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[Michael :)]

I have just soaked in all information I could gather.
I've also read through a couple of forum topics and believe to have unterstood what you guys are planing to do.

But before I ask questions, let me say this:
This is, by far, the most incredible thing I have ever seen on a computer. And the possibilities are endless, and that is exactly what makes it even more mind-blowing. I hope, that  this project will create a huge, true sandbox and provide an appropiate monetary support to its creators. Because if this is, what I think you guys want it to be, it can be a true revolution in computer 'gaming' and simulation.

Okay. Let's go for the questions:

General
1) What does the business plan look like? Is there any? Maybe a rough concept?
This includes publishing and distributing the product. Will this be a product, other developers can buy from the market with a set of core features? Would you even consider selling it and its rights exclusively when the price is right?

2) What is the 'product'?
Obviously, the thing you are currently working on is an engine that simulates the world.
But what for?
From what I've read throughout the forum, what you plan to do, is to provide the engine and only the engine. Which includes a lot of features we are all awaiting so much.
But what is beyond this? Just as in the real world we live in, this virtual world could be capable to generate all kinds of different 'games' or simulations. Everyone in this forum has thousands of ideas what to implement and what it should be like - that's why all the users are here actually
How will decisions be made regarding this matter? Because I've seen you posting comments like 'this is not a flight sim' or 'this is not a strategy game' because it actually can be everything...
Leads this to selling the engine to developer studios again? .... Or will you open up the sandbox for everyone later?

3) Who is the team?
How many people are in it and what is their job?. Where do the members come from?


Tech talk
3) Is terrain data transfered from online maps e.g. Google Maps or OSM constantly? And if yes, doesn't it take a lot of bandwidth to do so?

4) Do you plan on implementing a client/ server structure to provide multiplayer or even a MMO structure?

if yes
4.1) if an MMO kind of game is planned, how will the engine handle thousands of players in this world at the same time? Will all players live in a bubble that only renders other objects or players within this bubble?

4.2) thinking about 3) in this way, wouldn't all the data (global positioning, actions and online geodata  be too much for todays consumer bandwidth? Would it even create artificial lag because of different sources the data is being loaded from (OSM and simulation server)?

5) Will trees be true 3D objects? Because as far as I can tell from the videos, right now they are sprites; 2D bitmap like images placed in the world.


This is as much as I can think of right now. But it'll be more in the future.
Thank you in advance.

[cameni]

That's not a couple of questions, that's a lot of them

1) This changed a bit from the beginning. Initially, when we were doing this in our free time, we wanted to make a game to show the technique, and we didn't think much about doing an engine. Who in their right mind would make an engine, yes? But from the feedback we've received from several companies we decided that we indeed could make an engine first, so that's what we are working on. Selling it exclusively is probably not an option since there are several contacts in various industry areas worked out already.

2) Selling an engine is but one thing to get us rooted, but our own plans go higher. Disregarding the games now, we aim to make the engine into a simulator/game platform, where other developers could provide addons for simulation, vehicles, game logic and so on, to be incorporated in one world where one could satiate his simming needs. A platform where where you could buy content and simulators from commercial vendors or use open source or freeware ones.
For gaming the same platform should give possibility to create the game world online, or to derive the game environment from an existing setting (a realm) implementing game code and importing graphics assets.
This goes deeper but it's also in early stages only.

3) After working on this in our free time, seeing the potential and everything, we decided to work full time on it. Obviously we could not launch it in a big style, so the core is small, but there are several guys cooperating with us that will be hoping the ship when the wales are high enough
Most of us are from Slovakia.

--index
Tech 3) Terrain isn't transferred from online maps, that wouldn't work and it would take a lot of bandwidth and processing time. The terrain data have to be specially processed, which takes quite some time now (few days, actually). Google maps are just shown in the embedded browser, that is also used for UI, thanks to bi-directional communication with engine. This will also allow to easily integrate various web services into it.

4) Not at the moment, but Yes for one of our (later) games we would like to do on it.

4.1) We have a concept that doesn't require a heavy server infrastructure, but requires some advanced techniques and getting it robust won't be trivial either. It won't suit for just any game though. But this goes far to the future ..

4.2) Terrain data are large (13GB at the moment but will be more with better detail in mountains and with climate data) but they are delivered on demand for area and LOD where you are in, and cached. This actually doesn't take much of the bandwidth, unless you'd circle the planet like mad low over the ground.

5) This has been talked about in few places already, yes there will be smooth transition to models, but the requirement for smoothness and universality prevents us from doing a quick hack solution now. There will be a generator preparing all LOD levels of a tree in form suitable for continuous LOD switching.

[corona]

4.2) Terrain data are large (13GB at the moment but will be more with better detail in mountains and with climate data) but they are delivered on demand for area and LOD where you are in, and cached. This actually doesn't take much of the bandwidth, unless you'd circle the planet like mad low over the ground.

Does that mean any hypothetical game will require an always on internet connection, and will constantly stream all that data? I would really prefer a one time install of those 13 gb, it isn't all that much anymore nowadays.
Alternatively, let users pick regions they want to install, but then be done with it.

[pico]

Hehe, my ArmA2 hav over 20 GB whit all Addons and Stuff.

[angrypig]

4.2) Terrain data are large (13GB at the moment but will be more with better detail in mountains and with climate data) but they are delivered on demand for area and LOD where you are in, and cached. This actually doesn't take much of the bandwidth, unless you'd circle the planet like mad low over the ground.

Does that mean any hypothetical game will require an always on internet connection, and will constantly stream all that data? I would really prefer a one time install of those 13 gb, it isn't all that much anymore nowadays.
Alternatively, let users pick regions they want to install, but then be done with it.

 Everything depends on final product type. But on the platform it is a little problem for us. Platform will not be something static, it will be a continuously updating/evolving world. So the only way is to publish snapshots/diffs for people that don't want to be online and let them download diff package to update to a specific version. It seems to me like a lot of worthless work and a lot of wasted bandwidth and this service would not be free because of the amount of data and work it requires. Keep in mind that when you download a snapshot you will never be using 90% of it during the next month.

[corona]

4.2) Terrain data are large (13GB at the moment but will be more with better detail in mountains and with climate data) but they are delivered on demand for area and LOD where you are in, and cached. This actually doesn't take much of the bandwidth, unless you'd circle the planet like mad low over the ground.

Does that mean any hypothetical game will require an always on internet connection, and will constantly stream all that data? I would really prefer a one time install of those 13 gb, it isn't all that much anymore nowadays.
Alternatively, let users pick regions they want to install, but then be done with it.

 Everything depends on final product type. But on the platform it is a little problem for us. Platform will not be something static, it will be a continuously updating/evolving world. So the only way is to publish snapshots/diffs for people that don't want to be online and let them download diff package to update to a specific version. It seems to me like a lot of worthless work and a lot of wasted bandwidth and this service would not be free because of the amount of data and work it requires. Keep in mind that when you download a snapshot you will never be using 90% of it during the next month.

Let's define "Terrain Data":
Do you mean
a) Elevation data
b) Landclass data
c) custom .... stuff, like custom build building

If a) then I don't understand how it could change overtime, well, not within a human's lifetime anyways. Unless you mean error correction only, but those should hopefully be rare.
If b) then yes, hopefully people will update it constantly to better reflect reality (for reality based games), however I read in another post that the expected size of this is ~300 mb, even at 1 GB this is pretty small
If c) then I'm not sure I want auto-updates all the time, especially if I bought addon-stuff.

I just don't see it working IMO. Over a baseline install and an updates manager or something that tells me when updates are there. My 2c.

[cameni]

Well, as I see it .. an online system would check for updates in a/b/c on demand and stream it to the client where it is cached. This updates a tiny part of the complete data set for planet

Otherwise there would have to be some larger content releases that update the data globally. What Angrypig meant to say is that people will waste bandwidth by downloading these large updates when actually they would use just a small part of it, and that this mode will be thus rather ineffective. It will also mean additional work on creating and providing these patches.
But if there's a strong demand and we would alienate our precious customers otherwise ..

Another possibility is to work offline with the cached content.

[Michael :)]

did I get this right?
terrain data will be published as a base version, that everyone recieves, right after installing.
everything else is then updated through small updates online and directly added to the database.

right?

this sounds very user friendly to me and makes a lot of sense, too. the idea is great.


btw:
you guys over at outerra are some real clever programmers. I like that. that results in clever, modern coding which uses latest technologys' fully potential.
I wish I could contribute to this project as an engineering student
Can't wait until the next update.