MMO Construction Kit

Hi all, we are currently working on a full solution system for developing a MMORPG game with Unity. Unity will be used as the client with our own Server Software which will allow people to connect to a Massive Multi-Player Online world. As a developer you will be supplied our server side system which is not done in Unity and use Unity as the Client to connect to the server.We will also be adding a building system in Unity itself to set Mobs, Add quests, and much more. This system will update the server side automatically when you are building your game in unity. We where just wondering what the demand would be for such a system.

Website: Atavism Online
Wiki: http://atavismonline.com/wiki/

Get in on Alpha by pledging on our Neo's Land game website or Neojac Main Website, two rewards available for Atavism Engine.
Neo's Land: http://www.neosland.com
Neojac: http://www.neojac.com

Basic Licensing:
NeoJac offers the following licenses for Atavism. Licenses are determined by the number of concurrent users (users online at the same time) participating with the platform. Licenses can be upgraded as your game's success improves. This allows for a "pay as when you need it" and not have to worry about those royalty percentages riding on your efforts. You can have as many different servers done with one license but only one database per server. There is no royalties added with the licenses.

The Base Build License will be purchased at the Unity3D Store.
All other licenses will be purchased here. Each license is an upgrade, of which must be paid separately.
Licenses are per seat with group discounts.

STARTER LICENSE $45 (USD)

100 Concurrent Users
This code will be purchased at the Unity3D Store and is required for all of the other licenses. All of the server code is compiled, with exception to configuration files. This build allows for developers to quickly develop a MMO within Unity3D by using the GUI (Graphical User Interface).
Base Build Licenses includes: Chat, Quests, Skill System, Basic Combat, Pets, Mob Spawning, Factions,Inventory system, Modular housing system and more to come.

VETERAN LICENSE + $120 (USD)
Must own Starter License

450 Concurrent Users
The Veteran Build License allows for customization of the Atavism Information Game System (AGIS) files; however, the Core Server Files are compiled. Developers will be able to provide some uniqueness and greater flexibility to their games by means of writing their own plugins.
More information for packages will be provided at a later time.

EXPERT LICENSE + $235 (USD)
Must own Veteran License

1500 Concurrent Users
The Expert Build License is of the Veteran Build, but with up to 1,500 Concurrent Users.

LEGENDARY LICENSE + $600 (USD)
Must own Expert License

Unlimited Concurrent Users


Here is some test world done so far people are working on if you want to login and run around. As its demo worlds they are being developed as time goes on so might not have lost in at the moment.

Atavism Demo Game - Arcfall
Web Base Demo

Neos Land MMO

[video=youtube_share;FxqF3BfoLGQ]

Video of Age Of Survival who uses Atavism Engine:

Games Being developed Using Atavism Online:

Greed Monger

Divergence-Online

Videos


First Overview of the current Alpha 1.2 version

[video=youtube_share;H0xHmLUX5nY]

Setting up Boot Camp Demo with the engine.

[video=youtube_share;tXspwqpr6KQ]

Infinite terrain using Boot Camp assets which mean no limit world.


Current Release Features:

Atavism Unity Beta 2 Release Notes
17th June 2014

Note: The Atavism Unity tools are still in alpha and as such may contain numerous bugs and so e features will be missing.

Atavism Unity Beta 2 Changelogs
Major Changes
1) Inventory System:
- The Inventory System has been improved to allow “Effects” to be added to items. These can include stats that are applied to characters when the item is equipped, abilities that can be activated by the item, and Auto Attack ability replacement for when a weapon is equipped. The system is designed to allow other types of effects to be easily added to items at later dates.
- Bags are now properly supported and players can put bags into their bag slots to give themselves more space in their inventory.

2) Atavism Editor:
- The Atavism Editor now has a login system to verify the user has purchased a license to use the Atavism Editor tools.
- A new Option Choices plugin has been added allow users to add and change the options for many of the drop down in the Atavism Editor. For example, a user can now set their own item types rather than using the predefined options.
- Help section (book Tab) now has a description and function information on each item for that plugin.

Minor Improvements
Atavism Editor
- Added Delete/Remove buttons for many areas where you could not previously delete data entered.
- Mobs: Faction and Damage Type drop downs now correctly link to the data in the database. New field: Auto Attack added to allow specifying which ability the mob uses as their auto attack.
- Player Character Setup: Added Auto Attack field to allow specifying which auto attack the players character starts with.

General
- The Input Controller system has been changed and now Input Controllers must be added as a component to an object in each game scene (generally to the Main Camera). An Input Controller should not be added to the Login scene.
- Players disconnected from the server will now be booted to the Login Scene rather than being left to run around the world.
- The default UI has been improved to allow anchoring to different areas of the screen.
- Key bindings have been added for the action bar (using the 1-7 buttons), and for a few windows (L for Quest Log, K for Skills, B for Bag)
- A caster slot has been added to the CoordProjectileEffect script so the slot the projectile leaves the caster from can be set.
- Quest Items have been added, an item with an Item Type of Quest will only drop when the item is needed for a Quest the player is on.

Fixes
- A couple of item duplication methods have been fixed.
- The Cursor is now drawn in front of the rest of the GUI
- NPC's offering only one dialogue will now display that dialogue when requested
- A newly created character will now start with their full amount of health and mana.
- Players can no longer login to the game with any password when using the UMA package (it was a server side fix, a UMA update is not required).
- Starting abilities for skills will now be granted for abilities with a level of either 0 or 1.
- The Ability and Inventory systems in the game no longer stop working when 2 or more Prefabs have the same id.
- The InstancePortal script is working again and can be used to teleport players between instances.
- The Mob Spawner UI will now only show up for those who have access.
- The mouse wheel will no longer zoom the camera in and out when over most GUI elements.
- Quests set to Repeatable are now repeatable.
- NPCs will now talk to players who are on a Quest but have not yet completed it.

We have put together a basic roadmap, this will not be all features but as we go along more things will be added.
Added January 31 2014

Phase 1: Core Content Development Tools
1) Combat Atavism Project Updating System - 15th Feb
Combat
- Skill system: experience based levelling skill-use increase options.
- Abilities: damage, healing, stat altering, stun, spawn, despawn and more ability/effect types.
- Co-ordinated effects: Support for animation, sound, particle and other special effects on ability activation and completion.
- Basic Skill progress and Ability UI provided.
Atavism Project Updating
- New Updating system to allow updates to be implemented without losing any content created in the world
2) Quests - 1st March
Quests
- Ability to create quests, set their objectives and set up their rewards in the Atavism Unity editor tool.
- Basic Quest UI provided to allow players to accept, track and hand in their quests.
- Quest Item support – items that only drop when on quests

Phase 2: Core Server Functionality ( Beta)
3) Terrain System - 15th March
Terrain System
- Full Paging and stitching Unity Terrain System
4) Server Side Collision - 5th April
Server Side Collision
- Navmesh collision generation in Unity that can be copied to and run on the server
- Navmesh editing on the server
5) Authoritative Player Control - 19th April
Authoratative Player Control
- Server implementation of character control to verify characters position and movements from the client input.
6) Pathfinding and Mob AI improvements - 10th May
Pathfinding
- Mobs pathfinding system upgraded to use server collision to accurately move around the world.
AI
- Improved AI functionality to control mobs with patrol paths, roam radius, combat behavior settings.
- Possible advanced implementation of a system similar to Story Bricks
7) Server Management Tools Monetization - 24th May
Server Management Tools
- Manage accounts
- Start/Stop server
- Check on server status other details
Monetization
- Server side support for Item mall
- Server side support for Subscription based models
8) End of Beta improvements - 7th June

Phase 3: Extra Features (Full Release)
Order and Dates to be determined at a later time
Social
- Friends and Blocked list UI
- Chat channels
Grouping
- Allow players to form groups to work together on quests, in combat and take on dungeons/pvp battles
Merchants
- Allow players to purchase items from NPCs.
- Atavism Unity editor plugin to allow setting up Merchants
Trading
- Secure server side system for trading to allow non-bound items to be traded between players but with checks in place to prevent duplications etc.
Arena/Battlegrounds
- Arena system provided to allow 2v2 matches etc.
- Basic battleground templates such as CTF allowing larger groups of players to fight in teams against each other
Pets
- Both combat and non-combat pets that follow you around the world
- Ability to tame pets and use them to assist you in combat

 

I would say depends on cost and whether we had access to server and client source code.

 

Hi Zeeawk, yes we are looking at different systems. Because we want to make it easy accessible to all we are looking at selling different packages with different amount of items available to players. We definitely want to give the starter package away for free but it will be allowing limited changes. As the pricing increases for higher graded packages there will be one which will supply full source code to server. The client is build in unity so you will have full access to that code. we are also looking at other payment setups like the Photon Cloud system where you get full access to a server and depending on the usage have to pay only when your world have x amount of people using it.

 

What style of combat will this MMO Kit allow?

The normal WoW style, or a variety of styles, such as First Person, Third Person etc?

Will we be able to modify it to our means?

 

there will be a range of style when it come to camera control as that's all controlled by the client which is Unity so you will have allot of freedom when it comes to modifications. It also depends on what package you get which how much you can modify it.

 

I'm positive that if done correctly, it will have a staggering demand.

What is the progress and eta on release?

 

We are looking at a demo game we want to launch to show basics like quest, combat and so forth to developers. The game will be released in about a month or so which everyone can test and a closed beta version will be released as well for testing to a few people.

 

Very exciting!

I for one will be anxiously awaiting release.

 

if it can handle FPS MMO type games, ill be first in line

 

We are looking into it at the moment. FPS are not the easiest ones to make in a MMO as the physics must be really good for detection in combat. But I am pretty sure we will be able to work it out.

 

Hi all, thought I would share this video with you guys. Its a old version of our MMO build system we have using the server software we are integrating into Unity but it uses our own client we had before we decided to use Unity for our client side. You can see what options you had there at that stage already. This world building is done in real time in game which will allowed a wide range of things that could be done like quest creating by players and so forth. Our only problem we had at that stage was that our client was not good enough to produce a AAA game with the features it had, that's why we decided to use Unity for our client side and am busy integrating our server side with Unity. The MMO Construction Kit that will be released for Unity will allow developers to create content and world building both in game and in Unity.

 

This is really nice, and I'd love to be apart of this. I have some useful client sided code which might greatly benefit the project.
Add me on skype: GambinoIndustries

 

Cool added.

 

Bump

 

Interested I've been working on my own sub systems for my games even my own network code as well would love to help out where I can.

 

Thanks, yes we will be looking at getting more help soon. We have been working on the server side for a few years now so its pretty far already.

 

I really like your work and efforts. If you need help in testing something just send me a PM.

 

Will do, allot of testing will start very soon.

 

Wow, I just saw the video and it looks AWESOME.
Great job dude!
Any idea of cost or anything like that ?

 

We are looking different price packages, Starter package will be $25 and then it goes up depending on what you want included. The starter package will allow you to develop a full MMO though.

 

Eta on a beta release?

 

So far its looking like beta will be available in the next two months. We are getting close to showing off a project called islands Of war that we are developing with this kit.

 

We need some feedback from you. Currently this is how our system works. For things like items , npc's and mobs you create a prefab in unity on which you add display things like say for skills and items you will set the icon and so forth and for mobs/npc you will have the model with clothing and other mesh set to show how they look. The server then reads these fre-fabs to get the information and sets variables and so forth inside your game. This is only for display information. For other information like if a mob should roam, be attachable, attack players and so on. This can be set inside the game as it is running or it can be set in unity outside the game. At some stage we want both options but we can only develop one at this moment to save time. So question is which one would you prefer? If its inside the game you will have to login to set mobs/npc but the upside is you can have players spawn stuff like that thus it opens up many possibilities.

 

Will we be able to do the the exact same things with either method? I wonder if the in-game method would be more limited in what you can do to the item, mob, NPC, etc.

 

There is no difference between the two in regards to what can be done with it. Its more a matter of what is easier to do. In game or out of the game.

 

I'm all for the in-game method then. I guess my biggest concern would be being able to restrict that functionality to user who are authorized (e.g., via an account flag).

 

Yes that's how we are doing it so you can change who has access to what via account flags. Like I said in-game opens up allot of possibilities for game design.

 

I like the idea of doing it in-game.

Just so I'm understanding this correctly, using this kit will automatically update the server side aspects?

 

Yes server side will be auto updated. The kit is really unique to unity. Usually any company that wants to make a full MMO using unity must spend a huge amount of money to develop the server side so they can use unity as a client. The only options at the moment is multiplayer systems which does not allow more than 100 players in a world at the same time. Thus its not a real MMO, because we are developing our own game with it we thought it would be worth making it available for other indie company's who cant afford the $500,000 plus to make their own system.

 

A few in-game screenshots of the MMO we are developing using our MMO kit. These screenshots was taken in a webplayer. This a a very early version just to show some progress. In one of the screenshots you will notice stats and also the players name which is updated instantly from server. As we are just finishing the spawning system for mob's/npc the next ones that come will show that in.The GUI was done using Playmaker.

 

When are you going to release this and sell it on the Asset Store?

 

We haven't got a set date yet for release but it will definitely be in the next few months. We are contemplating on doing a early beta release where if you bought it you would get access to everything now and also be part of the development proses in making the kit better with features but haven't made a decision on that yet.

 

cookimage,

The screenshots look very promising! If you do decide to provide beta access to early adopters, please let me know. I'd be very interested in helping to test and provide input on the product. As a hobbyist with only marginal programming skills, I find the idea of developing an online game so overwhelming, and an MMO asset like your company is building seems like a way to bridge the gap for me.

Question: Can you describe at a high level some of your server tech features? I'm assuming standard MMO engine things like having multiple hosts for load balancing and uptime, secure connection (or at least optional packet encryption), etc.?

 

Ill get our programer to post a comment on that when I talk to him, as I know some programing but he is the brains behind the server lol Yes I think this package is going to bridge a huge gap in indie developers being able to produce full MMO games. We have actually been working on the server for some time now and being an indie company I can totally relate to the fact of how hard it is for small game development companies to break into the MMO market. That was one of the biggest reasons we decided to make this kit available to other developers especially now that we can use Unity for the client side which will also allow allot of capabilities for games to create a mod community for their games if they are using our system because players can download Unity for free and get involved into modding right away.

 

Hi Cook,

Looks great
My main question, is if the UI is made in Playmaker, will we need playmaker to get it to work?

 

No its setup to use anything you want to use as all the data received from the server gets set on one script from which you can recall any information and do what ever you want with it. If you are using NGUI, Playmaker or even coding your own UI in C# it makes no difference. We just did it in Playmaker to make sure the system is compatible with any other package a developer would use to make their own UI.

 

Awesome. Looking forward to your programmer's insight. I have a few other questions:

- How is mob/NPC AI handled? I'm assuming it would be server-side. Are there base behaviors or APIs? Is there anything that can be done via the Unity client that wouldn't require programming? (For example, you can create a mob/NPC template with stats and skills/abilities/spells via the client kit, and the server uses those stats and skills to determine NPC behavior.)

- Does the MMO kit support streaming/continuous worlds, or do you have to create distinct zones that you travel to?

- Is zone instancing supported? For example, can I spawn a dungeon instance for a player party so that only that party can enter it and it is destroyed/cleaned up once the zone has been empty for a certain amount of time?

- What MMO-like systems will you support out of the box (either via the base package or add-on/upgraded versions)? Party/grouping? Chat channels? Friends/ignore lists? Guilds? Player housing?

Sorry, lots of questions from an eager buyer.

 

Well many of those questions we cant reply to right now as we haven't implemented them yet into using Unity, like I said we are still busy writing what we had before using our own client over to using Unity as a client.

- Mob/NPC AI must be handled server side as to make sure that the positioning of mobs across different clients are synchronized. We haven't implemented MOB/NPC AI yet but have a good idea on how we are going to do it. The MMO kit will have a base outline of skills/abilities which will basically be a plug and play system where you would be able to just change numbers and be on your way. This will be for people that want to get started right away. More involved developers will be able to code their own systems as well so we are catering for the novices to the expert developer.

- The kit will be supporting continuous worlds when its is released as our server side is setup for that type of scaling as far as I know.

- Zoning/ instancing will be supported as we had that using our old client thus the server is already setup to support that.

- As far as I know we will be supporting all these,"Party/grouping? Chat channels? Friends/ignore lists? Guilds? Player housing? " as like most other questions we already developed that for our old client and about everything is done server side thus its already there.

 

Sounds great! How are game systems on the server implemented and modified? Would it be a direct server source edit, or is there a scripting reference (and if so, what language)?

Also, what is the data structure for account and character information? Flat file? Database? If DB, what kind? For my game, I'd like to have game accounts tied to forum accounts from a website. Just trying to judge how easy/difficult that would be with your kit.

 

Currently it uses MySQL database witch you can link to any account system you have for your website.

 

Great. I was hoping for MySQL, since it's the backend for PHP forums.

 

We started now to add the MMO kit right into the Unity Editor. So most actions you can get to through a easy user interface.

 

One thing I forgot to mention is that with our kit, if you wanted to make only a multiplayer game you could do that as well as all that would be then is a instance with the amount of players you want to allow.

 

Sounds like a very flexible kit. What language(s) do you use to customize the server and implement game systems?

 

I think its c# but that's a question for our programmer and unfortunately he is away on holiday at the moment. You wont have access to the core server code as that's worth allot of money and only licenses that buy that will be able to change things on the core code, but you will be able to add plugins to the server to modify it in certain ways so its unique to your own game style/systems.

 

This is a very early test run just to show how you can spawn mobs/NPC's on the server. The workflow is going to be:
You create a prefab of your mob or npc in unity then create a template where you will set his name, stats and so forth. These templates will then be available for you to run around in the game and spawn them and set behaviors to them like we did here for roaming for instance. This is done in real time on the server. If another player is standing next to you he will see the mob/npc spawned when you spawn him right away. Other behaviors will be added over time. This is just a very early showing of the system in action to show our progress. Allot of changes still to come.

 

I'm hoping it is C#, since Unity scripts can also be done in that language (I have trouble remembering multiple languages--programming or otherwise ).

The spawning demo looks awesome already! I really love being able to build and populate the world in-game. It's much more intuitive, and obviously, it opens up a lot of cool in-game possibilities.

Will terrain heightmap adjustment also be doable in game? I saw terrain painting and placement of trees and other terrain objects in the previous demo with your own client, so I'm assuming that will still be ported over. Will placing other static objects like building structures also be possible in game?

Thanks!

 

I am pretty sure we will be able to port everything we had in our old client over to Unity. At least that's the goal. Terrain painting ill still have to make sure of but the placing of objects I don't see any problem with as its pretty much the same thing as placing mobs.

 

Good to know. Do you have any insight on building and adjusting heightmaps? I'm wondering how we raise and lower terrain and have it reflected on the server. Unity has a built-in terrain editor, and obviously, there are third-party tools that you can use and export the heightmaps. How did you build the heightmaps for your island MMO?

 

Anything saved in Unity in regards to world building will reflect on the server so you can use Unity for all your building.