Poisonville – jME based MMO plays with the big boys
August 5, 2009 in Spotlight
First announced in our own ‘User Showcase’ board, Poisonville took us all by surprise with a teaser screenshot so sweet and a feature list so comprehensive that diabetics and faint-hearted had better brace themselves. They have mentioned that features and reviews will appear in magazines, both online and in stores, and it seems one of the first have appeared on Golem.de, a German publication for IT enthusiasts. The title?
Poisonville: The Java-Browser-GTA with the million [euros] budget
Update: Scroll to bottom to read supplementary article.
Update2: Added screenshots, courtesy of ‘denzer‘
Read the German article on golem.de, or feast on our English translated version, courtesy of ‘ttrocha‘:
Normally the development of browser games costs from 50,000 to 100,000 euros. For Poisonville the Hamburg company Bigpoint invests about a round million. The result: no strategy or adventure based on bitmaps as any other browser games – instead, the player walks around in a 3D city – and can like in Grand Theft Auto cruise in stolen cars on the roads, fly helicopters across the city, use water skis and motorcycle.
About 30 programmers have been working for over a year on Poisonville that will start its open beta in August 2009 and will be released before the end of the year. Poisonville will be playable without client and without any additional software on all major browsers running Java and OpenGL; also required downloads are so small that the game is playable even with slow Internet connections – such as ISDN – and without long waiting times .
Visitors of the Games Convetion Online in Leipzig could play an early version already. The graphically already makes a good impression, thanks to high resolutions, the city in detail, the movements of the animated characters are very detailed – no wonder, according to Bigpoint it is the first browser game that used Motioncapturing for the animations. The graphics according to current console games is however not yet reached, especially the textures of the cars were of very poor detail.
Poisonville is named after a fictional town in the USA. There, four gangs fighting for glory, power and honor. Several tens of thousands of players per instance will be able to play simultanously in real time, like in GTA, they have a lot of freedoms. The player can start to decide whether or not he is part of the Latin Thugs, The 420 Street, Eightballs or The Company – each reigning one district. Apart from car chases and shootings, the player can also visit Strip Clubs, rob jewelers or buy clothes. Bigpoint indicates that Poison Ville for players aged 16 years or more.
Like all of Bigpoint browser games Poisonville is also playable for free. However, if you want to achieve goals more quickly, you must pay real money for virtual goods.
For marketing, the manufacturer relies entirely on viral techniques in social networks: Poisonville automatically generates on demand records about your successes in the game in Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.
A big good luck goes out to the Poisonville project on behalf of the jMonkeyEngine community!
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Update! Shortly after the posting of this article another one was brought to my attention, where the impressive graphics of the game come more into question. This is a great step for Java in mainstream 3D gaming. Again, the translation is courtesy of ‘ttrocha‘:
Browsergame Poisonville surprises audience with console graphics
With Poisonville the Hamburg game developers and publishers Bigpoint wants to offer a browser game that should be able to compete graphically and in gameplay with console games. At the Games Convention Online in Leipzig the provider presented the game for the first time to the public.
As for the comic-based graphics and the game concept Poisonville seems inspired by games like the “Grand Theft Auto series” (GTA) by Rockstar Games. The player moves in a 3d displayed imaginary city where there are several missions to perform and fights to win. He can join a gang, and can work on a virtual criminal career by different actions.
The special treat is: The game is written in Java and is therefore able to be played in any browser. Up to 5000 players at the same time can fight against each other per instance.
Poisonville may only be used online which is not unusual for a browser game. It has a data range from 200 to 300 megabytes, but causes only minor traffic. The developers promise that an ISDN network (64Kbit/s) is already sufficent to play the game fluently once the actual game has been downloaded.
According to Bigpoint a normal pc system that is currently used will be enough to run the java program fluently. A dual core processor with an OpenGL-compatible graphics card (low budget about 30€ would be enough) is recommended.
The full version of Poisonville is announced for the end of the year. A playable preview will be available to the public in October.
The game will be financed – as well as other products Bigpoint – with the so-called free-to-play [business model]: The basic game is free, you must pay for special items and bonus options. Basically, each goal in the game may be reached without the use of money, says Producer Christian Godorr. But payment for additional options may lead to a faster game progress. At the moment one out of ten participant of free to play game pays for special options. Nevertheless this kind of business model pays.
Source: Heise.de
PK said on August 30, 2010
This game bites.
For one, if it’s catering to Playboy Enterprises demographic of 18-35 years of age, one should be able to curse. I was banned instantly for saying, “Fuck this game”.
Why did I say what I said? It takes you between five and eight minutes for the game to load you in. By the time you finally do load in, you see your spawn menu. Spawn menu? Yeah, because you were killed before you fully loaded into the game world.
I have a very capable PC and 25Mbps download.
“downloads are so small that the game is playable even with slow Internet connections – such as ISDN – and without long waiting times .”
That’s just not true. I loaded in with the US (West) server and it took forever to load the game. After you die, you get to wait another long time, only to see your spawn menu again, because you were killed while loading.
I understand it’s a beta, and it is impressive for a java game. However, my experience was not fun at all. Besides, if it’s a gangster style game, why aren’t we allowed to curse? I find that awfully silly.