Developing a new game idea.

Hi there guys, I'm sure most of you know by now I've worked in the past as a games developer. Well unfortunately the game I worked on for several years is closing due to threatened legal action by the original creator who left the project years earlier. (when I say left, he abandoned it and didn't care one way or another for around 5 years. In fact he built a poorly coded LoTR rip off which was purely designed as an LOTR thing, we ripped most of his code out and replaced it, re-wrote everything to move it in a direction away from the original idea and yet he's actually got a case because the game is under french law sucks right?) Well one of the players there was considering making his own game done in a similar vein to the game I worked on and contacted me since I am a writer who also has a good knowlege of what the process should be and how to manage it even if I can't code at all myself. Well his idea is to do a straight swords and sorcery fantasy game nearly 90% the same as the game I've just worked on. However I had an idea for maybe something a little different. My idea was perhaps to include a early form of Steam Punk to the atmosphere of the game, not quite bringing the game up to victorian era but introducing powder weapons (flintlocks primarily) and steam mechanisms to the game which would obviously provide a whole wealth of enemies and quests to do. I feel a true fantasy style game with steam punk hasn't been properly done before and could be interesting. I'm willing to write out a story, create the idea behind this and develop the world personally as a living thing. However I'm curious to know what EoFF thinks.

Were there to be a web browser based MMORPG set in a Steam Punk fantasy realm (so dwarves, elves ect but steam punk to an extent) would you be interested? Would it grab attention or would it be something that wouldn't interest you? Let me know by voting in the attached poll, and give me detailed feedback in your posts :D

Ofcourse I'm not voting in the poll myself, that'd be silly since I'm in need of a clean vote count.

If you don't want to go full-bore steampunk, you might want to look into clockpunk. It's a subgenre of steampunk, but uses clockwork and springs and suchlike; the overall effect is much the same but yeah.

The idea interests me. But I wouldn't play a browser game, I expect. Just don't get along with them except for quick flash games.

Depends. I would love it if Character Creation, good quests, and a nice plot was employed.

Arcanum is a good example of Steampunk that works.

I heard Jagex was developing a steampunk browser MMO but it got canceled last year, or something like that.

I voted for the second option ("Yes, Kinda depends on how well it's executed and how deeply it takes the steam punk atmosphere") though the last part does not matter to me. Browser games are based almost entirely on how well done they are and whether or not they are coded properly. There are dozens of games out there that are popular and good but have one or two major issues that detract from the game.

If you were to do a steampunk-based game, I would probably check it out and continue playing it if the system and story interested me enough.

As someone who hates MMORPG's I doubt I'd play it myself, but I do think it would fit a potential niche that hasn't been tapped into by the genre. Mind you, the MMORPG genre hasn't tapped into many markets outside of fantasy and sci-fi so there's plenty of opportunity out there.

It certainly is an interesting idea, but if not done properly could be rather in-attractive.

Sounds awesome minus the online game part.