Simon

Please spend some time thinking about the differences between an open-ended rule system like HERO and the deterministic rules engine needed for any game/electronic offering. I suspect that you'll find that it is not possible "mechanically" as you propose.

Incorrect. That would be the dollar amounts needed to get another Champions Online clone up and running. NOT (repeat: NOT) Hero System. The underlying engine would need to be written to support the rules. So start adding in those millions of dollars. Then start talking about hardware, ongoing development, and employees. And hosting. And you haven't even begun to address INTEREST. Or feasibility. Whose interpretation of the rules will this mythical system be working off of? Yours? Someone else's? Even if you were to be gifted with a completely tweakable engine that you could somehow customize to a mythical interpretation of the rules that everyone agreed with, you haven't even developed the reason that people would leave the multiple existing platforms for your system. The market is not there. At all. The whole idea is full of fail.

MMO = MASSIVELY multiplayer online (game). In order to even be feasible as a starting "seed" you need thousands - tens of thousands of users. Starting your numbering at dozens is about the same as "none" -- it shows a complete and utter failure of the support needed to even begin thinking about something like that.

So spend millions to make the game engine and then more millions to make an actual marketable game? That sounds even less reasonable. Where are the people going to come from to develop your game engine? What are you going to pay them? Where are the funds going to come from? Where's the (rather extensive) hardware going to come from to support your MMO? Where are the funds going to come from to purchase it? Who's going to maintain it? Where are the players going to come from for your game? How many players do you think it would take to make the game succeed as an MMO if you were to give it away for free? What would you need to charge players in order to meet your monthly operating costs? What would you need to charge players in order to meet both your monthly operating costs as well as make up for the initial investment in development time? How about ongoing development and enhancement (or did you think that the system will sell and stay current for more than six months without a steady and constant stream of upgrades)?

Where to even start? Let me explain...no...there is too much. Let me sum up: 1. HG has zero knowledge, experience, or "street cred" in the MMO industry. 2. The underlying engine (CryEngine, in your example) is what DETERMINES THE RULES. You don't layer game rules onto the underlying engine, you build the underlying engine to define your rules and mechanics. 3. The need to keep up with the market means that you need to assemble a relatively large team to build the project in a short timeframe. This means you're talking about putting together and supporting a relatively large corporate structure. Without the experience, knowledge, or funding to do so. 4. The nature of an MMO requires a large setup of networked servers to handle the load balancing and general operations of your game system. This translates to many thousands in monthly outlay...and doesn't even touch on ongoing maintenance and administration of your systems. 5. The nature of an MMO requires a certain "seed" population to take off and succeed. If you were to get the ENTIRETY of the HG fanbase to buy into your concept (note: this is laughable at best), you would be on the VERY light side of the starter seed. That is not the makings of success -- it's a recipe for utter failure. The list goes on....but this is beyond pointless.

*facepalm*

So, in a dwindling market, you'd suggest that HG take up a new line (development of an MMO engine), which would require the lionshare of the investment required to launch an MMO (read: MILLIONS of dollars), knowledge of a business line that they have NOTHING to do with, and would place them in competition with some of the major players in the industry. That would have to have one HELL of a business justification behind it. I'm assuming you've done the basic math, yes? Actually...nix that...I'm assuming nothing of the sort, as even the most basic of business analyses would show this to be a HORRIBLE idea.

Err...why stop there? It has nothing to do with HG's financial state (past or present). How many companies do you see releasing MMOs? Distinct companies, mind you. Answer: very few. There is a HUGE amount of work involved in the underlying engine, which is why games like Doom, Halflife, etc. were all considered revolutionary -- they introduced new engines to the mix. Once you've developed the underlying engine, you still need to invest in the development and implementation of graphics, layering onto the engine and building your game. This is another massive investment. You'll need to be able to develop your engine and release the game within a short timeframe (so you don't fall into the Duke Nukem Forever trap). This will require an entire team of developers working on it, with strong project management and a decided vision from management driving everything. i.e. a not-insignificant business setup. Look at the size and structure of the big players in the market and you get an idea of the resources needed. This says nothing of the infrastructure needed to support your MMO once you develop it. To be done right, you're talking millions. Many of them. Ignoring funding and focusing solely on business for a moment, you need to justify that investment. Why would your game engine be better than the others out there? Because you use a roleplaying system that is known for both its flexibility and its complexity? That makes so little business sense it's hard to even imagine getting to a pitch meeting with it. It's a guaranteed loser. What would you need to make something like this possible? At a ballpark estimate, someone (or someones) with about $50 million US in disposable money that they had no desire to ever see again. Literally someone willing to throw away millions of dollars on a vanity project that is effectively guaranteed to NOT make them their money back. That's your starting point.

You do realize that Hero Games did not create Champions Online, correct? They just licensed their IP to Cryptic (the creators of the game). Cryptic made the game to follow the engine that they had already created, but existing within the conceptual universe/timeline of Champions (which they bought control of).

See...this is where we run into some misconceptions, I think. First off, the arm is not as involved as most like to think in a punch. If you isolate just the arm movement in a good punch, you're looking at about 2 inches of movement of the hand. The rest comes from the body, with the core muscles being large contributors. Second, open hand (palm heel) vs. knuckle punching doesn't have the relationship that you might think. Open hand tends to do internal damage while knuckle punching tends to leave the damage at the surface. Easiest way to think of it is to imagine striking a fish tank. If you want to break the glass of the tank, you strike it with your knuckles. If you want to stay dry and kill the fish inside the tank, you do an open palm strike (and hope that your training was good).

Ayup...we (as a species) are very grabby. ...which is why it's so hard to learn how to effectively throw a punch ;-)

Yeah...I should have been more clear in that... If you want still more fun, work through the muscles that are tensed when you clench your fist...and how that affects your ability to extend your arm during a punch...

Scientific method: You have a theory -- that the force of a punch is directly tied to the physical strength (lifting strength) of an individual. You expand on that theory - this is still in the beginning stages, though you did some in the thread. You see how well your theory matches observed evidence/empirical data. This is where you run into problems. There is a wealth of data available on both the subject of lifting strength (look to olympic power lifters, for example) and punching force. Studies done on boxers, in particular, present evidence that is in direct conflict with your theory. Some of the strongest punchers in boxing studies are the lighter weight classes (the guys with less muscle and MUCH less lifting strength than the heavy weights). Not proportionally stronger, just stronger punchers -- they generated the most force. Your theory that lifting strength is tied to punching strength does not account for this and would appear to be disproven by the data at hand. So you need to come up with a different theory. When you look at punching strength and what constitutes a strong punch, you find some rather interesting things that help to explain why some of the most physically strong individuals don't have correspondingly strong punches. If you have decent muscle definition in your upper arms, make a tight fist while feeling your bicep. Notice that it's tensing up? Now feel your bicep while you throw a punch -- notice still more tensing? That's a problem. Your bicep is responsible for bending your arm in -- that's the opposite direction that you want to go when throwing a punch. So you're actively fighting yourself in throwing your punch. Learning to throw a good punch is more about learning to relax all but the muscles involved in the act of punching itself (and there are a lot of them). Easier said than done....particularly in that you need to re-evaluate the motion of a punch in order to accomplish this -- your body has some pretty hard-wired controls in place to keep you from hyper-extending your elbow. Those power lifters you thought should have good punching strength? They have pretty massive musculature -- it's a lot to get moving quickly (another part of a good punch) and it's a LOT to have fighting their basic punching motion. And none of this even starts to get into transference of force, which is a whole other subject in and of itself...

Also look to empirical evidence: look at the typical body types of a power lifter vs. a boxer (or MMA fighter) -- the act of lifting/squeezing is almost completely different from the act of striking. Different muscle groups, different mechanics, and different considerations. You might as well work out the relationship between someone's top sprinting speed and their max punching strength.

There are a large number of factors involved in either...though more in the force of a punch. Easy example: go find an iron dumbbell with about 100 pounds of weight on it. Lift it over your head. It's heavy, but you should be able to manage that....if not, then tone the weight down. Then suspend it in the air (tie a rope to it and attach it to something sturdy). Try and punch it as hard as you can and see how far you can get it to go upwards. As you wait in the ER for the doctor to x-ray and set your hand/wrist you can ponder the different factors in play for punching vs. lifting. For a counter example: setup some force pads on a punching dummy. Punch the pad as hard as you can. If you've had some training, you should be able to get into the range of 500 - 1000 pounds of force. Have someone gently lower the same amount of weight onto you and try to lift it.