So its been a year since we announced we were stopping development of this project. Many of us are still around, and we still hang out in our irc server channel (#projectwish on irc.projectwish.com). The code has been downloaded many hundreds of times, and hopefully many have benefited from its release. Those of us who were involved in the project benefited greatly, and are thankful at having been able to share and grow our talents here.

For those of you who still come back and check us out, what have you been up to? Project Wish was life-changing to many of us involved, what are the things you remember or that changed your life? Let us know.

Cobra has been working on making films on his own. You can see a teaser of Stargate: The Imperative, the name of his short, here: http://www.dackard-3d.com/theimperative. You can check out some of his work on his vimeo page (http://vimeo.com/user1101876) or his YouTube page (http://www.youtube.com/user/cobra8472)

Njpaul has been working on an Ogre3D scene editor with a co-worker, and has made a lot of progress.

I have been working on my own game, which I mention on my blog from time to time (http://erikbriggs.me). I am also scheduled to speak at GEEX again this year about hobbyist game development. It will be in July here in SLC, Utah. Check it out at their website: http://geexshow.com/

Others from the team have moved on from college to get jobs out in the real world, and use many of the skills they picked up here.

Last post made by: Hawkins on Nov 15 2010, 01:38 AM

The server that has hosted our IRC server for years has a faulty power-supply. I will be finding a replacement PS soon and will get IRC back up.

Update November 2009 - The IRC server has been back up for a couple weeks now. After going through a couple power supplies, it ended up being a cooling fan was needed on a fanless cpu heatsink.

Thanks

Last post made by: Jerky on Oct 13 2009, 08:42 AM

Well, we are still around. Despite our code being out and stopping development, many of us still stay close to PW. We still spend time in our IRC channel and chat about things. We appreciate the inquiries about alternatives to reviving the project, but there just isn't the desire among the ex-developers (myself included) to want to take the torch back up again. If someone wants to step forward to lead and start recruiting again, that's fine by me/us, but before I let someone do that, I would want to talk extensively with that individual to ensure that the project would start to progress again.

Among other things going on, we still have plans to push forward with our changes to the website. On that token, we are wanting to recruit some community managers and a web developer for the volunteer (read: non-paid) positions that will be required to keep up the site. Interested parties can email us at apply[at]projectwish.com. Our desire is to open forums for serious development teams, and even host SVN for them.

YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT! I have talked with our generous founder (Mortideus), who has long shouldered the financial burden of the PW web/svn/vps server. He expressed interest in keeping the site alive as well, and likes the idea of going forward with turning PW into the premier portal for serious hobbyist projects who need webspace, forums and SVN.

So, we would like to start getting the infrastructure ready for this before deployment of the new portal.

In other news, [shameless plug] I started a new blog which will go over my game development exploits going forward. The site is http://erikbriggs.me and already has a few posts about how to get started making your own game. The posts don't go into any serious depth on the topics, but should be very helpful to those wanting to start down that path. Going forward, I will be following the prototyping and development path of my next game (which remains unnamed).[/shameless plug]

A few other of the old development team are already hard at work on other projects. Njpaul, our ex-lead programmer, is working with another Ogre-related project, among other things, which will lead to a general-purpose scene editor. Vamyen, one of our main artists, continues to do concept work for multiple projects, both in games and in movies. Honis is staying busy after graduating and getting a job with an aerospace company. Grey, ex-server lead, is focusing on school. Minthos, another server-programmer, has graduated college and is on the job hunt. Cobra, our ex-lead artist is busy getting work doing commisioned artwork for WWII-related websites. He is getting paid rather well for his work, and cites PW as the reason he has been able to gain the skills he is using now.

We're looking forward to keeping things going on these new fronts and will keep you all posted.

Last post made by: Jerky on Mar 23 2009, 08:24 PM

The entire Project Wish wiki (formerly hidden) is now open to public view. There is a wealth of information on there for those who are interested in development, design, art, collaboration, and many other things. There is some information in there to help those interested in the source code as well, which will help them make sense as to what is what.

The link is http://wiki.projectwish.com/

Happy hunting.

To answer some questions ahead of time, I stripped out most of our team's personal information, other than real names. If someone thinks something needs to be changed, please let me know. Registration is disabled, and the entire site is read-only. It is not meant to be used going forward, but I will take requests if someone wants to move something to their wiki and wants the wiki-formatted version(s) of page(s).

Last post made by: Jerky on Feb 21 2009, 11:41 PM

You will notice that there is a new color theme for PW. This is to help people understand the changes that have happened and that are happening. Some of the changes have not been entirely clear to people, and we have had a number of people apply for the team recently. Part of that is my fault, for not removing the Help Wanted sections.

We appreciate the support we have received from a number of people since the recent announcements. It seems there is some desire for the site I hinted at and our code. This new site is the first step, but I would love help if someone out there wants to help take PW in this new direction. Since I am working on new things (a new game, shhhh), I do not have the time to devote to PW's new look and feel. Anyone interested in helping organize a new look, new forums, articles, interviews or anything game development related, let me know.

Also, I am in the process of rar'ing up our svn code. It is a huge mess. So much so that I do not feel like trying to organize it. I will break the download into 100mb chunks, but it may end up being a few hundred MB's. There is a lot of odds and ends in there. Many small prototypes and half-finished tools. For those looking for a gold mine of code to dig through, you might just like what you see. Currently, we have more bandwidth than we know what to do with, so I don't imagine that will stop us from posting all this code to anyone who wants it. To answer some questions ahead of time, all our OUR code will be under a BSD license, unless otherwise specified. This should allow anyone to do whatever they want with it. There are parts of Boost and Ogre, which for obvious reasons, cannot take on the BSD license.

[Edit]
Ok, the files are done uploading. Here they are. There are 4 files, all almost 100MB each. Extracted, there is over 800MB of code/files. It could definitely be shrunk, but I don't really have the time right now to do that.
[Edit 2]
There are 2 files, both almost 100MB. Extracted its just about 400MB. Thanks jacmoe for telling me how to strip all the svn junk out.

Part 1
Part 2

Last post made by: Jerky on Feb 21 2009, 08:58 PM

Project Wish has been a lot of things over the years: First and foremost, it has been a gathering place for those who knew and liked the game Wish. Those few that do remember are a dying breed. The Project also served as a training ground for those interested in the insane task of creating one of the most ambitious projects ever conceived by a group of hobbyist game developers. The Project and its design/goals were never diluted because of lack of funds. We made it a point to include everything that we would want in the ideal game, the game we were making. In fact, we prided ourselves on the fact that we were crazy enough to attempt such an endeavor. I served as the leader and fugleman for the "crusade" that we have been waging for the last 4 years.

Where is Project Wish now? We have been consistently progressing since 2005. Sometimes this progress came after a step backwards, or a redesign, but we never stopped. People came and people went. Over the course of the Project, we have had over 95 actual contributors to the project. Each person contributed in their own way. There were countless others who joined in via the forums, email or IRC. We would like to thank each and every one of them for helping to make Project Wish one of the longest lasting projects of its kind ever.

Despite all this, the outward goals of the project did not always reflect the true goals. While this project was meant to create an MMORPG in the absence of the game Wish, there have been some developments in recent months that have changed some of the way the Project has progressed. Firstly, there are now a number of commercial MMO’s that now contain most, if not all, of the design goals the Project itself had. For those seeking such games, a couple of them are: Darkfall Online and Mortal Online. There are others, but the point is, the market is not the same as it was over 3 years ago when we began. We still have quite a number of unannounced features that we feel could still change the MMO genre, but the time is no longer at hand. There are other factors for this as well.

One of my own personal goals for the project was to create a project that people could go right into game companies from. We have had one former member work on a commercial MMO, and another was recently offered a job at a game studio. This offer did not work out, and in fact, was so terrible that I have to wonder about the state of the industry. With so many dev houses closing down recently, there must be a surplus of developers. This could be a factor in why the company, who makes AAA titles, made him an offer that was less than half of his current salary, and 40% under the industry average for starting people in that position. This individual happens to be the most talented individual on the project, and if he gets an offer that low, what are the chances that someone else is going to do better? They are probably not very good. The fact of the matter is that Project Wish would need to be recognized by game development companies as something more than just a “mod.” In order for that to happen, we would have to actually release something amazing. I know we are fully capable of that, but the time it will take is more than most are willing to wait, myself included.

For me, this is another reason to start making my own opportunities. One of my own selfish goals is to make games for a company that I help run. For me, as a fairly-well-compensated individual with a family and a mortgage, there is no possible way for me to take an entry-level position. If I was to make the jump into the industry, either a company would have to take a massive risk and hire me above what they normally would (assuming that I am a newbie with no “real” experience), or I need to make my own opportunity by starting my own company. This whole part is selfish on my part, but after over 3 and a half years of being selfless, now is the time for me to start thinking about me. In so doing, the Project will have to be put on an “indefinite state of suspension” because there is no one currently around who I feel will pick it up and take it where it needs to go. This could just be my selfish view of things, but that is how I truly feel.

The next logical question is: What now? Well, one of the many things I think Project Wish can still do is to help others in their quest. We are still a group of individuals with much more experience than the average hobbyist, and even some Indies. My vision is to turn the website into a repository for information about hobbyist game development. With all the contacts and friends we as a project have gained over the years, we should also be able to gather articles about running projects from those who have done it successfully, including some of us. I would like to turn the forum into a place where projects can discuss ways in which they can improve and progress. This is not going to become a design theory forum, but a place where questions and advice can be archived for use. I also want to open up the Project Wish wiki to the public, in read-only form, and would also like to release our code under a BSD license.

So, what does this mean? Well, the website will be changed, the wiki will be opened, the code will be released and IRC will remain online. All the forums will be archived, and be opened to the public, with new forums opened for development discussions for anyone. Essentially, not much will change, except that those of us who have been dedicated to the goals of the project will now move onto other things. I cannot say what those are at this time, but you can definitely expect to hear about us when we are ready to reveal our new secrets. We are even debating hosting forums for projects that are looking for hosting. This would be done free of charge, and would be something we do because we believe in the talent that is out there waiting to be found.

Tell us what you think. Is there interest in any of our code out there? Is there interest in free forums for game development projects? Are there any suggestions? Does someone want to take over the project and revive it? Let us know!

Thanks for the fantastic ride and expect to hear from us again!

Last post made by: sblmnl on Apr 25 2009, 05:58 PM

The site will be down for possibly an entire day this week. We are moving servers in preparation for some new announcements. Stay tuned.

Last post made by: Jerky on Jan 8 2009, 12:01 AM

Here are the videos of my presentation at GEEX. I broke it into smaller parts so you could watch in sections, or just the sections that interest you.


How to Make Your Own Game - Part 1 - Intro from Erik Briggs on Vimeo.


How To Make Your Own Game - Part 2 - My Background from Erik Briggs on Vimeo.


How To Make Your Own Game - Part 3 - Project Wish from Erik Briggs on Vimeo.


How To Make Your Own Game - Part 4 - Set Your Sights from Erik Briggs on Vimeo.


How To Make Your Own Game - Part 5 - Take Action from Erik Briggs on Vimeo.


How To Make Your Own Game - Part 6 - The Process from Erik Briggs on Vimeo.

P.S. Anyone who wants to help clean up the audio, let me know. I know its hideous at the moment.

Last post made by: Jerky on Aug 12 2008, 03:38 PM

Well, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, today was the big day. I will refrain from writing my thoughts here, so expect that as a blog entry. There were quite a few requests to see my presentation, so I will start with a PDF file of it. In the near future, I will release video (most likely edited into segments) that anyone interested can download and watch. Because I spoke for an hour and 45 minutes, I don't think I want to release the whole video as one entire file, since nobody would be willing to bore themselves that much in one sitting .

Here is a link to the file, as promised:
http://www.projectwish.com/How_to_make_your_own_game.pdf

The file itself is very graphic intensive (I put a lot of our best art into it), so I apologize ahead of time. It is around 11MB.

I'd like to thank all those involved in helping me prep. I would also like to say thank you to GEEX for letting me share my experiences and knowledge with them. It was very fun for me.

Stay tuned for the video.

Last post made by: Windragon on Oct 27 2008, 04:31 AM

While PWOgreBox is new, and releasing today, PWToolBox is now also at 1.0 as well.



Description:
PWOgreBox is a cross-platform API providing common functionality for Ogre projects. Currently the project only consists of a wxWidgets control for embedding Ogre into. We will be adding to this library in the future, as our project requires it.

Features:
The current version, PWOgreBox 1.0, has the following features:

• Cross-platform (Windows and Linux) wxWidgets control for embedding Ogre into.
• Supports multiple controls and scenes
• Independent and adjustable update rate per control.
• Pause and unpause rendering independently of other controls
• Listener interface for hooking into key events
• Calculates relative mouse motion and lets you know through the listener interface
• Multiple listeners per control
• Gives you access to the scene manager, camera, and viewport of the control.
• Provides a static getHandleAsString function which takes a pointer to a wxWindow and returns the platform-specific string representation of the handle, which is used as the value of externalWindowHandle. This is used internally but is also great for creating a hidden primary render window.

Documentation:
Doxygen documentation can be found here:
http://www.projectwish.com/pwogrebox/doxygen/html

You can also visit the dedicated forum for PWOgreBox located here:
http://www.projectwish.com/index.php?showforum=586

License:
PWOgreBox is licensed under the LGPL v2.1 license, with an optional unrestrictive license. We do not currently offer the unrestrictive license, but will expedite it if requested. If you are interested in an unrestricted license, contact: contact@projectwish.com.

How can you help?
Besides spreading the word, you can help us out by heading over to our forums and report any bugs you come across. We're also looking for linux package developers to make packages for us. Contact us if you can help.

Download:
Download here.

Who's using PWOgreBox?
We're interested to find out, so let us know.

Other Software:
You may also be interested in our other software products, located at http://www.projectwish.com/index.php?act=d...at&cat_id=4

To accompany this release of PWOgreBox, PWToolBox 1.0 has also been released. It is not required to use PWOgreBox.

Last post made by: Jerky on Jul 13 2008, 09:07 PM