New 3D RPG fantasy adventure Idea! Looking for developers!

[Xhalite]

Mystrian Fate is a game I've always wanted to make, it is strongly
influenced by the Legend of Zelda, but I want to add more RPG elements and
a lot of different quests besides the main story. Here is a brief outline
of the key points of the game:
-Real Time avoidable combat(no turned monster encounter fights)
-Player Levels 1-12(12 being the equivalent of 99)
-HUGE World including all types of Geography
-MANY characters and monsters
-LOTS of items to collect
-and more awesomeness

Now, I'm not a great programmer or 3D model artist, but I have been working
on writing, and designing the concept for the game. Basically, you play as
Xhalite, a boy about 14 years of age who is on a quest to save his lifelong
friend, collect treasure from the dungeons, and defeat the evil lord Zyaji.
Pretty cliche? Eh, I like it that.

I already have ideas for the first part of the game. But I'll need...

Programmers(Preferrably C++, since it is standard and pretty good)
3D Map, prop, sprite & Character Artists(we'll be using open source textures)
(Of course we'll be using open source music)
Additional Writers
Animators
People who like to sketch
People with creative minds
People with patience

I am a director, and I think one of my other friends who is in this with me
would co-direct. Of course, this game will be free-open source software.

No website as of now, maybe we could get one running?

Anyone interested? The email I have made for production of this game is:
mystrian101@gmail.com

[charlie]

Living in a dream world. Dreaming is good, but you need to be able to distinguish between a goal and a dream. A goal is attainable.

You dream of having a full voluntary (unpaid) development crew to create a game with a scope of a commercial title.

Break your dream down in to goals. The first few goals you should be able to achieve on your own, because most open source games are made by individuals. It is only when you have a playable demo/concept that you are likely to attract other contributors.

[charlie]

In fact, check out www.allacrost.org as they have taken 4-5 years (I think) to get to where they are now. It's a good barometer for you.

[Xhalite]

Yeah, I knew I probably couldn't get voluntary development... it's just it would take ages for me to make, as I've only be programming in C++ for 6 months or so, and I am still pretty noobish at 3D modeling. I'm also a bit confused as to how to put 3D models into the code. I want to make high detail graphics, and I thought I got those when I downloaded some open source textures, but it turns out it's just as good as an nintendo 64 with a less powerful processor.

[charlie]

There's plenty of good open source content out there. Look at www.opengameart.org, or projects like 0ad and Ryzom have lots of good quality open content. It is usually not commercial grade by the latest standards because people do not develop full time for free, generally speaking.

[Xhalite]

Yeah. I've been making the demo map of the desert area(1st Level) in my game in google sketchup. And I'm still trying to figure out how to make a 3D character sprite.

I've been to open game art, already picked out some nice boss music. But programming a boss fight is probably very challenging for someone with little experience like me. I'm really just good a designing and writing concepts. Also, I have Microsoft Visual C++ Express, what 3D engine should I use? I hear Irrlicht is easier, but Ogre has more stuff...

[charlie]

Have you investigated something like http://www.sauerbraten.org instead of writing your own game engine from scratch?

EDIT: these too: http://www.ogre3d.org/tikiwiki/Projects ... RE#Engines

[charlie]

Just to add to that, there's some more here:
http://freegamedev.net/wiki/Free%2C_cro ... 3D_engines

Here's another not in that list:
http://www.pixellight.org/

[Roots]

Charlie mentioned Allacrost's long development history. Here's a post I made a couple weeks ago explaining some of the reasons why development on a project like this has taken so long and how to find motivation for working on something gigantic like that. Plus I provide a pro-tip that would cut off years of development time for you.
http://www.allacrost.org/node/87

[mdwh]

"Mystrian Fate is a game I've always wanted to make"

What games have you written so far? If the answer is 0, then put the idea aside, and have fun creating games yourself with a much smaller scope. I'm speaking from experience - when I was younger, I wanted to write large projects, but they never got anywhere, and I had much better success more recently when I scaled down my expectations.

If you want to work with others, I think it would have to be either joining an existing project, or perhaps trying to form a team on a more equal level - rather than putting yourself as the director, which comes across as "I want people to write my game idea" Unfortunately ideas are cheap - most programmers are just like you, in that they all have more ideas than they have time to write

Good luck. A 3D RPG is something I've always wanted to write too...

[Brendan_]

Reading Roots's post about Allacrost, it was striking how much like the experiences I had over 10 years pursuing (in various projects) the dream of remaking Daggerfall his were. In the end, it took a programmer, Lucius, with a fair bit of genius working by himself and creating a few bits of brilliance that drew in the talented people who I had worked with before parting ways as Real Life took its toll (marriage, job changes) and the unfulfilled promises within those projects-- which of course I blamed myself for.
"Daggerfall Revisited" made the same mistake Allacrost did, trying to make its own engine when none of us had ever done it ...though we didn't eventually succeed despite ourselves as Roots and crew are to be commended for. And "DungeonHack" never really recovered its momentum after its founder/programmer married and then left to work at a start-up company.

Bottom line, you've definitely got to keep passion alive, and the best way to do that is to love the process even if it has to shrink down to fit what you're actually able to do. Presently, that's not much, which can be confused for the dirtiest of all phrases to people like us: giving up. It's not. You work with what you've got, developing coherent ideas that you can communicate effectively, read up on game design and especially preproduction planning. Strategize and break down the total vision into separate mechanics or mini-games that you can hope to build to make a simple, fun game which can be extended by adding more mechanics later.
And with all that, just keep selling the vision until you get a good programmer and artist who also get pumped up about it. Build incrementally.
Last, but certainly not least, don't let being the "idea man" get in the way of accepting that sometimes other people have a better idea. I've made that mistake and really it was just ego, knowing that I was working hard but couldn't contribute in much of any other way. Managers don't need to have all the right ideas; they're just responsible for making sure the right ideas rise to the surface no matter where they originated. Sometimes it's hard to feel valuable, and for someone drawn to leading or directing it can even feel threatening. But if you're the guy who makes sure that everyone's idea gets heard fairly to move the project forward, letting anyone else lead just wouldn't make sense.

Good luck.