To all online game developers here

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Needed, IMO:

Team-based massively multiplayer online games, of whatever genre, in which players are somehow encouraged to form teams (a.k.a. clans, guilds, whatever), consisting of people who live in the same general geographic area.

That way, members of the same team could more easily meet in-person as well as in the game, if they so chose, and could perhaps become real-life friends. Also, the team itself could hold in-person social gatherings if it so chose.

IMO, players and teams should not be forced to pick teammates who live near them, but doing so should at least be an easy-to-use option.

IMO it would be great if massively-multiplayer online games could thus become an enhancement to people's real-life social lives.

EDIT: If anyone here is interested in developing such a game but doesn't know how to handle the geographic aspect of determining which users live near each other, my partner may be able to help with this.

You'll be terribly disappointed by the empty servers after you release your indie game in beta, the dozen people that will try it will find too many bugs, and there will be no more interest.

Without heavy marketing it's hard to bring people to play a new game.

Crowdfunding isn't hot anymore for games either. Former big names who went indie have struggled to meet funding targets in recent years.

No, I do not develop games. I tried to in my teenage years, they were all tech demos pretty much, I simply lack the creativity to design something fun. I dream about it from time to time, but I'm just not right for it. I do instead take up projects porting games.

Most likely that's true, especially for a massively multiplayer online game.

Hopefully any serious game developer is already well aware of this and has a marketing plan -- or a serious partner who can handle the marketing.


I'm not a game developer either. I'm just calling attention to a proposed feature that I think would be worth including in massively multiplayer online games.

What a neat idea!! The closest thing to it in the real world I feel was the Pokemon Go phenomenon.

Players ran around to catch Pokemon and met real life Pokemon trainers ha!

The social aspect is something that is sorely missing from games, and the latest generations in general.

I kept thinking about this thread, then I remembered a period of time, when Facebook games thrived.

I think it must have been around 2006. It's well suited to this concept as it could have leveraged the locality of users, and the sheer size of the user base.

Not sure if that would make sense on Facebook anymore...

I had myspace in 2005. Had myspace Tom as the only friend.

Already is a thing, servers try to make regional lobbies to reduce latency. A lot of gamers are recluses who don't go out much also.

I have made a game, here is a video. It is a turn based strategy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS2BOXfiaEw

I'm only posting that as evidence that I know a bit about game development.

The game you are describing would cost probably $1-$2 million just to get off the ground, and even then the chances of failure are extremely high. And that 1-2 mil is for getting it into an early access state where you could hopefully raise more money. Video game art is very expensive. Even if you used free assets to get an early access, it would still cost a lot to get off of the ground. For multiplayer games, you'd need testers and people ain't going to test an unfinished game for free.

Strategy games are a solid target for solo/indie devs. Online/multiplayer games are a bad thing to go for unless you have deep pockets.

Google "Curt Schilling" to see how much money a multiplayer game can burn through and still fail miserably.

Also, no way a game would encourage or enable people to meet in real life. All it would take is one rape/murder/robbery and now you get hit with lawsuits.

There might be cheaper ways to get it off the ground. For example, if one of the owners of the project happens to be a major or even medium-level social media influencer with lots of fans, such a person could probably recruit lots of free or low-cost beta testers. Such a person might also be able to crowd-source a lot of ideas for the specifics of the game.

Indeed the game itself could originate as a supplementary online recreational activity of some other, already-existing online community. A possible example might be the community of fans of some fantasy or science fiction author, with the central themes of the game being derived from said author's writings. Many aspects of the game could be crowd-sourced in this case, and it would have a ready-made audience.


There already do exist other kinds of online sites, e.g. dating sites/apps and Meetup.com, that specialize in enabling people to meet in real life. They have not been sued into oblivion. Some of these sites have been around for quite a while now; Meetup is about 20 years old, for example.

Anyone developing such a site should, of course, consult a lawyer. But I would hazard a guess that protecting oneself from such lawsuits is simply a matter of putting appropriate legalese in the terms of service.

No, you'd need paid testers for before beta.

No one would do that for free. The programming itself is probably 250k. If you can't do that yourself, don't bother. The art can cost free if you use free art or it can cost a billion if you want to go all out.

Beta testers aren't the real testers. Actual testing requires people with inside knowledge of the code. It doesn't help if someone says "I opened your game and it crashed." A true tester would be able to tell you where it crashed in the code, and also some insight into as to what might have caused it.

When you are testing PRE beta, the game will be awful and have so many issues. Thats assuming you get to minimum viable product.

Again, the programming and art is still the major cost. If you can't make a prototype yourself, don't bother.

Look at my link and my "simple" 2D strategy game. Its 230,000 lines of code! The art cost about 10k because I didn't use free art.

Go for it if you want to, but the running joke in game development is that making a multiplayer game is the most common mistake for solo devs.

Ideas are a dime a dozen.

Can you code? Can you draw? If so, go for it! But the other running joke in game dev is that idea people always think "oh I have this idea, it should be easy, can anyone code it?" because they think coding is easy.

So far all you have is a vague idea on things the game WONT be. You don't have a game loop. What is the game? What makes people want to play it? You don't have that. You just have this vague idea that people near each other could be matched. Great. That is not a game loop.

I'm not in any position, myself, to create a game. I'm a programmer but not a game developer. My sole point here is to suggest a general type of game (or, rather, a new feature of an already-existing type of game) that could be created by a game developer who happens to be teamed up with someone with easy access to lots of publicity.

Yes, I'm well aware that programming (anything, not just games) involves lots of testing before you get to the beta testers.

Old thread, but I'm already in the process of essentially building this if anyone is interested in helping to finish it? It wasn't intended for this specific reason, but due to the way it's set up players who are connected in real life by location will tend to end up in groups together.

The core mechanics are already built (using UE4). I still need:

* level/environment artist (to move existing models around to create buildings, etc in existing terrain maps)
* character animators (take existing models, apply animations from places like Mixamo, then import and apply in the Unreal state machine)
* character hair/clothing modellers (I can create + rig base models, but I'm rubbish at hair and textiles)
* combat designer (fill in remaining stats such as base duration, damage, cost, on character skills and ensure it's roughly balanced between different specs)

(I don't need any more actual models or 2D art - I've already had tons of people ask to help with that bit)

The game is designed to be a free-to-play (and not pay-to-win) RPG to help SEN students with education (which is why there are location-based groups for schools), but can be played as a regular RPG too or groups set up randomly by players based on a location.

PM me if you want to get involved. You'll need Unreal Engine 4.27 (we're deliberately not upgrading yet), Github, and Discord. Plus whatever software you use for the above.

It looks a little bit good, but how can it ensure that they still use this virtual world game after they have a real life?
I'm sure you have a definite idea. I'm just curious.

It's primarily designed to teach students high-school level education. But you get rewarded for tutoring lower level students too. And you can go back and replay the game as additional unlock character types once you've completed everything as your initial default character.