of 5 years, everyone would have been at least minimally compensated for their time invested (though obviously not obscenely wealthy) and have a great project they could add to their resume; something to be really proud of.

Now, I realize to some, this may sound a little absurd. How could a small team of people create a massively multiplayer game in their 'spare time on the weekends', when major game publishers fail on such projects regularly given teams of hundreds of people and budgets over 10 million dollars?

The answer is this. First, it's about having a business plan commensurate with the level of investment (meaning if you only need 500 regular players to break even instead of 150,000 that helps a lot).

The design goal of the game is to cater to a narrow group of rabid game players who are deeply addicted to a certain type of game play. That's a totally different design goal than most triple A studio titles have to cope with.

The other reason has to do with my track record. I've done this before. Many times. I believe I have a very clear and concise vision for this project and while I realize I can't do the whole thing by myself, I also realize it doesn't take a massive team of a hundred people to pull it off either.

One of my favorite analogies is this. Let's say I buy a chess board at Wallgreens for $5. Now, imagine I buy a chess board with hand carved ivory pieces that cost $10,000. And, finally, consider I buy a chess game for the computer which features advanced 3d graphics and when you capture a piece you see a vivid graphic animation of the chess pieces fighting a pitched battle tearing each other limb from limb; spouting blood and echoing screams of torture.

Note, that no matter what the price, no matter what the production values, in the end its absolutely the same damned game and neither the fancy ivory chess board, nor the video game version with advanced 3d graphics, changes the addictive and strategic quality of the game in any way!

Now, that's not to say good production values aren't important and appreciated. However, simply having *better* graphics, or *better* production values does not in any way, shape, or form, make a *better* game.

Personally, I don't care for most first person shooters where the most advanced strategic decision is 'pick up the biggest fucking gun'. The game I am proposing, while expressed as a first person shooter, has at its' core as much strategic fundamentals as chess.

For those of you in the industry as old as I am, or sufficiently old school, think 'Archon'.

A great game will attract a great and devoted core audience. Or, so this is my belief.

While I was driving in the car today, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could go about raising $250,000 of investment for my game project.

One thought occurred to me is that while I might need $250,000 of content, if someone were to hand me $250,000 in actual cash, it really wouldn't solve many of my content creation problems. If I had a big wad of cash I would still have to recruit, hire, subcontract, and manage a team. Almost more trouble than it's worth considering all I really need is the content itself from a self-motivated team of people.

The 'investement' I need isn't money, but time. I need a group of enthusiastic an dedicated individuals to join in a partnership to produce the content necessary to get this game into at least first playable state where it can begin generating revenue.

I spoke quite a bit with my friend David Whately and bounced ideas off of him. I tried to think about what was fundamentally fair, and what would have the fewest number of pitfalls.

After much thought here is the unique business proposal that I came up with.

This partnership is designed to create a massively multiplayer online first person shooter strategy game with a worst case scenario of generating only $250,000 of revenue over a five year period.

For those partners who invest their time, their minimum compensation level should be at least $25. While certainly not vast riches or anything, if that was the worst possibly outcome (you helped create and launch an MMO that ran for five years and you got paid $25 an hour for your time) that's still something to be proud of.

Of course, if the MMO became a big success and generated a great deal more revenue, you would want to be rewarded accordingly.

So, here is the idea that I have come up with.

The partnership generates 20,000 shares of stock. 10,000 shares are 'preferred / investor' stock reimbursable for minimum $25 a share and 10,000 shares of non-preferred or 'founder' stock.

Each share of preferred stock corresponds roughly to one hour of 'sweat equity' invested in the project.

Each share of non-preferred founder stock, is awarded to myself.

Each time a share of preferred stock is awarded, I receive a share of founder stock.

Now, here is the key thing. 'Founder' stock does not make a single penny until every single outstanding share of preferred / investor stock has been reimbursed a minimum of $25.

Or, in simple terms. Until every single person on the team has been paid at least $25 an hour for their contribution to the project I do not personally see a single dime.

Once all preferred stock has been reimbursed $25 per share, then the remaining revenue is distributed by percentage of ownership to both founder and investors. This means, that once those who contributed their time on the project have made back at least $25 an hour for their original time invested, then beyond that we split the revenue based on our percentage of overall shares outstanding. The 50% founders share to me corresponds to the many, many, years that I have invested in this particular game project and my effort and vision to make it a reality.

Some other details to help achieve fairness are this.

An 'investor' must have performed at least 10 hours of approved work to be considered a vested partner in the project.

Members of the project will not be allowed to simply arbitrarily submit hours worked in exchange for shared of preferred stock. Instead, during the development phase of the project, each creative partner will 'bid' how much time they believe a particular task will take. Once they have completed that task (an only when they have completed it) other members of the team must approve the work. Once the work has been approved they will be awarded preferred stock equal to the number of hours they bid on the work, not any supposed actual hours they worked on. This is particularly important to be fair, as programmers can spend a lot of time debugging problems and different artists work at a different pace.

No stock other than the maximum of 20,000 shares (10,000 preferred and 10,000 founder shares) can ever be issue, period. Stock cannot be sold or traded. The only way ownership of stock can change hands is, god forbid, the original investor were to pass away, in which case it would pass to their heir.

If agreed, a limited amount of preferred stock could be sold to investors to raise capital for project expenses that could not be avoided. That stock could only be sold for $25 a share, and only if the founder and top three investors agreed.

Now, I'm not an attorney and I'm sure I haven't worked out all of the details here. I would certainly like to avoid having to create a corporation, and draft a ton of expensive legal documents. What I'm interested in exploring here is the idea of forming a virtual partnership of content providers to work on a joint goal of producing a revenue generating product.

It's an interesting ideal.

If you are interested in contributing to the project please let me know. Remember, the minimum commitment is at least 10 hours of your time. Realize there are no guarantees the product will ever ship, though that is certainly the goal. It is guaranteed that once the product does ship, and begin generating revenue, everyone who contributed time to the project, and earned investor shares, will be reimbursed immediately as funds accrue.