Help Wanted! 2D and 3D artists for Shadowrun MMO Project

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
1

Hello everyone! First off, I’d like to congratulate you on the forums, I’ve been looking for Blender artists and the queality of artwork and models I’ve seen here is amazing. I’m trying to learn how to use Blender myself, but there is nothing to show so far…

Now, on to my proposal:

My name is Cristobal Lander, I’m currently the QA Manager of a project to bring the Shadowrun World to a MMORPG. We are currently looking for artists, both 2D and 3D. But first, a little backround on the Shadowrun IP and the nature of our project:

Shadowrun is originally a Pen and Paper RPG cyberpunk-ish game set in the not so distant future, around the year 2070. The game setting blends both magic and technology, as it follows the current world after a cataclysmic event that brings back magic, dragons, elves, orks, trolls, and every other feature usually associated with the fantasy genre.

For more information regarding Shadowrun, you can check the following links:

Now, on to our project:

SHADOWRUN AWAKENED

Shadowrun Awakened is a Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game set in the Shadowrun Universe. We currently number around 20 people among programmers and artists. The project is open source and it is going to be absolutely free. No game to buy. No monthly fees. Our official website can be found here: Shadowrun Awakened

What are we looking for? We have a help wanted listing, however, I’ll also include it here:

Creative Developers

We are currently looking for:

  • Creative writers: Will be part of our team responsible for mission content, game narrative, character dialogue, and for our website. Don’t like how this help wanted ad is written? Then help us make it better!
  • 2D Artists: Will create concept and website artwork, including characters, vehicles, cityscapes and weapons. Will also aid in creation of textures for in-game characters, terrain, buildings and enemies.
  • 3D Modellers: Will bring our 2D concepts to 3D glory. Will also aid in creation of animations and in-game special effects. Blender experience preferred, as this is our 3D animation program of choice.We also have a listing for Technology Developers (A.K.A. programmers) so if any of you is also well versed in programming, please check the help wanted listing, and drop us a line.

Compensation:
Sadly, we’re in no position to offer any monetary compensation. Our license agreement with Microsoft states that the game must be non-commercial, as in, cannot be made for profit. Therefore, anyone who wants to join the project must be aware that there will be no monetary compensation. However, we can offer as much publicity to the artist as possible. If you check our current Concept Art page, you’ll notice that with each piece of artwork we include the name of the artist and a link to his homepage, if any.

If any of you is interested, you are more than welcome to make a submission to our Assets Manager! I will also stay around, so if you have any further questions, you can either post them here and I’ll try to answer them as thoroughly as possible, or you can take them directly with our Asset Manager.

Hope to hear from you guys soon! :slight_smile:

2

microsoft owns Shadowrun?..wow…I’ve been away from pen-paper RPG’s for too long

3

The only way you can get someone to help is if you can meet “one” of the following requirements:

(1) You are willing to pay allot of money. It takes weeks to model something good, and paying people 50 cents per hour is (actually illegal, isn’t it?)

(2) You are an artist yourself and will be doing as much work if not more than everyone else in the group. Artists like to help artists out; if you post at least ONE model 1/2 way done people will be willing to help.

(3) The one forgotten exception.

Anyways. Good Luck!

4

Our license agreement with Microsoft states that the game must be non-commercial, as in, cannot be made for profit.

That is one of the strangest things I’ve ever heard of.

Are you doing this for free? If so, what the hell for? Screw Microsoft, start an original MMORPG. Shadowrun isn’t so big that it’s worth working under these conditions.

5

Who the shit cares if a game is owned by microsoft! A game is a game. Plus It’s open source! it’s not like microsoft is getting any money from this. lol

In fact this is like the ultimate slap in the face the open source community can give microsoft over their game. lol

I’m interested and I’ll contribute if i can work some time into my busy schedule.

6

It’s about intellectual property, I bet both FASA corporation and Microsoft care a lot if they find out.

Also, I think that indie MMOs are usually way too zealous projects. Start with something simple and build on that, 99% of projects like this die before they get anywhere near alpha.

7

I was so excited when I saw this, I nearly wet myself.

But then I looked at their website and saw this at the bottom:

Shadowrun is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Corp. and WizKids LLC, have ownership of the names, logo, artwork, marks, photographs, sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary material used in connection with the Shadowrun trademark. WizKids LLC and Microsoft Corp. do not endorse, and are not affiliated with this project in any official capacity whatsoever.

Then I noticed there was another Shadowrun MMORPG project called Shadowrun Online, so I went to their website … where I found this:

Microsoft has requested that we immediately halt production of Shadowrun Online. In a few short days, the project will shut down and these domains will be transferred over to Microsoft as they have requested.

I’d say your days are numbered.

It’s sad though … Shadowrun would make an awesome MMORPG.

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Hi everyone! Thanks for the interest. Let me take on your questions and comments, and see if I can dissuade any of your fears, or further explain the nature of our project.

I know it sounds weird, but we do have Microsoft’s approval to make the game. We can make the game as long as it isn’t made for profit, I assume because since Microsoft isn’t actually making it, they don’t want someone else making money off their property. I can also imagine that they don’t want to fully endorse a game when they don’t know how good it’ll be.

http://awakenedmmo.org/forums/index.php?topic=29.0 Here’s the link to our forums thread where the permission from Microsoft was copied from the e-mails we exchanged with them.

This goes a long way towards explaining why we can’t pay an artist (or anyone, for that matter.) We can’t make a buck out of the game, so it doesn’t make sense to try and hire people for money, as it would have to come from our own pockets. But as I mentioned, we try to “pay” people (be it programmers or artists) with as much exposure as possible. Artists are credited for their work. A link to their website is provided. When the game is (eventually) finished, the artists will be included in the game credits. And right now we have a rather small gallery of 2D and 3D artists, but as the project grows, we will have more options to showcase your work. “Artist of the Month”, “Concept art of the month”, and similar stuff. I know that perhaps an established artist won’t work in our project, but anyone looking for exposure, and looking to be part of an interesting project from the ground up, should drop us a line. We’ll be more than happy to welcome you in.

As for point #2, Calvin, We agreed on Blender as our modelling tool because it suited our needs. Me, a long time ago I was pretty good at modelling 3D structures in AutoCAD (nothing fancy, more like buildings, offices, stuff like that) so I actually downloaded Blender. I haven’t been able to make heads or tails off it so far, but I’m getting there. And we already have an admittedly small group of 2D and 3D artists working on the project, so it’s not like, whoever decides to join, will be working alone. This is why I never posted something like “We need 1 3D modeller” or something like that, we want as many people as possible to join, if they want.

And for the question about why making a shadowrun game for free, well, just as we are offering notoriety to an artist, we are making the project to gain notoriety. Shadowrun is a very well known property, and if we manage to make a decent game we would gain a lot of notoriety and instant credit with the game industry. This would allow us to work in more regular, paying projects. And of course, if any artist who was part of our Shadowrun MMO project were to continue working with us, eventually we’d be in a position to offer a paying job. But for this project at least, paying is not an option. And the other reason would be because… well, because most of us love Shadowrun, and would love to make a Shadowrun game.

I hope this has made cleared the nature of our project. If anyone wants to join, you’re more than welcome to make a submission to our asset manager, as he’s the one in charge of handling the artistic side of the project. You can either submit something directly to him, or you can post something here and I’ll forward it to him.

9

If you check our forum thread where we have the permission from Microsoft to work in the shadowrun MMO (http://awakenedmmo.org/forums/index.php?topic=29.0) you’ll notice that one of the conditions under which they approved our project was to include that trademark reference everywhere in our works. As I said in my previous post, I assume this is a way for them to cover their backs, since they don’t know how good the project will be. If it turns out to be a crappy game, they can always assume the position that they had nothing to do with it.

As for the other Shadowrun Online project, Shadowrun Online, that is actually a sad story. They never requested Microsoft’s approval. They weren’t actually making a full-blown game, they were trying to make a decent build of the game to make a proposal to Microsoft, and hopefully make the game for profit. Several people warned them that Microsoft could shut them down at any given moment, yet they kept working on it, and eventually, Microsoft did shut them down.

But this is not our case, as we have Microsoft’s approval. We are also in the process of obtaining Wizkids’ approval too, but it’s been kind of muddy because they are in the middle of a licensing agreement for Shadowrun. In theory, only with Microsoft’s approval we would be able to make the game, but we want to have both parties’ approval.

You can rest assured, we will not be shut down. So you can safely join, if you want. :yes:

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Tieden, you are more than welcome to join when you are able to. Since this is an open source project, and we all have our own day jobs to take care of, we try to accomodate to people’s needs. We understand that people can be busy actually earning a living. :yes:

11

Hi,
Are you looking for part time or full time employees? Please let me know.
Sarathy

12

Hi Sarathy, thanks for your interest.

This is an Open Source project, meaning most people have a day job and work on this project in their free time. So I’d say that we aren’t looking neither for part time or full time employees, people who join the project work with their own schedule and we accomodate to their needs.

13

I’ve looked into Shadowrun a few times, for those of you who are not familiar, Microsoft owns the rights to use Shadowrun for computer games. Other rights, have been passed down and through various companies now held by Topps (baseball cards…)
Microsoft owns shadowrun.com (they are working on a game.)

www.shadowrunrpg.com = Fanpro = Wizkids = TOPPS the RPG pen & paper game
http://www.shadowrunrpg.com/wordpress/?p=168

Good luck with your project.
Mike

14

Thanks cris

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When you are successful at making Shadowrun MMO, for free, and have piloted the concept, does anything prevent Microsoft from throwing some spare time from their developers toward porting it to XBOX360? In fact, if you are successful, don’t you think Microsoft might see a business opportunity, and take what you have developed and learned, add value (port to XBOX), and sell?

Why wouldn’t it be so much better, rather than making version 0.9 of a game for Microsoft for free, make a game that is truly open?

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Well, the project infrastructure will be open source, so in theory, once we have the game running anyone could grab it and use it. But since we are working under the LGPL license, it would ensure us of two things:

  • Anyone who chooses to use our infrastructure would have to adhere to the LGPL license, unless our project is only used peripherally.
  • Licensing only covers the infrastructure, all the assets (as in, art, 3D models, music, contents, etc) are intellectual property, and cannot be used.This means that in the event Microsoft wanted to take over our project, all they’d have is access to our client/server infrastructure, and if they chose to use it, they’d have to release a game using the LGPL license, which is highly unlikely. And all assets would be safe.

Of course, if the game ever came to be a raging success, there is the possibility that Microsoft could offer to buy the project. But that would be a whole different can of worms.

17

If it is an open project, it seems to me that anyone can get a copy of your resources. So without funds, how are you going to enforce the LGPL license? How are you going to claim damages without revenue? How are you going to match legal expenses with Microsoft? I think you are being naive, duped, and/or totally underestimating Microsoft.

I do think that you should do this project because you enjoy it, will get good experience, and take pride in producing a great game. But please, never be bitter at whatever the outcome, even if you get bragging rights to how you piloted the game for Microsoft; in other words, never be bitter or attempt to claim that Microsoft ‘stole’ your ideas. Have Fun!

18

Just because a project is Open Source, it doesn’t mean it can be taken by anyone. Any project, Open Source or not, is developed under a working license, and whoever wants to take it, has to abide by the License Agreement. There is no “way” to enforce the LGPL license, it is just the license under which you work. You either accept it, or you don’t.

As I said, if Microsoft ever wanted to “take over” our project, they would only have access to the client/server infrastructure, as the rest is all intellectual property. And we have Microsoft’s permission to work with the Shadowrun property, so there’s no risk in getting shut down, or something similar.

19

Hello Mr Lander.
I feel so lucky to have heard about your project, can’t wait to volunteer and start working straight
away.
My skills and tallent are equally balanced between 3D and 2D. Yet I never tried to make a finished work, cause I like to move onto something new and expand my skills into new ideas.
I have few 2D fianls in my portfolio, but none on the computer, cause my passion in art is to stick to original methods.
Skills that I have are all from selftaught, and I would love to have experience working for your project, and know that it’ll build up my portfolio.

Thanks for reading from Eager McLean

20

Mr Lander.
I can’t volunteer for this project yet, because my computer has no access to the Internet, but as soon it does I’ll volunteer and start working in no time.

thanks again from Eager McLean.