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GAMEPLAY

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A1. Setting

Genesis is set in a fantasy world. Before you break out the proverbial torches and pitchforks, know that this unoriginal setting was intentionally picked for a number of reasons. First of all, I firmly believe gameplay is the sole determinant of a good game. Whatever trappings are thrown over the gameplay ultimately make little difference. The second reason I picked this setting is because everybody is familiar with it, and hence they will not have to learn new material. The last reason is because it is simple to design and implement. As for the plot, please see section A17. Note that the world starts out as a blank slate, where players must gather resources and build everything themselves from scratch. Maybe I should have called this game “Tabula Rasa”…(Lawsuit!)

A2. Alignment

Players can pick from one of eight elemental alignments in Genesis. Whichever alignment they pick determines the race, class, and other factors of their avatar. Half of the elements form Order, the other half form Chaos. Each elemental alignment corresponds to one of the four states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. Additionally, each alignment is very roughly modeled after a great civilization (or combination of civilizations), and the mythology concerning it. Please note that the cultures I have chosen are used to merely add a familiar style to each race, they have no relevance to my opinions of any culture (also, all of the cultures are based on ancient, no-longer-existing civilizations). Each alignment is assigned a color that represents it (which is used often in decorations, flags, and so forth), and values one type of gem which possesses their respective elemental powers. Each alignment is ruled by one god, and tends to favor certain biomes for their homeland. Lastly, each alignment has a number of values associated with it, which determine what the alignment stands for, and which virtues/vices the alignment follows most strongly. The alignments are summarized below (Order is highlighted in yellow, Chaos is highlighted in blue):

A3. Races

Each alignment contains eight respective races, for a total of sixty-four races in the game. All races are humanoid (although they can have animal-like features), which distinguishes them from the beasts described below. Only one or two races are made-up, the rest are based on traditional mythological races (with some modifications). If you don't know what a certain race is, I suggest using Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) to look it up. To keep things balanced, each alignment has at least one race that can fly, and at least one race that can swim well and breathe underwater. Also, each alignment contains a variety of differently sized races. Tiny races are 1-2 feet tall, small races are 3-4 feet tall, normal races are 5-6 feet tall (as are the denoted flying and swimming races), big races are 9-10 feet tall, and giant races are 15-16 feet tall. Lastly, players can choose to play as elementals, which can grow in size based on their experience and power. Elementals, however, are identical to beasts in many ways…they cannot equip items and lack certain other human traits and abilities. You might be wondering if a disproportionate number of people would want to play as Giant races, due to their great strength. Giants, and other large races, are penalized in various ways. For example, they eat more food, they require more resources to build their items, and they are typically less intelligent and agile then their smaller counterparts. Additionally, they have trouble fitting in small spaces. Alternative names for the races are given in some situations, within the corresponding set of parentheses.

A4. Beasts

Genesis is the first MMORPG-esque game where players can actually play as creatures in the game. In fact, there are absolutely no NPCs or creatures controlled by artificial intelligence (with the minor possible exception of small fish and game, and livestock). Creatures cannot equip items or armor, but they do have the unique ability to evolve. You choose a base type of creature and evolve different traits like tougher hides, the ability to breathe fire, chameleon-like abilities, and so forth. Beasts can be limbless, bipedal, quadrapedal, sexpedal, or octapedal (and can evolve fins or tentacles in place of feet), and they can evolve traits that will allow them to fly or swim. Beasts can evolve from various basic forms including insects, mollusks, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. I may or may not include the ability to compose chimeras (beasts of mixed parts), and the same goes for multi-headed beasts like a hydra or manticore. I know it could be disappointing if this feature isn't included; like you, I also really wanted to play as a three-headed platypus. Essentially, the evolving system will work in a similar manner to Will Wright's Spore, although it won't be as detailed, but rather stripped-down to the most necessary components. If you think I am copying Will Wright, you haven't played Evo for the Super Nintendo. Beasts are elementally aligned, and their alignment determines the range of features that they can evolve (for example, a beast aligned with the Fire element could evolve the ability to breathe fire, but a beast aligned with the Poison could only spit acid or breathe out a noxious cloud.)

You might be wondering who would want to play as a rat, if the possibility to play as a dragon existed. Again, this is where evolving comes in to play. In order to become a dragon, you must first start out as a lizard, and eventually evolve the features, size, and strength to become one. Many traditional mythological beasts can be created through the evolving system. For example, a bird of the fire alignment could evolve to a Phoenix-like beast, or a mollusk of the water alignment could evolve to a kraken. In fact, the system will recognize your evolved features and attempt to classify you as a particular beast (mythological or not).

One very interesting feature in Genesis is the mounting system. When humanoid players mount a beast, the beast controls the movement, and can attack others independently of the humanoid. When the player tries to move, it merely gives the beast directions (arrows point in the direction the humanoid wants the beast to move, which the beast can choose to ignore if it wants). However, players can attack from the beasts back in any direction they want. Mounting gives players protection, while it gives beasts extra fire power. Many beasts are likely not to perform their services for free, however…players must feed them sufficiently to keep them around. There may even be a taming system implemented, but whether this will be included is not certain yet.

A5. Stats

There are only four stats that measure the various abilities of your avatar: Strength, Agility, Intelligence, and Discipline. Strength measures your avatar's ability to exert physical force and endure labor. Strength is typically proportional to your avatar's size and weight. Agility measures one's coordination, stealth, and speed. Agility is typically inversely proportional to your avatar's size and weight. Intelligence measures one's knowledge, ability to learn, understand, observe patterns, and solve problems. Intelligence is crucial to spell-casting, which relies on the abilities of one's mind. Discipline is one's power over their mind and body. It affects one's concentration, and ability to sustain great discomfort or pain. Monks and priests typically follow a path of Discipline, sacrificing their own welfare for the worship of their god. Because of this, they are often granted special powers by their deities. Note that stats have slightly different meanings for beasts. Each stat affects the condition of character, measured by four meters: Health, Stamina, Composure, and Mana. Health is your character's vitality. If your character's health meter drops to zero, they die. Stamina measures your character's physical fatigue. If your stamina meter drops below zero, it begins to drain your character's health. Composure is a measure of your character's mental health and comfort (in fact, it is similar in many ways to the Sims “comfort bar”). If composure drops to zero, your character can lose their mind, ability to concentrate effectively, even die potentially after sustained discomfort (for example, dying of shock from sustaining an excessive amount of pain). Mana is a measure of your character's mental fatigue. Similar to stamina, once your character's Mana drops below zero, it begins to drain on your character's composure. Additionally, discomfort can drain your character's composure. Stats are increased by exercising them. All races have respective modifiers that make certain stats increase more quickly or slowly. Strength affects how much health your character has, agility affects stamina, discipline affects composure, and intelligence affects Mana.

A6. Classes

There are only four basic classes: Fighter, Rogue, Mage, and Priest. However, each elemental alignment has its own variations of each class, making for a total of thirty-two different classes in the game. Each class focuses around one of the four stats: Fighters rely on Strength, Rogues rely on Agility, Mages rely on Intelligence, and Priests rely on Discipline. Beasts and Elementals, of course, cannot have a class. Each class has a unique set of skills and abilities, and they differ in many ways across each alignment. My goal was to encourage team work, by intentionally not allowing any classes to have too diverse a range of abilities. However, players can do fine working on their own, they just are more effective as a group.

A7. Experience and Skills

Genesis does not use the traditional model of experience points and leveling. Rather, players gain skills by practicing them or exercising them, just as they increase their stats by exercising them or exhausting them. Exercise can be much more entertaining than simply swinging a sword in the air or casting spells at a rock. Players can spar with each other in practice sessions. Players can increase their intelligence by playing games against each other (see A25), among other methods. I may even allow books to be written within the game, which players can read to increase their intelligence. Essentially, skills and strengths are built the same manner within Genesis as they are built within real life. Skills determine how good a player is at performing a task. All skills are affected by stats. Certain skills can only be learned after other ones are mastered. Skills are not only relevant to combat, but your profession as well. Skills do not only affect one's combat abilities, but their ability to perform well in their profession and other aspects of the world as well. Most of the alignments primarily differ in their skill sets. For example, a member of the Fire alignment might be able to cast a fireball, whereas a member of the air alignment could cast a thunder bolt. The varying skill sets give the different alignments a special set of strengths and weaknesses which they must strategically use to succeed.

A8. Combat

Combat in Genesis is not like most MMORPGs. It has always bugged me watching combat in these games, which basically consists of you hit me, I hit you, you chug a potion, I cast a spell, etc. Rather, I intend combat to be much more action-oriented, like a combination between a first person shooter (in this case, a third person shooter) and a fighting game like Tekken (although no button combos will be necessary). Players use the keyboard to navigate and the mouse to aim, and have a variety of attacks that can also be blocked, avoided, or otherwise defended against with an additional set of skills that the players must strategically employ. Essentially, combat should be a lot more interesting and skill-oriented, rather than have the outcome pre-determined by the level of the player (keep in mind, levels do not exist in Genesis, as described in the prior section). In general, combat is not the main focus of Genesis, but one of the many activities one will encounter in the world. Much of the game will involve succeeding in your profession, gaining political power, finding love, and pursuing whichever ambitions strike your character's fancy. Everything in Genesis is turned into a strategic game. For example, farming works a bit like the Harvest Moon series (although there are many original concepts thrown in). So even if you aren't in the heat of combat, there are still a lot of fun things to do that will challenge your mind and even your reflexes. If you think day to day life would be boring, you probably never played the Sims.

A9. Political Status

If your avatar is humanoid, it will have a political status based on one of four levels. Each alignment has its own names for each of the levels, but they all function roughly the same. The lowest level is composed of serfs, who own no land. The next level is composed of nobles who own one plot of land. The following level is composed of barons who own entire cities and counties. Finally, the last level is composed of a single ruler who resides over all of their alignment. Each political level grants your avatar more power to vote on decisions that affect everybody in your alignment. It also allows you more power in determining laws for your city, county, or alignment. Additionally, all races share the same set of military ranks, which grant the players certain commanding powers on the battlefield. The political chart for the alignments is shown below:

A10. Professions

There are three levels of trade skills: gatherers, who gather raw materials; refiners, who prepare materials for production; and artisans, who make products out of refined materials. Your avatar may only select one profession, although they may switch to a new profession at any time. For more information on resources, see A14. Listed below are the basic professions; there will likely be a few more types of artisans in the future (for example, minstrels, scribes, artists, cartographers, etc).

A11. Weapons

Each alignment has its own culture associated with it, and hence its own unique set of weaponry. There are fourteen classes of weapons, and eight variations on each (one variation per alignment). This makes a total of one hundred and twelve different types of weapons. In addition to this, there is a practically infinite variety of ways that a weapon can be manufactured, all of which give the weapon different traits. Almost all of the weapons are real weapons; use Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com) to look up definitions if you don't know what a particular item is. Weapons also come in different sizes; for example, the size of a club a human would use is much different from the size of a club a giant would use. The same goes for armor. In this manner, larger creatures are penalized because they require more resources to build their items. (1x) denotes that the weapon only uses one hand, (2x) denotes that it uses 2 hands.

A12. Armor

There are four types of armor (ranging from lightest to heaviest): Cloth, Hide, Mail, and Plate. Unlike most games however, your avatar will usually not be constantly wearing armor…only when they need to suit up for battle. Armor fatigues your character and causes discomfort. Typically, your avatar will be wearing more comfortable clothing. Each alignment has their own, uniquely styled armor and clothing that reflects the culture they are based on. All races are most comfortable in Cloth armor (clothing), and the heavier the armor the more of a penalty it bears on the wearer. However, certain races and classes get bonuses from heavier armor in battle (most fighter classes prefer heavier armor, for example).

A13. Tools

Tools are used to gather and process resources, as well as manufacture goods. Tools, like all items, have a quality rating that measures the ability of the tool to do its task. All alignments share the same set of tools, although certain alignments are more skilled in certain professions than others.

A14. Resources

There are six types of raw resources, each of which contains a variety of materials. These resources are: Stone, Metal, Gems, Wood, Plants, and Animals. Each resource has its own set of trade skills associated with it. Every single item in the game has a quality rating from zero to fifteen. The higher the number, the higher quality the resource, and the harder the resource is to find. The quality of an item is based on the quality of the resources it is composed of, as well as the skill level of the artisan that manufactured it.

A15. Building

Players can build anywhere in the game. Unlike Second Life, there is no real-world fee for buying land. Players can attempt to claim any land they want, although other players can take it over, or steal from their property. Political systems are in place to help protect player's land. You can buy land in a city with well-guarded walls if you want protection from bandits or raiders, for example. Players build structures using a variety of geometric primitives. Structures can be built anywhere…if you find a large enough tree, you can hollow it out, and build a house inside of it. Alternatively, you can build a house around a tree, high above the ground (think Ewok village). It is possible to hollow out terrain - unlike most games where you can only raise and lower the altitude of the terrain, the Genesis engine allows you to actually dig underground tunnels. Using this, players can dig out mines, hollow out mountains to make dungeons, and so forth.

Structures, like items, have a quality rating based on the quality of the resources they are built out of and the quality of the construction work performed. You are probably wondering what happens if somebody steals from your house, destroys it, or vandalizes it while you are logged out. All of these things are actually possible, but there are safeguards in the game (See Religion in A19 or Player Rating and Voting in A21). Rest assured, the penalty for such actions will discourage many players from doing so. Aside from this, there are other measures you can take, for example, setting up traps and security systems in your house, as well as residing within a city regularly patrolled by guards. You can even post a reward for the return of your stolen goods and the capture of the thief. In other words, you can protect your house in a very similar manner to how you would in the real world (being logged out is like being on vacation). Every piece of property, whether an item or a house, carries a signature with it that determines who it belongs to.

A16. Crafting

Items are crafted fairly realistically; for example, to build a sword from scratch you must mine ore, refine the ore to get metal, then heat the metal and shape the sword. Additionally, to wrap the hilt and make a scabbard, you would have to slay a beast, gather its hide, tan the hide, and then sew a wrapping for the hilt and the scabbard. Finally, to embellish it with a gemstone, you would have to mine the gem, cut it, and insert it with jeweler's tools.

A17. Role Playing

One of the most powerful features in this game is role playing. Unlike most “role-playing” games, Genesis involves far more than gathering loot and increasing your stats. Role playing is actually part of the game, not just something bored players make up within the game to entertain themselves. The Genesis engine uses expert systems and several forms of artificial intelligence in ways that aren't normally used. More specifically, these systems are used to interpret players' actions to see what outcomes the actions would have on character's morals, temperaments, and so forth. The game actively rewards players with experience for role playing; a system similar to The Sims “ambitions” is used, although it is far more complex. For example, if your father in the game is killed (yes, there are families, reproduction, and permanent death; see below for more details), the systems interpret the effects this would have on your character's morale, and it creates new ambitions for your character. Namely, your character now has ambition to avenge his father's death. This is a very simple scenario, and much more complex storylines can be formed with this engine.

My goal with the Genesis engine was to make something that could recreate all of the scenes in books and movies, interactively. Suspense, betrayal, mystery, love, passion; all of those buzzwords that grace film critic's reviews – I wanted to be able to apply them in my game. Virtues and vices (as associated with each element) correspondingly play a large role in Genesis. Those who follow virtues attempt to bring Order to the world, while those who follow vices attempt to bring chaos, all via the ambitions that are created around these concepts. Gameplay gets interesting when virtues come into conflict with each other. For example, if someone is aligned with the Air element, honor is a high priority for them. But what action should they take when doing the right thing means sacrificing their honor? Immediately, for those who have played it, this brings to mind Richard Garriot's Ultima series, although I would argue that I am not necessarily copying his ideas (although I think he was brilliant to include these concepts in his games). Keep in mind that conflict and virtues are as old as storytelling itself.

A18. Personalities

All humanoid characters in the game have personalities. Their personalities are determined by four ranges: Introvert-Extrovert, Agreeable-Disagreeable, Stable-Neurotic, and Conventional-Unconventional. Your character can lie at either extreme in any of the ranges, or somewhere between the two extremes. Each end of the range has its own benefits and drawbacks, all of which make your character that much more interesting. The four ranges are based on various psychological models, mostly the “Big Five” and Jungian personality models. Although players always have complete control over their character, they cannot directly control their character's temperament, which affects their performance and ambitions. For example, an introverted, disagreeable, neurotic, unconventional player would probably have less ambition to help others than someone with the opposite personality. On the positive side, this would give the character more rewards for helping themselves probably. Again, this is a simple and crude example, and situations could get far more complex and interesting than this. A description of the personality ranges is shown below…each personality range has four basic qualities that determine a number of personality traits. Technical psychological terms for these traits are shown in parentheses.

Extrovert-Introvert

 Agreeable-Disagreeable

 Stable-Neurotic

Conventional-Unconventional

A19. Religion

All characters, humanoid or not, serve the god of their respective elemental alignment. It is in their best interest to be on good terms with their god, as they will be rewarded by their god for doing so. Conversely, if they disappoint or anger their god, they are likely to receive a punishment. All of the alignments carry various sets of moral rules, and breaking these rules angers their god. Following rules consistently and sacrificing one's welfare for their god are good ways to improve one's religious standing. Religion helps monitor player behavior, in a way. It doesn't stop players from doing bad things to others, but it does punish them for doing so in many circumstances.

A20. Death and Reproduction

Death in Genesis is permanent (under rare circumstances though, players can be resurrected). I believe this is the first MMOG to have this trait. To counterbalance the fact the death is permanent, every player is assigned one spirit that never dies. This spirit can enter any body that is not already occupied by a spirit. Thus, death is balanced out by a form of reincarnation. Additionally, players have the ability to reproduce, so their spirit can enter their offspring's body after death. Offspring share a mix of the traits and stats from the mother and father. There is not nearly as much of a leveling “treadmill” as there is in other games, so dying does not really set you far back (especially since you can potentially enter the body of your offspring who have some of your former traits and stats).

In general, Genesis is less focused on leveling and more focused on story-building and action. Players do age, and eventually die of old age. However, certain races have longer lifespans than others, and age differently. You might think of death as an unfair punishment, but I think it completely drives the rest of the game world. I think that most MMOGs try to play it too safely. They shelter players with things like non-combat zones and so forth. The point of a game is to challenge the player, not to shelter them from challenges. There are no safety zones in Genesis, for that would destroy the whole story-building process. Imagine being chased in a dramatic scene, only to step into a safety zone and shatter the suspense abruptly. Potentially, I may allow a feature to completely ban combat from a given hosted world, for players who are more interested in other things than fighting. In case you were wondering about reproduction, I have not yet decided how graphic it will be. If it is at all graphic, I assure you it will be realistic (but modest), not some juvenile process designed to entertain teenagers (would anybody like a cup of hot coffee?).

A21. Player Ratings and Voting

There are always a few bad apples who will do anything in their power to piss off other players (this is known as “griefing” or “flaming” when it is just verbal). Genesis has a rating system in place that allows players to rate one another. If you have half a brain, you've already thought of a problem. What happens when the griefers abuse this rating system? As it turns out, players can only warn other players a limited number of times within a certain time interval. It takes many warnings (more than any one player can give) to put a player in a position where they can be penalized. Even if a group of players bands together to grief people with the rating system, it would not be enough on its own. Warnings wear off slowly over time, and can be negated by positive ratings, although players only have a certain number of positive ratings to give out as well (not enough to make any group of players invulnerable to warnings). Ultimately, when somebody does reach a penalty position, a random jury of players can observe the player invisibly to determine if they do indeed warrant the warnings they were given, and appropriate action can be taken from there.

You probably wonder, can't somebody just create a new account if they are banned though? The answer is yes, but at a small fee. The fee is not particularly large, but it is enough to discourage players from continuously creating new accounts solely for griefing. The fee isn't in place for profit; rather, it is used because money is a limited resource (I might use email addresses instead, but players can easily create any number of those). It is likely that there are some minor holes in this rating system, but I think that for the most part it would greatly cut back on player griefing. It is a difficult problem to solve, akin to this philosophical question: If two people accuse each other of lying, how do you know which one, if either one, is telling the truth? Another remedy to the problem of griefers is separating people by age group, since griefers usually tend to be younger people. I may implement a system like this for Genesis, which allows players to play on separate servers, and a voting system could be used if it were suspected somebody had lied about their age and should be placed on a different server. I am not sure how well this idea would work, but it is just an idea.

A22. Conversations

I have been throwing around a couple ideas in my head for the conversation system in Genesis. One thing that has always irked me in online games is when some six year old kid shouts something out like “I pwn3d your ass, n00b!” Nothing destroys your suspension of disbelief as much as incidents like this do. My solution is to put a dictionary of words, with appropriate translation look-ups, so that only allowed words in the dictionary could be outputted. The dictionary would work actively as you typed, much the same way it does in Microsoft Word, except perhaps in a manner that is the least cumbersome, so much as this is possible. So, with the correct dictionary lookups, I might instead hear the six year old shout “I bested you in battle, novice.” Or perhaps something less cheesy, but you get the idea. Conversations in Genesis are parsed out into logical structures that the expert systems can understand (see Role Playing, A17). To give one example, if you promise to do action X for player Y in return for reward Z, the systems understand this statement. If someone is cheated, the systems understand this, and adjust their moods, ambitions, and religious standing accordingly.

A23. Naming

I have also been debating limiting character names in a similar way. When you see a kid named PimpMaster69 in a fantasy universe, it kind of destroys the whole effect. Rather than use a dictionary lookup, though, the voting system is used. If a player deems another players name inappropriate (based on a set of guidelines), then they can force them to change their name, and bestow a warning on them. Another idea I have been playing with is to not show names hovering above player's heads. Before you reject this for its lack of convenience, hear me out. I think it would allow for much more interesting situations, when you have to identify everybody by their face (and the engine could easily ensure that everybody has a unique face). For example, there could be a wanted bandit that has to travel around in disguise so that people can't identify him. Furthermore, you wouldn't “magically” already know the names of people you have not met. Obviously, I intend to allow characters to customize their faces to a high degree. Since the game takes place in a zoomed-out, diametric view, the faces will likely be displayed in a separate box, zoomed in to show detail.

A24. A Word About Convenience

There are many places in the game where I have intentionally chosen to sacrifice convenience. For example, it is likely there will not be any teleportation. The reason for this is story-building. Imagine what Lord of the Rings would be like if Frodo could magically teleport to Mount Doom. For the same reason, this is why I have chosen to implement permanent death. A player's death is much more meaningful when they have no likely option of being resurrected (although, as I mentioned before, this is possible in rare circumstances), not to mention the creation of more suspense – the fear of death is literally put into the player. However, nothing should be tedious. After all, what is the point of playing a game, to have a fun time or to perform a bunch of boring, repetitive tasks? For example, while there is no teleportation, your whole journey on the road is an adventure in itself – you never know what you might run into. I imagine that many of my decisions might turn some people off from the game, but I think that is ok. I am not trying to please everybody, I am trying to complete my vision without compromising too much. A game that tries to please everybody is usually watered down and mediocre. I would be much happier having a small cult of devout followers (hey, it's only a metaphor, get over it) than a large following of people who only somewhat appreciate the game.

A25. Games

At some point, I intend to put a very interesting (I keep using this word, don't I?) feature into Genesis. Players can invent their own games. There would be two forms of this. One takes place on a game board, with any variety of pieces the player chooses. Using simple scripting (basically, writing rules for the game), players can create their own turn-based board games, like chess or checkers, or even invent their own. The second form of game takes place within the world. Using a similar system of creating rules, players can script their own games. For example, to create capture the flag, you simply define where two flag bases lie, and a winning condition of two flags being in the same base. Additionally you define a rule that if a player tags another (or strikes another), they must return the flag to the base and then return back to their base. This might seem tricky to do, but if you have any knowledge of expert systems, you will realize that this is actually fairly simple. The scripting system could even be used to place bets, or define other conditions that seriously affect the players (e.g. “Whoever wins this game of chess gets to execute the other person.”). Fun, right?

A26. Weather

Genesis contains a fairly realistic weather system. As the planet rotates, various geographical areas get the correct amount of light (so it can be daytime on one side of the planet and night on the other). The amount of sunlight a place gets affects the heat, and hence the humidity and wind flux of the area. Laws of thermodynamics and meteorology are used to create a somewhat abstract, but functional weather system. Altitude affects wind flow (mountains can block wind and fog, for example). Any form of weather that we experience here on earth can be experienced in Genesis. The weather system may not be fully implemented until later, as it is not completely necessary to the functionality of the game (initially, it can be “faked”).

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B. GENESIS ENGINE

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B1. Graphics

Genesis uses a graphics engine that is far different from most engines out there. At first glance, it looks like an old-school isometric engine (although technically speaking, it uses diametric projection) with pre-rendered 3D graphics. Actually, scenes are not rendered in an external application; they are rendered directly by the program, on the fly, in very little time. While the camera cannot be freely rotated (although it can be zoomed and panned), this otherwise greatly empowers the graphics engine. It allows the use of software displacement mapping (although hardware will be supported too in the future), so that texture actually sticks out objects (unlike projection/parallax mapping, this uses true displacement, so even the edges of objects stick out). Further, since scenes only need to be rendered once every so often, polygon counts can be hundreds of times higher than in strictly real-time engines. Moving objects are, of course, rendered in real-time, and not bogged down by static objects in the scene. Additionally, the scenes can be correctly lit in real-time, making them virtually indistinguishable from a real-time engine. The camera can cut away any level in front of the player so that the player can see behind objects.

Even though many parts of the scene are statically rendered, there are many parts that move as well. Trees and grass can blow in the wind (or, to increase performance, they too can be statically rendered), water ripples and refracts everything below it (eventually, it will probably support reflections as well, although this will decrease performance and require more texture memory), fog drifts through the air, and of course the creatures and races move about.

One thing that makes the Genesis engine render such amazing scenes (in my humble opinion) is the per-pixel materials. Not to be confused with per-pixel texturing, per-pixel materials determine the lighting properties of a scene on a per pixel basis. Essentially, every pixel reflects ambient, diffuse, and specular lighting in a unique manner, which allows for extremely rich textures. Textures can be created where half of the texture glows in the dark and the other doesn't, or is shiny in one part but dully-lit in another, and so on. Even “unrealistically lit” materials can be made. For example, the specular color of a material can be made darker than the rest of the material, which creates a velvety surface. Or, the diffuse color can be darker than the ambient and specular colors, which makes for an anisotropic-esque metallic surface. Most importantly, however, is the fact that every pixel can have its own unique ambient properties, which makes the scene look much more realistic then standard shaders (it can be used to roughly simulate light bouncing around a room, so that even if a surface isn't receiving direct light, its features can still be made out). Technobabble aside, the texturing looks much better than in most standard engines.

The plant engine (soon to be shown) is (again, in my humble opinion) absolutely amazing. In an older iteration of my engine (this is the third iteration, if you can believe it) the engine was powered by voxels, and I wrote a plant engine for that. The way the engine was setup, it should be fairly easy to convert the algorithms to work with polygons (which the current engine uses). The plant engine is powered by a relatively simple piece of code, but at the same time it is extremely powerful and capable of modeling any plant or tree you can imagine, even the blossoms and fruit that they produce. It can model anything from a palm tree, to a pine tree, to an oak tree, to a banyan tree, to a rose bush, to a mushroom, to a vine, all using the same algorithm. Moreover, it can model these plants with a dynamic level of detail, using only polygons (no “faking” with texture maps), right down to the leaves on a tree. Additionally, seasons come and go in the Genesis world, and plants adjust accordingly. Leaf and grass color changes, trees shed their leaves, flowers blossom, and fruit grows. This is very important to the realism of the world, since players must grow and harvest their own food to survive.

Unlike a standard pre-rendered isometric engine, many depth effects can be used. Two examples of this are atmospheric haze and focal plane blurring (blurring objects that are far away from the camera. The Genesis engine can do a depth-lookup on any given pixel, which allows for realistic occlusion. For example, even if the grass is statically rendered, each blade will appear in front of your character if it is supposed to, while other blades are correctly occluded.

B2. Sound

There isn't anything special about the sound engine, at least for now. The standard environmental effects are used like most games. However, one thing I have been thinking about eventually doing is text-to-speech. I am not sure how high of quality I could achieve with this, but if it were reasonable I might integrate it with the game. Imagine when somebody texts you a message you actually hear their character say it, and the sound is correctly modified based on the environment and the distance of the person talking. Moreover, the sound could be modified to make voices sound deeper, coarser, etc. To complement this, another thing I think would be cool (and perhaps I am dreaming too hard here) would be a system that could translate speech to text, freeing your hands of the keyboard and making responses much faster. Now you are probably wondering, why convert speech to text, and then back to speech? The first reason is bandwidth…sending a string of text takes much less bandwidth than a few packets of voice data. Secondly, this allows players to truly mask their identity, so that an ogre doesn't sound like a kid. Additionally, the dictionary system could be implemented so that inappropriate words are modified. Another thing to note is that sound will play a strategic role in gameplay. Certain races and beasts have better hearing than others, and this allows them to hear sounds better and detect stealthy opponents more easily.

B3. Music

I am very excited about the music potential for Genesis. Music can be contributed in an open-content model (see section C3 for more information). This means that any player can contribute music to the game. However, a central authority (currently me, for the time being), will judge whether or not the music fits with the game and is of high enough quality. The only other game I have ever heard of that has done something like this was Star Control 2, and critics agree that it has some of the best music of all time.

One idea that I have been very interested in implementing is the ability to play instruments within the game. This way, virtual bands could come together and create their own music. If I chose not to go to this extreme, then I might at least allow people to come together in the game and play songs that have already been written. If the songs were in a tracker-based format (not compressed into a sound-stream, but rather just the play sheets for the music, like midi for example, but much higher quality), then songs could be modified on the fly. One possible use of this is to make songs out of tune, tempo, use the wrong notes occasionally, and so forth, based on the musicians skill level. So, essentially, inexperienced musicians would sound horrible. Again, these are all just ideas, and definitely won't be implemented until the rest of the game is successful, but it never hurts to dream.

B4. Input

Mouse and keyboard will be used, and no other input devices will be supported. Ideally, you should have a mouse with at least three buttons, and a wheel (note that on many mice you can press down the wheel, which acts as a third button). Eventually, I would like to be able to integrate exercise into the input scheme. Laugh if you will, but I really think that the future of exercise lays with video games…you are challenging your mind, why not challenge your body at the same time? I always feel like I have wasted my life after playing a video game for 12 hours straight (Ok, you could argue that I exercised my brain and improved eye hand coordination, but does this really attract the opposite sex?). I think by integrating exercise with video games, we can erase the stereotype of gamers as pasty-white couch potatoes, and replace it with a stereotype of gamers as pasty-white meatheads. Much better, right? I think the Nintendo Wii (or whatever god-forsaken name they have given it now) is a good step in the right direction. DDR is also good, but of course has limited applications (and sex appeal). But I digress…

B5. Physics

There are physics in Genesis, but buildings (at least for the time being) do not obey the laws of physics. In fact, you can make a house that floats in the air if you want. How do I rationalize physical paradoxes like this? Magic. They are magical buildings. Get over it. The reason buildings do not obey the laws of physics is because the compression engine is not very physics friendly, and calculating how a building made out of all sorts of weirdly-shaped rigid bodies would realistically explode is just more detail than I have the time to implement. Perhaps eventually I will change this, but for now, things are simpler just leaving the buildings as these potentially floating masses. Of course, you can still destroy buildings, bit by bit; just don't expect any fancy effects. Really, as far as gameplay goes, I don't think it will make a huge difference. However, all of the dynamic objects in Genesis obey physical laws to an acceptable extent. Rain drops bounce off the ground, create ripples in the water. Grass and trees sway in the wind (if enabled to do so – they can be statically rendered too, to improve performance). Arrows stick in walls, and are blown off course slightly by the wind, and so forth.

B6. Networking

Here is where things get interesting. You are probably wondering how and the hell would I make a MMOG with dynamic content, where players don't even have to buy the land (as in Second Life). Compression is the solution. Maps in Genesis are extremely small, usually only a couple hundred bytes maximum. Keep in mind that is bytes, not kilobytes! Even on a modem, maps download in less than a second. Note that because Genesis is based on a dynamic world, when players download the game initially, no maps at all exist on their hard drive. Maps are downloaded from servers, on the fly, as players enter the region. All of the maps are stitched together seamlessly, so players don't really notice (although they will notice a slight delay for loading and rendering time as they rezone, but this should be less than a second's time if you have the proper hardware).

Where in the world am I going to get enough money to have enough servers to run this MMOG, you ask? Well, there are two options, possibly more. The first is that I get a publisher. Not only is this unlikely, it is undesirable, because I would rather not work under the constraints of a publisher, and you (the player) would not want to pay the monthly premium that a publisher would surely charge. The second option, also unlikely (but hey, a man can dream), is that players will give me enough help and support so that I can keep this venture going at a strong pace. If I receive enough support, I will give out the game for free, as well as the server software. If I can give out the server software for free, players can form their own remote clusters, or even LANs. I have come up with a networking scheme that works, in a way, like peer to peer programs, except much, much faster. In essence, each player uses a small portion of their CPU and memory to serve the game, or (optionally) the player can setup a computer solely used for serving the game, even multiple servers. Each player's server hosts a cluster of maps in a given location of the world grid. Obviously, player's servers could go down at any given time, at which point a neighboring server picks up the slack (although if too many servers crash or are shutdown, a portion of the world becomes untraversable). While this provides some potential inconsistency in the world, there are a number of advantages to this serving scheme. First of all, low ping. People can form MMOG worlds just in their neighborhoods or on their college campuses (might as well put all of that bandwidth meant for research to good use, right?). Low ping allows for more interesting gameplay features, like the combat system I have described. The weakness of commercial MMOGs lies in the fact that they can only afford to pay for, manage, and staff so many server centers. This means you usually have East Coast and West Coast servers in America, and a few other places if you are lucky. With my solution, there would be no wait for servers to appear in your area; any part of any country could host games immediately. Secondly (regarding the advantages), NO MONTHLY FEE!!!! Yes, it is exciting, I know. Last of all, giving server software to the players lifts the responsibility of managing servers and subscriptions off of my shoulders.

B7. System Requirements

System requirements are still to be determined, but I can give you an idea of what to expect. Don't run out and upgrade your system yet though, as Genesis is not going to be playable for a some time to come.

OPERATING SYSTEM:

Genesis will most likely run on Windows XP, although if Microsoft wants to fund the porting of my code, I will make a Vista version as well potentially. Speaking of which, if I can secure enough funding, or if Genesis is successful, I will port it to Mac OSX and Linux as well, although this will likely take a lot longer, as it means porting the code to OpenGL. Genesis will not be released on any current generation console, as they simply do not provide diverse enough hardware to power the engine.

GRAPHICS CARD:

Genesis will definitely require a Pixel Shader Model 3.0 Graphics card, with a minimum of 256 megabytes of video memory. If it is released for Vista, it will require a DirectX 10.0 capable graphics card, with the same amount or more of memory. This might seem like a rather extreme requirement, but by the time Genesis reaches beta, I estimate these cards will be available for just a little more than $100.00. For full detail, it may require a graphics card with 512 or 1024 megabytes of video memory (it is very texture hungry), although it should still look beautiful on 256 megabytes alone. If you are wondering about performance, I get 130 FPS average on my e-GeForce 7800 GT CO. Please note that the code is largely unoptimized, and there will likely be a performance increase once the code is cleaned up. On lower detail levels, I get as high as 400 FPS. Genesis is not optimized for SLI cards, since I don't have one. Again, if I can get a card to complement my current one (I have an SLI capable system), I can optimize the code for SLI (NVidia, are you reading this?).

CPU:

Any CPU should run the game fine, as long as it is not really old. I currently run the game on a dual-core AMD Athalon 3800. The game will be optimized for dual and multi-core computers, and should run much better on these systems. However, a single core computer should offer acceptable performance.

MEMORY:

Genesis will probably require about a gigabyte of memory. Again, this may seem extreme, but memory is getting extremely cheap. Currently you can buy a gigabyte of DDR memory for less than 80 dollars if you shop right.

SOUND CARD:

Any sound card should work, as long as it is not some old, crusty relic like an Adlib or 8-bit SoundBlaster.

CONNECTION:

Even though Genesis uses a large amount of dynamic content, it should be playable on a modem due to great compression algorithms. However, a high-speed connection is, of course, preferable. Like most multiplayer games, Genesis will not be playable on a satellite connection due to the large ping associated with these systems.

HARD DRIVE SPACE:

Genesis should have a very small install size, at least relative to most games today. Right now it is only a few megabytes large, but as the number of textures increases, I would expect it to grow to a few hundred megabytes in size.

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C. HOW YOU CAN HELP

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C1. Preface

Fortunately, Genesis costs me nothing but my time to develop. Unfortunately, I have just graduated from college and I must now support myself. This means that I will have to get a full-time job, which takes a considerable portion of my time budget away. Since Genesis is a revolutionary game, I think it is in need of a revolutionary funding model.

I could use the old-fashioned method of seeking a publisher, but I think that would be less beneficial to the players (moreover, I think most publishers would fear to enter such uncharted territory). Why not cut out the middle man and deliver the product directly to you? This has a number of benefits. For one, I am not a greedy corporation trying to maximize my profits; I will give out this game for FREE (as in beer) if people donate enough for me to support myself and continually maintain the software (I am not trying to be selfish, I just need enough money to put food in my belly and a roof over my head). If I went with a publisher, they would almost definitely charge players a monthly fee and keep the server software privately maintained. I think it would be really cool if I could give out the server software to players, so that they could set up their own local, low-ping servers and form distributed clusters with each other, offering much better performance than any corporate venture could (See B6, Networking).

You might be wondering why I don't just open source this project. It actually is going to be open-sourced in a way (I will explain this soon), and use an open content system. The problem for me with open sourcing it completely is that I am a perfectionist and I would hate to see somebody ruin my vision. It would be akin to releasing a partially completed painting into the world and telling somebody else to finish it. Sure, it can be copied an infinite amount of times, I am not worried about somebody destroying the work. I am worried about people taking it over and wanting to make the game on their own terms. Also, if I spread out the engine into the public people would not know who to fund, because people might start up many different versions (How many versions of Linux are there, anyone?). Basically, at the heart of it, I want this project to succeed and be completed in my vision, and I am worried that an open source project might just fizzle out and die (after all, something of this magnitude takes extreme commitment). After the project has succeeded , I will open source the code completely for people to play with (assuming I own it at this point).

As it stands, anybody can contribute to the code or other resources for this game; this is explained in C3, “Donate Services.”

C2. Donate Money

During the Renaissance, wealthy patrons supported the artists. I think we should bring that back, but instead employ the power of the internet so that anybody can fund a creative venture. Have you ever heard the saying if we all do a little, we can do a lot? I know it is corny, but it is also true. If everybody who read this gave me one dollar…one measly dollar…I could probably easily support myself and this game for years. Hell, give two dollars, because the guy after you might not give one ;). I will give you something pretty spectacular in return: YOUR NAME IN THE CREDITS OF THE GAME! (And you will also be listed in this FAQ under section E2, “Special Thanks”) You can donate multiple times if you want, and your name will show up multiple times. Note that the credits will be sorted by the amount contributed, so you might be better off donating ten dollars once than one dollar ten times (also, note that Paypal takes 30 cents, plus 3 percent of the donation, so if you only donate a dollar, I get less than 70 cents, where as if you donated 10 dollars, I would get a little less than $9.70). Also, the name of the business you are donating to should be "Manus Design and Engineering" (The name of my old webdesign business). Please note that donations are non-refundable (I don't have the time to sift through hundreds of refund requests (hopefully there wouldn't be any such requests!), and I cannot be liable to pay somebody back their money a year later when I have already invested it towards supporting the game). Also note that the minimum transaction on Paypal is one dollar I think. If it turns out that I have to rely on a publishing deal to support the game, but people have already donated, I will only agree to the publishing deal on the terms that they list the donator's names in the credits. If any proposal I have made thus far does not seem fair, please let me know of a better solution on the message boards. If there are a ton of donators, I may have to list them on a separate page for bandwidth concerns. We can't just sit around forever and wait for companies to suddenly “get it” and start making innovative games. Even if you don't fund my venture, please support somebody else's. We need to start creating new, viable funding models or stagnation will continue to rule over creativity in all forms of media.

C3. Donate Services

There are a number of things you can donate to me that will help out, many of which will cost you nothing but your time. Any contribution that makes it into the game will get your name in the credits, and donators names will be sorted based on the total estimated value of their contributions. Please note that I cannot guarantee that any of your work will be used, and any work may be removed from the game without notice or reason. If your work is rejected, it does not necessarily mean it is of poor quality, it could merely be not what I am looking for. All submitted work becomes the shared property of you and the Genesis project. If I do not end up using some of your work, perhaps somebody else will want it. Oh yeah, and be a pal and do not submit copyrighted work. Please title submitted work with your full name (including middle name) in the title. Unfortunately, I cannot pay anyone for their work, but I may reward people who consistently donate work to the project. However, do not expect more than your name in the credits for the time being.

First and foremost, I need a public FTP server that anybody can log onto and submit files, but that nobody can delete files from. This server will be used for people to donate various resources to the game, such as artwork, music, models, and so forth. The server obviously must have a bit of bandwidth available, and a pretty good amount of storage space (I would estimate a few gigabytes). If anybody can do this for me, I will ensure that they get a high place in the credits, and I will pay them handsomely for it if (and only if) I can eventually afford to do so. Please leave a post on the message board containing the text “FTP SERVER AVAILABLE” if you can do this for me.

In the meantime, you can submit any of the resources listed below if you have a website where I can download the resource from myself. In the message boards, put a message with a link to the resource and text containing “RESOURCE: XXXXX” where XXXXX is one of the following:

CONCEPT ART

TEXTURE MAP

MODEL

MUSIC

SOUND EFFECT

CODE

Here are the guidelines for creating the resources:

CONCEPT ART

You can make any sort of art you want, as long as it is relevant to something in the game. Your concept art will be used to promote the game, give people an idea of what things will look like, and help other developers make resources for the game. It can be scenery, weaponry, tools, races, creatures, etc. When depicting races, I would like some exaggeration in the proportions, but not too much. I do not want females to be depicted in a sexist manner (i.e. no girls with size zero waists and D-cup breasts). Don't worry about showing cleavage or something like that, I don't care if the depictions are seductive – just know how to differentiate between beauty and sexism. I would ideally like to get more girls interested in types of games like this, and it will be hard to do if the characters only appeal to males. Skin and hair color do not matter, as I can always recolor it later, but generally it should follow this pattern based on alignment (although you can get creative with coloring if you want):

(Alignment: [Skin Colors], [Hair Colors])

Light: [fair-skinned to dark-skinned],[blonde to brunette, gray to white]

Air: [fair skinned to tan skinned],[brunette, black to white]

Water: [pale skinned to fair skinned],[brunette, red to orange, gray to white]

Earth: [fair-skinned to tan],[brunette, black to white]

Fire: [any shade of red],[yellow to red, black, white]

Void: [pale skinned],[black to white]

Poison: [brown to tan to green],[any color, think punk-rock hairstyles :)]

Abyss: [black to gray],[black to white]

TEXTURE MAP

For now, texture maps are just for terrain and buildings. They should be 512x512 pixels in size, not contain too many compression artifacts (uncompressed is preferable). Texture maps should be grayscale, and either a heightmap or a texture map. For heightmaps, black is the lowest point, and white is the highest point. Genesis will extrude geometry at its own scale, using the former properties. Do not worry about lighting or normal maps, the engine handles that. For texture maps, one extreme of the texture should be black, and the other extreme should be white. Genesis automatically colors in texture maps…it replaces black with one color, white with another, and smoothly blends everything between. So, if a texture map consisted of a gradient smoothly going from black to white, I could assign color one to be green and color two to be red, and the result would be a smooth gradient starting with green and eventually blending to red.

MODEL

There aren't really any guidelines for the models for now, just use a polygon count that will perform reasonably well if a scene is populated with many of them. Note that models will be viewed from a distance where one pixel is approximately equal to one centimeter, so you only need to provide that level of detail. You don't need to worry about texturing, although you can texture the model if you want. It may be too early to work on models, unless you just want to use your model for concept art. You may want to wait until I have formed more detailed guidelines.

MUSIC

Music submissions are probably one of the best things to work on right now, aside from concept art, because the guidelines aren't that strict. You can submit whatever you want, just remember this is a fantasy game. You can use non-traditional instruments if you want, and even integrate synthesized sounds, so long as nothing sounds to out of place. Please title your music with whatever situation/time you think it represents the most, such as “forest music” or “carnival music”, etc. As with all resources, don't forget to include your full name in the title.

SOUND EFFECT

Anything you think fits in a fantasy game. Be very careful that you are not using a copyrighted source.

CODE

There is nothing you can do right now to help with the code, but very soon I will post assignments. Essentially, I will describe a function with parameters and a return type, and what I expect the function to do, and you will implement it in C++. Whoever writes the cleanest, most readable, best performing code will have their code used in the game. All code will be written in C++, at least for the time being. In the future some webpage coding might open up, or other projects.

C4. Promote

If you have a friend, tell them. If you have a blog or news site, tell the world. The more attention I can get focused on this project, the more likely it is to succeed. I am willing to do interviews with any major news site. I would like to give anybody an interview, but obviously my time is limited…however, smaller news sites and blogs can get the information they need from the other news sites that interview me.

C5. Give Feedback

I am interested in what you have to say, even if it is along the lines of: “You are an overly-ambitious, naïve idiot!” That's what the forums are for. I apologize that I cannot respond on an individual basis, but if you search this FAQ and the forums continuously, you may find the answer you were looking for. I am eager to hear what ideas you guys have, what you think will work well, what you don't think will work at all, etc.

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D. RANTS AND RAVES

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D1. This Will Never Work! Your Ideas are Way Too Idealistic!

I am introducing a lot of features that have never been tried or tested before. It is common knowledge that in a very large system like a MMOG, at least a few players will do everything in their power to try to make things go wrong. Reading through the gameplay description and features, there were probably a number of points that you saw a flaw with. If you see a flaw, go ahead and let me know via the message board, but be warned that I probably already know about it and have a potential solution to it. Keep in mind that you have only been reading this for a few minutes, while I have been developing this game for two years (and designing it in my head since my freshman year of high school, if you can believe that). During this time, I have thought up solutions to probably every problem you can think of (although I will concede that there is no way I can anticipate everything). If you can think of a solution to the problem yourself, try and do so before raising an objection. Some things may not ultimately work out, and I will have to change or remove them, but such is to be expected when designing a game in such uncharted territories.

D2. Why is the Website so Barren?

Because of the Slashdot effect. I don't want my server to buckle under the potential load of visitors (perhaps I am being too optimistic). I guarantee I can make a fancier website; I just don't have the time or reason to.

D3. What's the Deal With All of the Religious References?

The title, Genesis, believe it or not, has nothing to do with the Bible chapter, or Sega's old console. In fact, the word “Genesis” was around long before the Bible was translated to Latin, AND before the Sega console system. There are a lot of references to real world religion, biblical and otherwise, within the game. I have put a ton of research into mythology and religion, among other things, in order to provide players with a universe that, while in a fantasy setting, seems familiar right away. I am not particularly religious myself, so don't be worried about me trying to make secret implications in the game.

D4. Your Game Totally Copies Off of Other Fantasy Games!

Yes, it does. And novels, and movies as well. And guess what, all Fantasy media does this, because players have certain expectations for a fantasy world.

D5. When Will Genesis Be Completed?

Never. Unlike most commercial games, I intend to add features to Genesis long after it is released. No expansion packs, no sequels, just more features, to keep the game growing and interesting. A better question is “When will Genesis be playable?” The answer to this is: When it's ready. As soon as Genesis enters beta testing, anyone can play it, and it should be playable (if not too bug-ridden) when this time comes. Genesis will go out of the beta stage as soon as I consider it to be reasonably bug-free and have enough features to be an interesting game. I would like to give a firm release date, but I have already proven how terrible I am at predicting such things. If you can believe it, I originally planed to announce the game a year ago, and have not considered it ready to do so until now. Really, a huge determinant of how fast I can finish this game is based on the amount of support I receive. If I get a lot of help, there could be a playable beta within a year, but once again I must stress that it is very difficult to predict how long any given process will take.

D6. Where are the Characters and Beasts?

I have yet to work on them. However, believe it or not, integrating the characters and beasts is the easiest part of the engine, since I don't need to write much proprietary code. Rather, the DirectX library handles most of the character animation dirty-work. However, I could use a copy of Maya (are you reading this, Alias/Wavefront? Er…I mean, Autodesk?) to create characters and items.

D7. This is Way Too Ambitious

If I were planning to complete everything in one fell swoop, yes, it would be too ambitious. However, I only plan to create a basic engine for the beta, and then slowly integrate other parts. This gives me a chance to focus on fine-tuning certain aspects of the game on an individual basis. Initially, the engine will only allow gathering resources, building, crafting, and fighting, along with other necessary features. I will add more to it over time.

D8. What Has Been Completed Thus Far? What is Left?

So far, the terrain engine and building engine have been completed, the plant engine will be rewritten soon. Almost all of the environmental effects have been completed. The map compression engine is complete but needs to be reintegrated. So basically that leaves the character engine, GUI system, sound, and music. All of these things are mostly written already for me by the DirectX API, I just need to properly integrate them. After that, I just have to program in the interactivity (mostly collision detection) and networking. Once these minimum requirements are finished, there should be a playable beta. However, the devil, as they say, is in the details. There is much work left to do, because all of the little things add up. However, it certainly isn't more work than I can perform on my own. I would estimate that I am approximately two thirds done with the basic engine. Keep in mind, I don't have to do a lot of the work due to the open content system, and the dynamic nature of the Genesis world (for example, I don't have to create maps, script quests, and all of that dirty work).

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E. MISCELLANEOUS

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E1. About Me (In case you gave a damn)

My name is Gavan H. Woolery. I was born in the Napa Valley and spent the first eighteen years of my life living in the mountains surrounding it. I have three brothers, one of whom is my identical (evil) twin. Both of my parents are psychiatrists (insert joke about my mental health here). I got my first computer (a Commodore 64) when I was four years old. I began programming when I was twelve years old. I majored in computer science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, but shortly before graduating I was disqualified from their College of Engineering for poor performance. I finished getting my bachelor's degree in computer science at California State University, Channel Islands. I am now 24 years old and I live in a van, down by the river, surviving off of a steady supply of government cheese. I am not particularly talented in any given area, but I am adequately skilled in artwork, animation, web design, programming, and modeling. What is the most interesting fact about me though? I have never played a MMOG in my life. You might be wondering how in the world I am designing one then. Just because I don't have experience playing something doesn't mean that I know nothing about it. I have never sailed a ship, yet I know what sailing is. I have never been to France, but I know they drink fine wine and eat stinky cheese. Get the point? If you want to know more about me, and have a weird/tasteless sense of humor, you can visit my Myspace page at “www.myspace.com/gavanhwoolery”. I will be happy to add anyone as my friend, although I apologize if I can't respond to everybody's messages.

E2. Special Thanks

To my family, without whose love and support this project would have never been possible.

- To my dad, for constantly inspiring me to learn.

- To my mom, for coming up with the title for Genesis.

- To my brother Eli, for getting me into role-playing games.

- To my brother Alex, for helping with many of the textures and this faq.

- To my evil twin Hart, for his "constructive" criticism.

- In loving memory of Hammy T. Hamster ("T." = "The"). Rest in peace little buddy - 7/28/2006.

To my friends, you know who you are.

To Richard Garriot, for inspiring me to create worlds.

To Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III, for creating one of the best games ever (Star Control II).

To Ron Gilbert and Scott Miller, whose blogs I frequent quite often.

To Slashdot, Kotaku, Wired, and Digg, for my daily dose of news.

To CSU Channel Islands and its faculty, who have shown an unparalleled level of compassion and commitment to their students.

To anyone who believes in me, this project was created for you.

To anyone who has ever doubted me, for inspiring me to prove you wrong.

And last but not least, to all of the generous people who have supported this project.