Project Ion - MMO (open for testing)

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Project Ion is developed by Joey and Jelle Jansen in their free time. In 2011 they started with this online multiplayer experiment.
The project is 24/7 accessible for participants and since the start 1000's of people have made a account and have played the game.




On the news section they give out release notes for each update in the last 2 years.
Viewing the history will give insight on the progress and development rate.
Most notable task after version update 0.6.0 will be the implementation from crafting.

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The storyline is developing organically. Feedback and ideas from participants are appreciated. Every iteration of development adds new creatures, objects and items, possibly carrying clues in their descriptions.


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A growing amount of people support the project trough money donations and assets, creating forums and much more.The developers appreciate all forms of input and plan to invest the donations back into the project.

Upgrading to Unity Pro is the first things on their list.
So far they worked on a non-budget basis with the Unity free version and open-source applications available for everyone like blender and gimp.
They also received some kind contributions from Schlumpfsack Be sure to check out his work!
In addition to the current update we can report that Kalamona also contributed a neat alien creatures pack.


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Project Ion offers a massive area from 64km², where you have total freedom and you can decide your own future.
After hiding for a few decades underground people slowly getting back from their shelters finding the atmosphere pretty much restored.
The only problem is mutated animals have taken over a lot of habitat, robots are actively killing humans and there are rumors about aliens wanting to probe us.
You can gather resources trough hunting, mining and exploring, look for treasures, find natural resources like hemp plants.
Create a team to stand strong in this dangerous world, trade with other players, create new equipment, even better than those you started with and much more. Become a known presence in this persistent and constantly growing world!




Joining Project Ion is very easy, after you download the game and created a account you can log in for the first time, you start with creating a personal avatar.
After you finalized your avatar you will be placed in the Babylon to start your adventure.




Besides this download we made a overview again from all websites you can visit to find out more about this project.
Would be nice when you are a Facebook user you "like" and follow the Project Ion page, a feedback is appreciated if you tried the game.




Project Ion TestBuilt
Portfolio Joey Jansen
IRC Channel




Project Ion English forum
Project Ion Polish forum
Project Ion Wiki

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Hah, don't know why, but those screenshots reminded me of Everquest. Maybe it's the giant spiders, environment, and the way the UI is set up.


Looks good so far.

 

the terrain doesn't fit with the models but in other words looks good

 

Reminds me of Entropia Universe. Am I wrong in assuming this?

 

the screenshot reminds me of fallout o.o im trying it.

 

looks good so far, i guess you cant attack yet? I cant equip the gun =/

only major flaw i saw was inventory item graphic stacking in the loot window.

 

Is heavily inspired from old Project Entropia.
The loot in loot window is working as intended.
To equip a weapon or any other item, drag it from inventory to a slot in toolbar and then press the corresponding key.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Doesn't look bad

 

The game is nice as it should!
but are there just spiders? I'm wondring that.

P.s A video for youtube would boost the game up!

 

Thanks and hope you will try it out one of these days.

Thanks and keep a eye on the project. Both terrain and models will evolve more in time.

Yes and no, as the real inspiration came from the P.E, the former project from Entropia Universe.

Not a bad compliment, thanks!

Thanks and feel free to try it out. ;-)

There is a video found on this website
The video is from a year ago and a lot has changed.
Some people started to make a new video that we could expect soon on the website and youtube.
On the website you will find also additional information on the project. Feel free to make a account and join the community.

 

Ya that didnt work, I dragged the gun to the toolbar slot 1 and nothing happened. ( and I pressed 1) then i tried other slots.

P.S. the spiders are absolutely hideous ()_0 but I guess that was the point?

 

Going full screen will work as in window mode the toolbar can be out of line with the real position it is on.
All small issue's found are fixed in last 2 days.

In case no new bugs are found we could expect a new major update somewhere in the first month of 2013.

Think that 2013 will become a great year for the project with a lot of new development and a growing community.
To get a idea where the development is going you could visit following website.

 

I think no one should have expectation of graphics at this point. Doing such a project is a big endeavor and having the gameplay first is much more important than eye candy graphics and fx.

 

Oddly enough I was just going to ask about graphics, not that I was going to bash the game for graphics but ask when would working on graphics, textures be a priority? As of coarse like you stated gameplay is much more important, agreed! I will test the game soon a I can, seems like an MMOFPS, cool, or am I wrong?

O and what about enemies? Will there be more than just spiders? Or is there all ready just don't see them in the screenshots.

 

Very true, and all is done so far without the Unity Pro version.

We have 2 creature types on the moment available. The creatures not share the same maturity so there is already some variation.
The 2nd creature type on the moment are skeletons. They are there to create some variation and I hope to see the mutated humanoids replace them in the near future.
The game offers also room for P.V.P combat so you could also add those to your enemies.

Besides mutated humanoids we will aim for mutated wildlife and robots.

The game is indeed a MMOFPS but you could also play it as a MMORPG depending on what you want to do.

The game is from the ground up 1 year old now and progress is going steady.
Within the first months of 2013 i expect to see some nice version updates.

On the moment their is worked on crafting / mining / bigger area / sounds.
After that we could expect more creatures, skills and armor.

When most of these features are build in and tested there will come for sure a big Eye-Candy injection.

Hope to see you online soon!

 

This is one indie project I am actually really interested in. Mainly because I loved Project Entropia. (I played it yearss back).

Will there be some kind of "feel" for mass of wealth? Owning land etc?

 

Very Cool Game! Just Tested it!

Took me a minute to understand controls, but after no problem...

Very nice to go from Third Person to FPS View Mode and play like an FPS.

Only thing I don't like is the speed of Walking and /or Running.... Probably one thing I hate about most MMORPGs Type Games, HUGE World but Movement is way to slow for my taste.

Other than that, the game is great! I'm sure you will have lots more to add to the game soon and in near future! Keep up the good work!

 

I was thinking the same thing! All it is lacking is the hotbar on the bottom

 

The developers aim for a unique system where the community will decide and rule the economy them self.
The project is still in a early stage of development so we still trying to think out a approach that is worth start working on.

The way it works now is that you, me and everyone who have good idea's, suggestions or anything useful for the development is welcome to participate.

On the wish-list owning land and D.N.A was already added.

On this website you will see the progress on the project.

 

Killing giant spiders whilst wearing a turtleneck and beret has never looks so fun.

 

Hello Unity and Project Ion community,

Yesterday the developers posted a sneak preview screen-shot from the upcoming V.U. (refining and crafting)
The release date from this new update is still unknown but i guess it will not take long anymore.

Feel free to visit and test the current version 0.5.1.

 

Well... The PE/EU lootwindow was the best on the game. I always hated to singlecollect loot. Good to use it here.

 

Hello everyone,

Since last week a Polish forum is launched by a participant from Project Ion.
The English forum is of course also still available.

We also glad to announce the birth of Project Ion Wiki. Set up by another participant we see the project grow more and more.

For me as one of the early testers I can say the improvements are impressive for a 2 man team but at the same time it feels like we all doing our part as a community.

The developers are putting a last hand on the new update 0.5.2.
I hope i can update this topic within the coming days to announce the new version update. ;-)

 

Good work guys

 

I couldn't figure out how to equip a gun, and then was eaten by a giant mutant spider queen

but I am pretty impressed how far you got!

 

I might have missed this but what networking are you using for this? A third party I am assuming like Ulink or Photon or something?

 

Dragging the item from your inventory (i) towards the tool bar on one of the hot keys is best way to equip a gun. Don't forget to use (r) after to reload before going to shoot something.

A question like this is out of my league. I just testing the project and created this topic in W.I.P. I will ask one of the developers to come and answer your question.

 

The Game is fun. :] However characters are really slow and guns damage is horrible. :]

 

I tried it multiple times but it didn't work :/
I can drag the gun but it's not being placed on toolbar.

 

Hi Mike,

We have an authoritative server setup using the standard Unity Networking for now. The performance has been good so far but we could switch to a third party (like Photon) if we need to. Setting this up authoritative will probably need some creative tinkering though. In the meanwhile we focus on adding functionality, optimizing code as well as our development skills.

 

Well, we talked in-game and I still think testing the game before replying might help.
I hope you enjoyed the adjusted m16 and looted some boosters with it.

 

The game is good but it freaks me out :s

 

Thanks Goregaming but please explain why it freaks you out?

Since a few days the developers have launched a new version update 0.5.2.
It is very good to see the progress so far.

I am very curious to see what the developers are doing for the next update. I asked Eddie (TestBuilt) to create a new W.I.P so we could get better informed by one of the developers trough the W.I.P.

 

Just WoW!

This morning I noticed Eddie posted a new progress update on the Project Ion. My guess is that within a few months we have a new addiction called "Project Ion"

This is a copy from the news update :

Hello everyone.

It might not be as soon as some expected, but the fact is that we are here to bring you some good news about the current state of development. It's almost a shame that the achievements are technical in nature like:

- Converting all source code to C# to ease and optimize component interaction. Done!
- Researching terrain features and dynamic expansion possibilities. Done!
- Coding a terrain handler which handles chunks of terrain (2x2 km). Done!
- Filling a 4x4 grid with the 2x2 km chunks to expand the world to 64 km². In Progress...

The terrain textures have already been upgraded to a higher resolution but we still need to test the advanced terrain shader. This should enable the use of bump maps and provide some visual proof of all the hard work. While the bad news is that this will take some more time to complete, the good news is that vehicles will become a necessary feature.

To be continued...


Extra : Also check out two small projects from the developers.

Clay Pigeon Shooting : open webplayer


Blocking Issues : open webplayer

 

Hello Unity community,

Since a few days the developers from Project Ion have posted a sneak preview from the upcoming update.

Here are the awesome screens plus the announcement itself.

Pictures or it didn't happen....

posted Mar 4, 2013, 12:38 PM by Snelle Eddie

Well, here are some sneak previews showing off the new terrain and outpost models. (models were kindly donated by our new hero: schlumpfsack ). The terrain was procedurally generated, stitched, painted and blended using some custom editor scripts written by John Silver Long. Bumped terrain was achieved by using the advanced terrain shader package from the unity asset store.

These are the results so far without any baked shadows or post-fx etc. Enjoy!

Sneak Preview One



Sneak Preview Two



Sneak Preview Three

 

Good new, I look forward to discover this update

(mingo)

 

As I also look forward to discover the new update, with a terrain 64x bigger than the present day demo I am keeping a close eye on the progress.

Hoping I get not hanged by John and Eddie or later by the community I can tell everyone it will be a matter of weeks from now on. What i saw until now mostly the new terrain looks very good. It feels great to walk in a huge area and triggers the eagerness to explore.

I was not allowed to make a few screens but I promise I do my best to update the WIP coming weeks with the newest screens if i can lay my hands on them.

Stay tuned!

 

Keep it up
"Grey suited hitman"

 

Now this looks very good guys,good work

 

Just don't switch to the CryEngine. That was when EU lost me. Great work!

 

The feeling it was lost not only because the graphics were better, but because the new environment come with lots of mountains and terrain obstacles. Most of the old Entropia was a plain were you can see far and run unhindered, Remember the mining claims spawning in top of in-accessible cliffs after the launch of cryengine entropia?
Also another factor that destroyed the game it was the reconfiguration of the hunting zones.I use to hunt argos near Twin Peaks, robots near Jason Center, atroxes near Forth Ithaca. In the beginning they also tried to remove the auto aiming with the hope that forcing the player to keep a constant target will result in many more miss shots, ergo a higher ammo consumption.
Any way, entropia never was a game in the real meaning of the word. The casino aspect was put in front of gamers needs all the time, hence the love and hate relation that each player have with entropia.

 

Could not bring it better under words than you just did.

And seeing your hunting pattern it sounds like myself. Jason Center at drones was my favorite place, followed by Argonauts at Twin Peaks. Forth Ithaca doing Atrox was my 3th choice.

My personal objection with Entropia Universe was the great losses I experienced and the unpersonalized support system. Never had the feeling they really cared about and for all individuals who played their game.

But again, your opinion comes in all very much in-line with my feeling!

Did give the opening topic an extra edit. Additional information like "Latest Gossip" and "Your mission" are added and a few other minor improvements.

Latest Gossip : With some luck we could see a new update coming within a time frame of 2 weeks.
But that is something I took as guess as a non-developer. For the real guys "It's only there when it is worth releasing" Mainly John is testing all his work step by step in development to maintain optimal performance in enhancing and upgrading the code and visuals.
John also worked on some own assets he needed for his game and he is planning to release some of them also to the Unity Asset store. Knowing John and seeing what he has made I know for sure it would come in handy those assets if I ever going to start game development myself.

Your mission : You could help the developers by simply make an account and test / try out the game. Until now we have stress tested the still home based server up to 12 people but the aim is to see what happens with more players online at the same time. For now we capped the maximal amount of players online to a standard of 20 people up to 40 people depending on performance when the developers reach a new record on people online at the same time.

Stay tuned!

 

The update is on visuals coming along nicely last week. With still a lot to do on many fronts it would for sure going to take at least one or two weeks more to get some nice update.

One thing is sure, after this update the project is more than ever ready for continues development and the update rate will only speed up after. As an eager participant and good real life friend from the developers i managed to get three more sneak previews.

What we can expect in coming update and those that follow stays for the most also a secret for me but I trust and a very creative product.







Also updated the opening topic with these new screens. In the opening topic you find additional information about the game. Feel free to check out the current demo. Is worth a look and after the update we will not be able to log in anymore as the 63 times bigger new world will be open from then on. A good chance still to see the difference as it was last year and to what it will be in coming update.

 

Honored and lucky to be so close to the development team these days. The progress on the project is awesome!
I can not show any screens or write down to much in detail as John wants to keep everything as a surprise.

With some luck we could see the update within the next week. Not sure if the the deadline from 05-04-2013 will be made but on the max it will be like one week later if no serious issues arise. (10-04-2013 John expects to release the new update!)
With that said, it will be one of the last days to try out the current demo from the game. Compared to what is coming it lacks in quality but for us dedicated testers it will be a era to never forget.

In case I do get permission to post some new sneak previews or give some additional information about upcoming update this topic will be the place to find them. With the progress I have seen so far it will become very exciting to be a part of the testing community. So make your account today and join us in "Project Ion"

This topic was b.t.w on page 5 going to 6. Don't leave it rot that far away and leave us your feedback on the project please. :wink:

12-04-2013 UPDATE : John is still having some difficulty with finalizing the upcoming update. Pure based on visual he still finds it to important to ignore. Really hope and expect to see the update this weekend. Stay tuned!

 

Very happy to announce the new version update 0.5.3 is available now.

This is again a major step for Project Ion. Here is a copy from the news section on the developers website.
Also updated the first post with the new log-in screen and some in-game screens and some adjustments in the text.

VU 0.5.3 - The Long Haul
posted Apr 15, 2013, 11:30 AM by Snelle Eddie

It took quite some time to get this far so we hope you enjoy this HUGE update

The new client is available here


Release notes 0.5.3

- All source code was converted from unity/javascript to C#
- new: World consisting of 16 (4x4) separate terrains each measuring 2000 x 2000 meters.
- new: ATS v2 terrain shader to provide support for bumpmapping the terrain. (experimental!)
- new: System to dynamically load, reuse and unload terrainobjects + lightmaps.
- new: System to dynamically load, reuse and unload creatures when needed
- new: System to update creature and player data to clients combining data together efficiently to lower the rpc's needed.
- new: Creatures, Objects, Animations, Sounds and some new lootable items.
- new: Music playlist with a few tracks that are free to use under the Creative Commons License.
- new: Teleporters show a map with locations to choose from instead of teleporting directly.
- new: Basic worldmap showing current position in the world. (open/close using M)
- new: On-demand revive functionality to transport to the nearest revive terminal. (R button on Player Info window)

Known Issues:

- Because of some baking issues there are currently only 4 low quality light maps around the Zion Citadel.
> We will be investigating this but, decided to release as-is so we can incorporate the feedback generated in the next update.

- Some (animated) meshes jitter a bit and this could have something to do with the shaders.
> This needs to be investigated.

Extra Info:

- For now you will only find creatures around Babylon and Zion Citadel.
- Pickups are not in yet and will probably be added next update, along with mining, currency and/or other donation rewards.

 

Some new screens made in Project Ion.







Feel free to make a account and join the project! Everyone is welcome and your feedback on the project is very much appreciated!

And again some more screens.

 

Hello everyone, John fixed and tweaked the last update some more and they will release a patch one of these days.
Here the news post from their website.

GFX Buggers...

posted Apr 23, 2013, 7:55 AM by Snelle Eddie

Hi everyone,

Shortly after launching the VU 0.5.3 we received some reports about graphical issues. We investigated the matter and it appears to be related to the used shader in combination with Intel graphics adapters. Since we're lacking the funds to provide everyone with a decent graphics adapter, we tweaked the ATSv2 shader to support a fallback shader which actually preserves the textures. This new setup has been successfully tested on an intel platform and will be released a.s.a.p.

We'll be back soon with more news...

 

Due to the ISP the project will be offline for the next two days. As soon the project comes back up we will have a good chance to see a new version update. Stay tuned!

 

Hi,

Vey nice project.

 

Good news Tesla , since yesterday no way to connect