I need a project

Posted on by Nimgimli

This idle lifestyle of being a Gamer is starting to wear me down a bit. I’m feeling a real itch to create something, but I don’t know what. I need a personal project of some kind. Something fun to build (and, duh, I should point out that when I say “build” I really mean “code”; it’s not like I have a workshop with a table saw and drill press any more!) but small-scale enough to be manageable.

Anyone have any ideas? I’m thinking game-related but it could be something to do with blogging or other aspects of community building, too.

23 thoughts on “I need a project”

  1. How could are you with e-commerce? I’ve got an idea for a site that I’d need help building if you’re that bored. 🙂

  2. Figure out how to bring us together again in some kind of Nordock-shard environment. I don’t mean resurrect NWN necessarily, but something like that?

  4. @JoBildo – I’m doing a lot of ecommerce stuff at work right now, and the problem with it is that all the security concerns (since, after all, people are trusting you with their credit cards and all) kind of pushes it out of the realm of fun and into the realm of stress. 🙂

    @Gwyn, I keep waiting for MetaPlace or something like it to launch. I wonder if anything has gotten closer to being usable. Building a world sounds fun!!!

    @Mallika, thanks for the idea, but sadly I am design-challenged. I write the guts of web applications and luckily have pretty awesome designers to hand off to for the front end stuff. 🙂

  5. How about a web based MMO? Nothing fancy, mind you. Mostly you click on standard web buttons and maybe manage inventory. I’m thinking of something casual and web based like Kindom of Loathing except with game mechanics that allow players to interact. I can help. 🙂 We can work on the framework and let more creative types figure out how to make a game out of it.

    And @JoBildo, I’m doing some ecommerce work as well on the side from my normal work and I’d agree with Pete, when you are dealing with real money its not “fun” anymore. 🙂 I do it because they pay me, which is fun, and you can never have too much money. I like money.

  6. I’m the one who makes the blog templates around here! Peter’s graphics and layout skills are pretty much limited to cropping screenshots. 😉

  7. @Angela, yeah, but I kick ass at cropping screenies!!!

    @Lars, I’ve got some vague web-based game ideas floating around in my head. Not traditional MMO but more strategy-rpg MMO oriented.

    How to let players interact is an interesting puzzle. You can’t really expect people to interact in real-time in a web-based MMO (unless its totally random who you’re interacting with…ie, whomever happens to be there) so how do you ‘control’ your assets when you’re offline?

    That might be an interesting enough question to build some kind of demo around…

  8. @Pete – I think you could, via Ajax requests the client would let the server know you’re alive in game and haven’t browsed away to some other web page. The response from each request would let the player know of game state changes in real time such as players entering/exiting the current region (assuming we have a game world you can walk around in.)

  9. Huh. I always have problems scaring up an engineer, but I can do art and design. Well, and it’s hard to carve time out of the schedule.

    Progress Quest Vista?

  11. @Jadie – But he wants to code. Unless you are suggesting he code up “Knitting Online.”

    The action packed world of knitting at your fingertips! ONLINE!

  12. I actually know how to knit, a little. I can spin, too, on a hand spindle. I make kind of a mess of things on a wheel. 🙂

    Anyway, just sitting down to the PC after work and chores at 10:15 so probably won’t go any farther tonight… 🙂

    So how’s things on Plurk, Jadielady??

  16. On the Strategy MMO theme why not take out the real time equation by having the players only controlling at a strategic level. Have incomes and production purely time and consumption based. Then have the geography for interaction area based such that players assign ‘pieces’ to regions/areas with stances or operational orders. Those operations then complete in a specified amount of time.. more units make it faster , opposing units slow down/negate or take out your units.
    The actual pieces could be many different themes and operations tailored accordingly. A straight up thought might be a standard war theme with various land, sea and air units ( think say Nile Online meets Empire meets Risk) Alternatively you could go for say a Spy theme.. COld war with units being agents, para military, security, conventional military and operations revolving around espionage/tech acquisition/insurgency/assassination etc. Or say discovery of the New World/Pirates. 😉

  18. @Crag – That’s along the lines of what I was thinking about. I’m trying to keep the goals modest enough that I have slight chance of completing something. You’ve known me long enough to know how short my attention span is!!! LOL

    @Werit I remember seeing that post but never grokked that you actually built it. Congrats!

  19. @Copra I googled relplats but still don’t really get what it is… some kind of puzzle/arg thing?

  20. @Pete: There are a lot of similar projects to be done, except I have a requirement that it be of no cost to me. That limits me too things like App Engine, which has quota’s.

    WAR needs more in the way of web tools, so there is a potential avenue for you.

  21. Okay, I have another idea! 😀 Maybe create an addon or mod for one of the games you play? It could go in so many directions, depending on the game and genre.

  22. Can’t code and am somewhat graphically challenged (other than knowing what I like), but I’m watching this intently all the same.

    Can’t wait to play “Crochet Online, Age of HDCing”! 😀

  23. Well, serendipity stepped in and I think I found my “project” but I can’t really talk much about it. There was an article about Metaplace in InformationWeek today, and they were giving away beta accounts to the first 200 people that used a code, and I was one of that first 200. But of course its all under NDA. 🙁

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