Greed Monger

[Spolmit 622]

First time I have suggested another game but was surfing around and came across this crafting focussed sandbox mmo with player owned housing , PvP and PvE.

The link below takes you to the site:

http://www.greedmonger.com/

I would be interested to hear what other players think of it. It is obviously very early days but I think it looks promising.

Edited November 18, 2012 by Spolmit

[Tryfaen 709]

Lack of pvp and terraforming and the way land claiming seemed to be handled turned me off to the game. It has pretty graphics though.

[Cornchips 3,037]

any eta when it will come out yet?

[Mattown 349]

looks awesome, i'd love to try it out on beta

[Sir Arowhun 473]

The deeding system looks like the housing system of mortal online.

[Brash_Endeavors 4,735]

I have been watching this project for a bit. My main concern is that so far all they have shown is some standard landscaping in the Unity3D game engine, and some art assets that they purchased form the unity3D store.

Even their logo art and npc models are simply generic store assets, which they seem to be showcasing on various sites are "their" level of graphic detail. Here is where they actually got all those assets in their pictures:

http://u3d.as/conten...val-citizen/2Ez

http://u3d.as/conten...eval-farmer/2qZ

http://forum.unity3d...gon-Model/page2

http://u3d.as/conten...ruction-kit/1CN
/>http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=279850

The same person who challenged them on these art assets, also found some bizarre changes in their facebook likes (they used to have like 3000 more than they currently have) , and the devs admitted that they had purchased packages to temporarily up the count of their facebook followers, by thousands. To me, that demonstrates a team going through the motions of "looking like the big boys".

Also, you don't actually "build" a house the way you do in wurm, wall by wall and actually designing it yourself -- they just plop down a static model that again is a standard generic store asset. You don't even get to chose the location of "your" land. In addition, the land plots are quite small, the largest you can purchase as a player is four units that combined, will cost $80 and be smaller than the smallest Wurm deed: http://www.kickstart...pg/posts/341649

Some of their ideas are good (heck I'll kickstart almost anything using the words "open world crafting sandbox") but others are frankly bordering on bizarre: "Ages Of Time and Technology will evolve with Population and Economic Growth (Into Space age - Different Planet)" Really? Spaceships too? Now they have all genres covered.

Now, this would be a great project if it actually all comes together, but so far they have not shown any real programming abilities, beyond some fantastic PR skills and an ability to make some nice videos using the basics Unity3D game engine and some purchased generic models. Some nice ideas but they have not yet demonstrated any real ability to actually DO any of those nice ideas. I see some young guys with big ideas and a pretty presentation, but not any demonstration of skill beyond what anyone could do with the Unity3D engine. If they have the skills to pull this entire thing off, they have not yet demonstrated those. He had to hire someone to make the demo video for them (they couldn't even do that part themselves) and although he says he already has a team fully assembled and "most of the work done," as of yesterday he is still trying to hire people competent to do the actual programming for crafting, skill progression, UI, combat, world design, housing, and all the most basic of the game features, as all they can actually do themselves at this stage in time is make a staged scene for the videos using Unity3D + generic assets. Why does he need to hire people who can actually program if they already have most of the work already completed?

Edited November 19, 2012 by Brash_Endeavors

[Laiwyn 188]

^ Didn't know that. Was turned off at first anyway by the necessity of buying parcels that are $20 each directly from them, but now knowing that they didn't design the assets themselves is a major blow to them for me.

[Maozorz 127]

I wouldn't play because of the lack of terraforming mainly, it can't and won't compete with Wurm. Like Xsyon, it looks flash at first glance but it was a waste of my time.

<Wurm

[Brash_Endeavors 4,735]

So basically I got very curious and put together a timeline on Greed Monger's game development history:

Septermber 9 2012: Jason Appleton discovers Unity game engine, discovers a new mission in life -- he is going to make a really cool RPG game! Although he's never actually done any coding or stuff. But he's done, like, some HTML. Experienced Unity developers try (unsuccessfully) to try to talk him into starting small, and actually learning about how to use the program and starting on smaller more attainable projects first, rather than make a huge RPG his very first project.

September 10, 2012: Unity is just so cool!!!

September 10, 2012: Jason Appleton decides to put together a team of people who understand maybe a bit better than him, how to actually make a game. Gets a little antsy when Unity moderators stall on posting his thread, as they explain "it comes off as the typical 'I'm the ideas guy and need a team to do the actual work for me'. These types of threads are rarely approved these days." But they approve it anyway. He actually posts a lot of these threads, because this is all so exciting....

September 13, 2012: Jason Appleton continues his quest of actually finding someone who can make his game for him in Unity.

October 14, 2012: Despite the advice not to start buying lots of assets for some future game when he doesn't really understand how to program in Unity yet, Jason Appleton starts buying art assets (but has problems importing them into his Unity program). Oh help!

October 14, 2012: Jason Appleton decides he probably better hire someone else to make his Kickstarter demo video for him, as he is still struggling with how to make all this stuff really look like an actual game. He states at that stage he has a potential investor, not a gamer but an old guy "worth millions" and "like a father to me" so he is not the least bit worried about getting his dream funded, he just needs someone who can make his ideas look like ... you know .... an actual project. So he can then sell his ideas to the people who actually have money. And, um, talent.

October 23, 2012: Jason Appleton types up a REAL PRESS RELEASE announcing his new Kickstarter promotion for his new groundbreaking online MMORPG! It will be JUST LIKE Ultima Online! (Except that was of course designed by real game developers). He sidesteps questions from more experienced Unity developers, on whether he's actually found a way to cut down trees (apparently Unity isn't very friendly about stuff like that.)

November 12, 2012: Oh -- it would probably help if he could find an actual World Builder for his open world RPG.... don't worry, he is sure to find someone.

November 13, 2012: Flush with victory from an early KS success (which some notice, attracts an unusual number of backers making $2000 pledges right off the bat, leading some to question whether this is similar to his buying up Facebook likes in bulk only to have them all vanish a week later; ie will all those big pledges really be there at the end or are they promotional gimmicks to look like the project is a solidly backed one?), Jason Appleton announces he is going to be buying up A LOT!!! more premade generic medieval game assets, so anyone he hasn't yet bought from, should start adding them to the asset store, as he now has money to burn...

November 18, 2012: oh but maybe he should suddenly switch his game engine? Does this other one maybe look even better?

Go go Jason Appleton! More about him on his personal website and Who Is Jason Appleton.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Brash_Endeavors

[Elen 1,013]

oiy brash ! thanks for keeps tabs on this. When I looked at the KS page I was struck by the graphics for a second, but yeah its a pig with lipstick, not worth bothering with.

[Laiwyn 188]

I have a funny feeling about this game after reading Brash's posts. I'll keep tabs on it just to see it fail.

[Spolmit 622]

Well, that is disappointing news. On the positive side, Brash has saved me some money as I was about to put some cash into the project. I will leave future suggestions to our resident professional tipster! Sorry everyone.

[belthize 438]

@Brash, ha thanks for the research.

I've been poking at game engines for the better part of a decade with pretty much the same idea as Jason. The only difference is I've been involved enough with MMOs (dating back to DIKU and other text based variants) as a player, tester and tiny bit as a dev a hella long time ago to know just how much heavy lifting is involved even if you do find a near, perfect fit engine.

I find that read pretty funny and one I've seen played out countless times on various engine threads. The only thing I get from reading your timeline is that he's more clueless than the average duck so is likely to get in over his head quite a bit more.

When I originally looked at your links I was sure it was two different people but that really is him. He is one, umm, one, err, well ... uhh, good luck to him.

Edited November 19, 2012 by belthize

[Sir Arowhun 473]

Oh its made with Unity. The problem is that when something is too easy everyone can do it. People buy a pre-made engine, buy pre-made models, and use pre-made code and combine it in a game that they claim they made. Sometimes they even sell items in their game, which is ridiculous imo.

Then again, some people actually put effort into it and make nice things with Unity. It depends on the developer.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Sir Arowhun

[Murazama 1]

Just the name alone turns me off. Greed Monger. Maybe this Jason guy is a Greed Mongering Hooker bot.

[Ayes 3,715]

Although I am much to weary to be enticed in the least by any of these Kickstarter types of ventures, I find Brash's detective work to be of interest, if only reading of it within this post and no further. Just confirms my normal policy of not inventsing any time, money or even thought into an online game until it is available to play or published from a reputable online gaming company with previous published titles. Too many already available to play rather than be concerned with these pie in the sky ventures.

=Ayes=

[Kswords 461]

I checked out the demo video and thought "Hey this actually looks pretty cool!"

Then read Brash's post and was disappointed.

It's too bad, a game like this could probably unglue me from Wurm. lol

Thanks for the heads-up Brash!

Edited November 22, 2012 by Kswords

[ElectricCrow 1]

Edited because this thread has become silly.

No more troll food.

Edited November 29, 2012 by ElectricCrow

[ElectricCrow 1]

Thank you for your comments.

Edited November 29, 2012 by ElectricCrow

[dipse 231]

One thing I would say is if this the developers first game project then the scope is far too large. I would advise starting with something much smaller and growing from there, otherwise you will end up running out of stream before you get anything. This is from personal experience of both my own and others projects.

[ElectricCrow 1]

Hey Dipse,

thi is a large project, thats certain. However, things are going very well so far and I'm always on the look out for new talent.

[Brash_Endeavors 4,735]

One quick question, Brash_Endeavors, if I may ask, have you ever developed anything before?

I just noticed a lot of your comments had to do with things like exploring options, looking into other software and the like which is actually something you should do as it relates to a project of this size and scope. So, I just have to assume you haven't done much in gaming aside from play them. If I'm wrong, please let me know. I'd love to hear of your experiences.

Interesting you should ask that because the answer is : actually yes -- well, let me qualify that -- ok not really, but at least more than you.

I dabbled a little into Perl programming -- enough to soon realize I just wasn't very talented at programming, but one actual "finished project" was back in the late 1990s when I designed and ran the first private image hosting service for eBay (started as Auction Web.) This was long long before free image hosts were a dime a dozen on the internet, and long before eBay was actually a big deal, back when the fanbase and the paid staff tended to draw from the same pool. Based on my image hosting service and volunteer work with sellers, they even hired me at one stage to work for them. The one thing I learned was really what an amateur I was compared to real professionals. Anyway that was enough to cure me of the idea I could get away with calling myself a "programmer," even in InternetLand where everyone and their brother calls themselves "programmers" and "developers" based on their make believe play games with learning cool stuff.

Oh but that's not gaming, hmm. Well, I put together the original Petopia website for WoW hunters (currently taken over by a friend of mine who is much more dedicated and talented than me, though you can still find credits to me in the "About Petopia" links there). Also did an extensive amount of game modding in the Morrowind/Oblivion elder scrolls gaming community, learning how to work with various game editors and modelling programs and writing scripting and questlines. Thats the type of thing all those experts on the Unity board were trying to steer you towards, as a way to get some "hands-on experience" before plunging into a real RPG game. I did about 15 mods for Morrowind and 3-4 for Oblivion. Been a few years since my last one.

But like you, like most of your current staff, I was so thrilled by the idea of creating actual virtual worlds that I soon ignored all the sensible advice I was given, and couldn't resist for long the idea of making a real entire standalone game (!!!) from the morrowind engine, which really was never designed for making standalone games. There wasn't any guides or directions back then, because that was never the intent of the editors they released. But all of the fans were very super excited at all the potential that we could all make game content now. I did a small amount of modeling with Blender and 3DSMax (not very well), a medium amount of scripting and questline work (again, not very well), and a whole lot of world terrain design (always the easiest and funnest for rank amateur enthusiasts, eh?) Had some help from other fans who were better than me at things like designing and animating custom models, since I always sucked at that part, but 90 percent of it was all just me, working way into the wee hours in a dark messy bedroom to the glow of a computer monitor. No office, not even a chair. Lots of coffee.

It never looked as slick and "professional" as your screenshots, but hey it was a decade ago with an engine never intended for such, and was an unabashed amateur enthusiasts "work of love" (ie, what you call it when no one actually gets paid for anything). I had NPCs with names and backstories (ingame, not just in my head) , dialogues and quests, a story arc, custom-made models (in many cases made by other gamers exclusively for my project), and a WHOLE lot of world landscaping and "regional terrains" since that was the part I found the most fun personally. Man, it was gunna be a huge huge HUGE world. Mermaid empires under the sea, flying dragons and ice crystal palaces, obscure reptilian races in desolate desert wastelands. Jungles and forestlands -- everything I could think of, I stuffed in there gleefully. Considering the very limited tools I was working with, it's not anything I am all that ashamed of even more than a decade later:

Ok -- yes its amateur stuff, even back in those days. I was of course wildly over ambitious, wildly over excitable, and definitely bit off way way more than I could chew -- I had a world landmass designed larger than the orginal game territory, I had a working "beta" that several hundred people downloaded and tried out, but even after several years of working, I never got even remotely close to completing it all. Finally after several years, it slowly faded into unfinished obscurity, like 99% of over-excited fan projects do. But -- it was one of my favorite "moments in time", very exciting, learned a WHOLE lot of things. Even if I ultimately learned only that I ultimately sucked at everything related to game development, I never regrertted a moment of it. I had tons of fun. Discovered many personal things about myself. Including probably that I really did not have the stamina, discipline or even talent for true game development. Which is probably just as well that I got all that out of my system before discovering pretty-instant-candy-toys like Unity3D, which would probably have consumed my very soul back in those excitable days.

Anyway, now you got me rambling like some oldie in a senior home. (Which is not far off these days). Crankily waving my cane at all the new kids playing games on the lawn, which is probably all I am now. Anyway I *DO* understand and recognize the excitment and eagerness you probably feel. It's like seeing a mirror of my younger self, ten years or fifteen years ago (I started late; heck I was old enough to be your mom before I even picked up my first computer RPG game in the early 90s).

The main difference of course, was that I KNEW from the start I was nothing but an over-enthused amateur fan running amock with excitment and ideas, and as a result I never expected nor took a penny for any of my "learning experiences." And by the way, I did research as well most of the people you have listed as "staff" (though you don't actually PAY them, and exaggerate/inflate in many cases their actual working experience, including listing amateur "messing around stuff" as if it were actual professional grade job experience). I didn't go into detail on this however, because frankly the people trying to help you do deserve better respect -- they mean well even when some lack experience or talent (and by the way, yes they DO have more talent and experience than me or you combined, but still not as much as the people working for some of the more professional kickstarter projects). They are not the ones over selling themselves, asking for money upfront, palming off amateur work as professional grade accomplishments. Only you went that far, which is why you are the only individual I intended to actually question. Because it is your boat, and it all floats or sinks with you. A captain with no actual experience with boats. Or even with water, really.

And the money you are spending, is so far not going to the "people" you supposedly "hired" (all of whom have been promised some payment at some future date based on "milestones reached", the dandy thing being of course if the project doesn't succeed, as it probably won't, you never have to pay them anything at all.) The money also probably won't last too long anyway, since a lot of it is going into poorly researched purchases that will end up mostly getting discarded in facor of other equally poorly researched decisions, before a nickel goes to the people doing the actual grunt-work on your team.

Anyway the one thing I guess you and I can agree on about Greed Monger is -- only time will tell. But I do wish you would be more upfront and candid about the backgrounds and professional experiences of the people on your team and its finished work, instead of putting together pretty screenshot pictures of premade gameshop assets, and playing magical make believe that you are all professional-grade game developers who have been doing this for decades, and that taking $60,000-plus from the gaming community based on your fantasy daydreams, is an actual reasonable thing to do.

Because I foresee a whole of of pitchforks and angry mobs in your future a year down the road. Anyway. Yeah. Time will tell. And hey -- good luck. I would be REALLY happy if you were right and I was waaaay offbase on everything. If there is one thing I would sincerely love to see, it is more indie developed sandbox crafting games (Smedley's vast promises doesn't get any more respect from me either, if that makes you any happier). Most of the really successful ones, of course, started very very very small by people who were actual programmers (Dwarf Fortress, Minecraft, Wurm, Unreal World), and only gradually matured over the years. Instead of trying to skip all the starting steps, and start with a huge budget and then figure out what to do with all the money.

Sorry for the wall of text. Just THINKING about how excitable people can get thinking about making virtual worlds, gets me all .. well, excitable again

One thing I would say is if this the developers first game project then the scope is far too large. I would advise starting with something much smaller and growing from there, otherwise you will end up running out of stream before you get anything. This is from personal experience of both my own and others projects.

Best. Advice. Ever. Though of course we all know it will be completely ignored.

p.s. -- too bad he deleted his original personal website and replaced it with something tamer and with older posts, as the original lead off with a thought provoking essay about how selling a mortgage refinance loan (J.A.'s current real-world job) is just like trying to get laid, (his words not mine) including how its all about trying to convince people with hype that you got something they want till they get all hot and excited and start throwing money at you. Which I thought was actually pretty "on topic" for his current project. But I guess that's also why it got hastily deleted after I linked to it....

Edited November 23, 2012 by Brash_Endeavors

[Klaa 4,872]

Its like watching a gold rush. Rather instead of mining, its game development.

Edited November 23, 2012 by Klaa

[Rotab 121]

Wow Brash, just wow. Applauds to you.

[JamesProctor 0]

I just wanted to introduce my self. I'm James Proctor. I'm one of the Programmers working on Greed Monger. I'm currently working on getting the Combat Demo setup so we can release a Video showing it. I'm personally responsible for alot of the stuff in our KickStarter videos. And while we did in fact buy alot of assets I can assure you the scripting was ALL done by hand by me personally. Once Combat is working I will be responsible for the AI you find in the game!