farmville style game

[tonypee]

Hi,

Im scoping out the best way to build a game similar to farmville. I realize that a lot of the features will need to be created externally to the base openspace features, but i am wondering how well the system will integrate, and whether it will save much time, be scalable, cost effective, good for the development team etc.

I have seen the settlers example - it is similar to what we would be creating, just wondering HOW far from the base functionality is it - was it worth using OS?

The world needs to
- allow users to create their own world via building buildings
- buildings take time to build
- buildings will be upgradable
- player 'levels up' to unlock new features
- many items build at once (buildings, training units, researching etc)
- system state is persistent
- player doesnt have an 'avatar' necessarily
- player trains soldiers etc - these units will have state, but also might have a level of ai - randomly walk around the world etc. This interaction would be only in gameplay for display, not necessary to the state of the world.

social
-players can view each others 'worlds'
-players could share some assets, units etc with friends
-players can 'participate' in shared missions - via selecting resouces to share etc.

persistence
- events will trigger while the player is absent from the game - fb notifications, sms, email, etc
- the world will be ready with updated features when they return - state is managed by smartfox + updated via events while they are gone, then loaded and represented in os?

Basically - farmville is the easiest way to describe things for the moment - and before you say it - YES i understand the massive complexity of such a project, but still i need to scope viability with OS

i await your response

[Bax]

I hope you will get an answer from OpenSpace users, instead of our reply only.
Anyway...

The creators of The Settlers purchased a source-code license in order to add their own features to the engine. It is hard to say if this is required or not, as it really depends on the requirements of the project. From what you describe I suspect yes. We usually suggest developers to spend some time in a prototyping phase where the most advanced features should be analyzed as much as possible (even discussed with us, if you need).

Of course the source code is quite expensive, but you should take into consideration that the amount of time and costs involved in creating an equivalent product would definitely exceed the cost of our "Source license" which is available immediately and without the risks of embarking into the creation of such a complex component.
Also the OpenSpace engine has already gone through hundreds of hours of testing and it is currently being used in production, together with SmartFoxServer, in very large MMOs and virtual communities all over the world.