After 10 years, we'll start developing games again

Some may have noticed that since the release of A7, Gamestudio support and distribution is not handled by Conitec but by another company, the oP group Germany GmbH.

Old timers may remember that Gamestudio was originally developed by oP group, and eventually sold to Conitec. In the 1990s, the oP group developed several small computer games, advertising games, TV games, and virtual exhibitions. Afterwards my job at Conitec became too time consuming, and the other oP group members had not much time either, so the oP group was put to sleep.

Now after ten years, oP group is starting with game development again. We are currently applying for a contract to develop a large scale MMOG for a certain organization. They have selected the A7 engine for this project. The main reason was probably the experience of setting up a well working MMOG server for 350 users very quickly with A7 Pro, with only a few lines of script. However, the project will require some extensions to A7, like the PhysX plugin that's currently developed by Chris3D, and a MySQL plugin.

Due to our knowledge of A7, we hope to have a good chance to win the development contract. We've already got the contract to prepare the project and hire the team of level designers.

Please cross your fingers that we'll also get the final contract. Development would then start in September. The features implemented in A7 during the next year will become a little MMOG focused. But I guess this will also benefit the community.

That is great! I´ll keep my fingers crossed

I hope the best
for the company

That sounds cool.

Fastlane would be happy to read this, but I guess either he's part of the whole thing, or he has already left...

Is Skaphander 2 coming ?

*sighs and glances at his skaphander box in the shelf*

Gamestudio, i really love you.
Good luck with this, oP Group!! (Or Conitec )

JCL, may i ask you some questions?? Are you an employee in Conitec or oP??
If you're an employee in Conitec, are you the CEO of Conitec?? (Because in the Whois page for conitec.net domain, i saw that you made that domain).

Best luck to A7

So A7 will switch finally form ODE to Nvidia Physx !
Any information on the mmo (rpg, second life,racing) ?

Really cool news, jcl. Do you guys use MED? Or do you primarily use another editor -- such as Blender

While I personally don't need to make an MMO, I'm stoked that you guys are taking on such a project, and I'm looking forward to reaping the rewards

Jibb

Das sind richtig gute Nachrichten JCL. Ich offe ihr schafft es.

Demnach kann man nur sagen:
"A7 for the win!!"

Wow, that's great news! I hope you get that contract and wish you the best!

cheers

I also cross my fingers! - good luck

good luck. any chance you can tell us something about that company? and that mmog?

*crosses fingers*

especially how you are going to make an MMO Server in A7... A client yes.. but a server? Sounds impossible to me.

That's very exciting!
Hope, you get the contract!

This sounds really good! Maybe, Conitec could set up a server, that Pro users can provide with their prototypes, and the community can test them easily.
This would increase the experience with the MMOG capabilities of the engine and increase its attraction within this already lively community.

Are you planning to use Direct Play for that? I guess not. So which networkengine will you use, or are you planning to write an own one?

Excellent news jcl. Good luck.

Great news! I'll keep an eye on this subject ^^.

Good News, Good Luck and Fingers Crossed!

I'm sure you'll get all the support you may need from the community!

Sounds like fun. Hope it all works out for you JCL.

Just curious it the server use other 3rd party plugin, or only the A7 engine functions?

good luck JCL. i am excited for you guys!

wow!great news :),thats explained the slow beta update

great news, Good luck, make sure to keep us posted as well.
(that's gonna be weird... a post by JCL in showcase :P)

regards,

Hi JCL,
When all those new beta releases will be available for public beta test?

Thanks

Thank you for all the crossed fingers! I'll post updates to the project if we get the contract, and possibly open a website with a developer's blog and a beta version when the client agrees. Until then, we're under NDA and thus can't give information about the MMOG details or our potential client's identity.

To answer the technical questions, the server prototype so far is just a plain A7 pro with no extra network libraries or any other extras. The technical concept of the final server cluster however will be a little more complicated. There are alternatives to an A7 server, such as a Java based system like Terracotta or Darkstar. However, due to the tight development schedule we'll probably go with the classical approach.

We did not originally intend to go back to game development with a project of this size. We've never handled such a huge project before. oP group and Conitec will have to team up for this, and bundle their resources. Such a project naturally also raises questions in one self, such as: am I really up to this task? Three out of four serious MMOG attempts fail. We have good reasons to assume that we'll belong to the 25% that have success. Still, it's sort of exciting.

I'll keep you informed.

Good luck...

great news, it's always better when the developer of the engine uses it for a real game project... you know this makes the engine better.

Thank your for these insights, we need them like food, because we are excited as well.

ill apply for game design, story design, sound design and dictator XD

I am also curious is it possible to develop XBOX 360 Arcade games, it seems most Arcade game a very simple. And what is the requirement to release game on XBOX 360 Arcade?

That sounds great i´m really looking forward to see this project get realized by the A7 Game Engine.

A possitive attitude is the first step for this project to be successfull. Good luck jcl & crew!

I'm looking into applying, unfortunately I have no really work to show for a portfolio and don't really have the time to make a portfolio level right now, so I'm contemplating what I should do.

I don't think Conitec, at least for now, is looking for forum members to help them out here LostClimate.

Good luck to Conitec though! I guess after this they've got no excuses as far as the multiplayer component goes. It surely will benefit all.

I think you will be in for a lot of usability surprises if you use MED/WED/the map compiler for a big serious project for the first time. I am sure the issues can be fixed though with enough effort and I wish you the best too!

seconded

they are, they talk about it in a different post:

http://www.opserver.de/ubb7/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=277293#Post277293

EDIT:

were, not are.

JCL, I'm just wondering, but what would all this mean for a possible A8 in the reasonably near future? More updates for A7?

It's just a numerical thing, but A7.80 sounds like we're nearing A8.

Well after A7.99 A7.100 will/could follow, so this is not the issue

Do you remember that after the A7.27b beta has been released, the next version which was the official release candidate was A7.50 (see beta date 2-Sep-2008)??? This was due to a deal with Sybex, because a new big version number has obviously a big selling potential.

So, version numbers should'nt lead to any conclusions... if JCL really has an update iteration problem because he is near A7.99 I guess he considers doing many interim versions like A7.99.1 for betas for instance or he will just rebrand it to A8 without adding brand new super features

A7 has more frequent updates than all versions before, thus we're now running short of version numbers. However, I think we can apply some creative numbering for not getting past 7.99.9.

Some new info to the project: We hear rumors from the direction of our client that we'll get the contract. Still, we don't have it yet, so the suspense is kept until the very last moment.

The project is a Second Life style MMOG with a spiritual/esoteric emphasis - I am allowed to tell as much.

spiritual...
and here im out

That sounds awesome! good luck.

spiritual/esoteric!?

there still exists the alfabet (7.99.9a, 7.99.9b, 7.99.9c)
But in all seriousness, I'm more then happy Conitec spits out updates like crazy! I think that certainly has been one of the best developments to A7.

thanks, and good luck on the game, if you need people in-house on this, think about my mail.

regards,

After many negotiations and some last-minute concept changes, we finally received the signed contract today. Development will start tomorrow, September 1st, as soon as we've recovered from the hangover...

Thanks for all the crossed fingers!

Congrats JCL! Really curious about the project and the future of the engine now !

Grats.

Maybe I should have applied as a scripter after all...

Sweet! Congratulations on getting contract

This must be a special day, JCL used a smiley :-)

Congratulations!

Alright, fair enough.

Also, best of luck completing the project!

Yeah, good luck!
Looking forward to see a project of the master himself...^^

Best of luck! Sure you'll make something spiritually spectacular!

(remember us when you're writing all your MP code snippets)

any news on this front, been waiting to see what will happen, genre etc....

Thanks for all the good wishes. The genre is SC; the project should originally start in September, but is delayed due to another project by our client. It will now most likely start by the end of November. We will probably open a website in January with a development blog and a beta version.

what sc stands for? sci-fi?

looking forward to dev-blog.

SC = Social Community.

yeah, it was not really logical to abbr have an abbr(science fiction=sci-fi?=SC, i really did not think so.)

thanks.

Best of luck, this sounds rather interesting indeed.

it does sound interesting, and addictive.....I'll never play....lol, I'm a creator and generally not a gamer, I can game for about one hour/week tops. I get bored with it or inspired...either way alt+f4 quick exit.

anyway, best wishes
und viel gluck!

i cant wait for the next few engine updates. because you will really really really need them, believe me...

@hello spike

correct! some (or many) adds for the engine


(Maybe a little .fx creator (not only a viewer).)

Any news on the project?

There have been indeed some interesting turns of events, but I'm not yet allowed to give news. However, probably in January we'll upload a website that will contain detailed information.