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[BigPaper]

We are HellFire Development, with our own website at:
http://www.hellfire-development.com

We are making an "immersive" type game that takes place in an urban environment. The player will be free to roam around and participate in the many activities that our virtual city will have to offer. In addition, there will be "special" characters with their own storylines. The goal of the player is to work, and have fun.

For example:
One player owns an apartment, and works as a taxi driver picking up both human and computer controlled entities. He likes to spend his money at the casino. He has to pay his rent and bills which will eat up a good portion of his income. He may resort to crime to get more money.

Money will be a very scarce resource, so there will be a constant struggle between the "haves" and the "have-nots." Each player will be persistent with an account that is stored on the server. We plan to keep the server side implementation relatively simple for now, so that we do not have to make major modifications to the underlying engine. Changes to the server side implementation will be made as the game's popularity increases.

It is believed that such a game will be very popular because it combines many popular elements of the Grand Theft Auto and the Sims series. Our game's major strength over these other titles is that we are free to continuously add new content well after the game is released. We are free to add content that many publishers may be reluctant to add. A lot of publishers are known to be conservative, so that many great ideas are often left on the shelves collecting dust. Add in multiplayer and the possibilities are endless, giving the game a very high replayability factor.

Currently we have a small band of artists and programmers (about 5 including me). The project is still in a very early phase. I'm trying to get everyone to idle in our IRC channel: (irc.enterthegame.com #hellfire) feel free to stop by and ask questions. We are looking for developers who can work consistently and have initiative.

We are working at a very high level with the Torque engine, and we expect to produce a "proof-of-concept" demo by 4/1/2005. We believe that with this demo, we will have a very good framework to begin serious development and also to attract many more talented people who may have reservations about joining our team.

Current Openings:
We are looking for experienced programmers in C++ who are willing to learn Torque-script (owning a Torque license is a plus).

We are also looking for self-motivated artists who can produce artwork that we need in a reasonable amount of time.

My experience:
I have worked in several "groups" in the past, I will not name names, but all of them have turned out to be a waste of time. In retrospect, they all had a combination of fundamental flaws:
Starting from scratch
Lack of scope
Lack of focus & direction
Lack of organization
Grand but empty promises

I can assure anyone reading this, that this project is indeed serious and will get off the ground. I have already invested a lot of my own money in purchasing a Torque license and purchasing the website. I have over 7 years programming experience and a computer science degree from Johns Hopkins University. If this sounds like something you would like to do, drop me an email at: BigPaper256@yahoo.com