Project description
A creative reinvention of the MMORTS genre
Massively multiplayer online real-time strategy (MMORTS) games are probably the most popular interactive video game type worldwide. The constant growth of this industry requires new creative approaches to maintain the players' engagement. A major factor of attractiveness in these games is spatial representation in hex maps. To keep up with the pace of evolution in this field, the EU-funded Starborne project has developed a set of innovative tools based on artificial intelligence for spatial representation in hex maps in MMORTS games. The solutions include a unique 3D-maps procedural generation engine, a more immersive single-game experience and a new rendering method for dynamic visualisation of large 3D maps without overtaxing the processing capacity of players' computers.
Objective
Computer games are experiencing an incredible evolution. With 2.2B gamers across the globe (25% of the EU online population playing video games), this industry has a constant demand for new creative approaches, essential to maintain players' loyalty in a very demanding market. In MMORTS games (Massively Multiplayer Online Real-time Strategy), spatial representation in hex-maps has a huge impact on how engaging a game is. But current approaches for hex-map population/rendering are suboptimal when applied to the latest tendencies in MMORTS, which assume thousands of simultaneous online players and lead to massive hex-map dimensions.
STARBORNE brings a set of novel technological developments, based on Artificial Intelligence, for solving these problems: (1) a unique 3D-maps Procedural Generation Engine, that makes the creation of large in-game 3D maps much easier; (2) a new rendering method, enabling dynamic visualization of large 3D maps without over-taxing the processing capacity of players' computers; and (3) a single-game experience across all platforms that leads to a more immersive playing experience. We take advantage of these novelties not only to reduce the cost and time-to-market of our future products, but also to introduce a totally novel innovation in the MMORTS genre: a 3D map capable of hosting over 25K players, with no rendering delays and running on modest players' hardware.
This creative-technological combination will greatly increase player retention, leading to considerable revenue growths and global market share. Time-to-market (so costs) will substantially decrease too, enabling impressive fast development of current and future games. Grown over the achievements of our current alpha-testing results, that has already generated much excitement in the gaming community, and a team having worked with many of the world's leading studios (e.g. CCP, global online games leader), Solid Clouds aims to be one a world-leader MMORTS developer.
Fields of science
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligence
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementbusiness models
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringinformation engineeringtelecommunicationsmobile phones
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftwaresoftware applicationsvideo games
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
170 SELTJARNARNES
Iceland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.