Full Sim Golf Course / Country Club

Just checking interest level in this. Concept would basically be a very playable full scale 18 hole golf course taking up an island sim. It would be complete with carts, water hazards, sand traps, beer carts and beer girl, 19th hole bar and club. The game itself would not be that difficult. But picture a fully useable set of clubs, variable power strokes, automatic score keeping, automatic ball finder, distance from hole electronics on the carts... and so on. Think this might generate some interest?

Sounds like Jack Nicklaus Golf/MS Golf on SL steroids...

I'd be interested.... even in helping with course design, terraforming and landscaping if there were such an opening.

I used to spend hours and hours doing that with the Nicklaus course design features... even sold a few of the courses to friends and relatives... others were given away and apparently played fairly often back then.

Count me in Al sounds great !!

As somebody once said:

I fully support and/or endorse this feature.

Defenitely count me in. Would love to work on this project. Send me an IM if yah need me Al!!

I don't play golf, but I've worked on some group builds and would love to help with landscaping, texture design, and building. Count me in.

I'd be in. I'd be willing to help with construction in any way I could (Building, vehicle scripting for the carts, what not).

Count me in, Allthough I'm still kinda noob I would love to help..

Freaking great idea.

I love golf.

LF

I'm currently on vacation. So I have plenty of time to lie around and think. I was thinking about golf gameplay. My system uses 3 variables in the swing to decide where the ball goes. The variables are: the club used, the force of the swing, and the direction it is hit in. Force would be valued in a number between 1 and 100, and direction would be measured in rotation or degrees. The clubs could have a decimal value for each hole. These are multiplied together to produce a pair or cordinates for where the ball goes. Then, the process can be repeated as needed to reach the hole.

The hole needs to know when the ball enters it. It would use a sensor to scan a close radius near the hole for a ball.

Also, we need to keep track of the player and their score. Each player, when they come to the course, enters a registration hut. They put on their gear and press a button. The button checks to see the number of players currently playing and assigns a number between 1 and 12 (could be heigher, just an idea) to the different attacments that the player is wearing (uses whisper, skack is in air). By assigning numbers to the gear, this lets us keep track of the player and their actions. I was thinking of using a chat based system for the gear to interact. The last digits of the channel would be the player number assigned earlier.

The score would be tracked with a number of variables. These could be stored in an attachment, in game dataserver, email server, or XML-RPC system. This could be added in a later release if the proper chat commands and strucures are added.

Now, if the player has to specify the rotation and force with a number, that is a little old and text based. When they go into "swing mode", a circle on the ground with clickable pie slices lets the user graphically choose the direction. A meter that appears in front of the av would do the same for force. Club would be automatically detected by a sensor at the tee. These UI elements would be temporary on rez.

These are just some ideas, that were probably poorly conveyed in this poorly spelled forum post. I hope I made some sense.

Good ideeas as a starting point.

My experience with real world golf and pc game golf tells me you might want to consider the following.

The ball is affected by force and direction of strike as you say. Spin is imparted due to the angle of the strike by the face of the club...something that is a 3D consideration, just like a rotated prim....not merely a 2 variable calculation.

Other pc games attempting this simulation - at least the most successful ones - used two controls to handle player input. 1. Players selected an aim point via direction pointing (clicking on a spot on a screen or merely turning the golfer). That is a general direction to start from - it limits the max angle of force that can be applied to the ball - no his 90 degree perpendicular to the line of play! 2. Players either choose a number to indicate strike force directly (type 1-10) or click on a moving force graph (illustrating the element of luck, imperfection of even the most skilled players at duplicating exactly swing after swing regardless of lie or playing conditions). 3. Sometimes, some games allow a player to try a "non-standard/non-normal" shot - a deliberate slice, hook or draw for instance. This is normally used inthe real world to maximize course management/individual hole play or to avoid certain hazards (like curving a ball around a tree or hitting it low under a branch). 4. A very few games also allow a shot selection type in terms of desired flight trajectory - hooding a club to keep the ball low (which will tend to run after hitting the ground) or a high-flying shot with backspin that might land and actually roll backwards upon contact with the ground.

So, rather than a single player control at the beginning, I think you need to allow the player to choose his or her own club (general distance and general flight characteristics of the shot), strength of swing (force), angle of strike (aiming point and swing accuracy/variance from perfec swing) and desired type of shot (high, low, normal flight - slice, draw, hook, fade, straight [probably the hardest to hit, but easiest to figure]).

Just a few thoughts. I am curious about this as you can see and look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Sounds like an awesome idea ! I was just thinking that SL needs at least a mini-golf course...

I played on a Mini Golf Course last night, It was great fun. I think it was called ParXs Mini Putt or something like that.

Lets get a group together and talk about this plan!!

I see Phillip brought this up in his Blog. After reviewing the economics of this, the financial risk (at least for me) was just too great. As with most things SL it may start strong but ongoing attendance would be unlikely. At a minimum you would have to make back $985 + $195/month. US$985 is roughly L$200,000 today. US$195 is about L$40,000. So, if you want to make back you investment in 6 months and just break even (no profit), you would need to generate about L$72,500 each month. That breaks down to about L$2,500 per day. Using Philip's number of L$200 per person for green fees that means you need about 12 players a day every day for 6 months. 12 players a day isn't going to really build up enough dwell to put you in the dwelloper's program so don't expect to pad the numbers there. Now let's say you actually want to make some real money and not just make and maintain a game for free. Just to throw out a number - how about shooting for US$400 / month. That means you would now need an additional 14 players per day for a total of 26 players every day for 6 months. Since we are using round numbers, lets just say 1 player every hour non-stop for 6 months.

Now throw in a Pro Shop selling golf clubs that aid performance, clothes, shoes, caps, custom color balls, custom carts, and so on. Additionally you can add in housing rental throughout the sim. Generously, let's say those 2 ventures generate half your revenue. Now you are down to 1 player every 2 hours.

Those numbers are obviously huge guesses. But for me, with the time involved to put together the sim, the ongoing maintenance, the risk of generating that kind of continuous attendance and the payback of US$2,400 - it just wasn't worth it to me. Hopefully somebody else (with deeper pockets) will just do it for fun. I would love to see it.

Afterthought: All of that is assuming you use 1 sim. As Korg pointed out elsewhere, 18 holes at even a minimally decent scale would probably require 2 or 3 sims.

There are a lot of good ideas that get killed this way. Sorry Al. The reality is, dwell is the prime consideration for longevity, other than really deep pockets. I just have to wonder what other things were considered too expensive, that will never see the SL sunrise because of dwell-centric requirements.

I read Al's numbers and see real potential. But I am a glass half full kind of guy. **shrugs**

He has done the math....and it works. The problem is this is going to require alot of work with little to no financial reward initially for the principal(s). If the idea fizzles, they will be lucky to break even. If it succeeds, they stand a good chance at being part of a great project and getting return on their investment. If the idea is not received popularly by the SL community (dwell), why should LL reward it? If it is at least cool enough to attract enough players willing to pay $L to be self sufficient or profitable, who needs the DA. This would be a good idea for the game developer's awards II.

I also did some math Al. This is doable if the interest is there. I may be able to help financially, if the interest is there. I have a few alternate sources of income you may have missed. Also, this becomes alot less risky if we have a few principals. IM me if you really want to discuss this.

I'd play it. Atleast once. Or be a caddy boy.

I'd be willing to help out, do jobs, scripting, etc. for free. I would not be able to help out financialy unfortantly.

Schwanson, you may be a half-glass-is-full kind of person, but it doesn't mean my arguement isn't valid. You even admit that it would take substantial investment to maintain - and why is that, may I ask?

Of course, the system is geared towards dwell. That's all I've really been saying.

Schwanson, I'm not prepared to risk that kind of money. If you want to share you ideas here, hopefully others will pick up the ball and run with it.

Think this is a great idea. Why not try and cover the fees with a membership system. and have an open day every now and then, i get the feeling exclusive member only events are things not many people seem to exploit. You could do tournaments. Sell things sell clothing. Make rules about clothing so people have to buy the clothes to play. It has got huge potential.

This project has potential if the right people where to step up and commit the time required. The risk can be easily deffered by enlisting 3-4 principals. Fund raising events prior and during construction would help also. Memberships, green fees, cart rental / purchase, advertising at holes, auctions....... This will pay for the sim rental. It will not be easy initially, but it will work.

I would be willing to be a 25% partner in this venture if:
1- we had a talented and motivated project leader.
2- we have a team of competant volunteers to assist.
3- we had a SIMPLE working prototype of a golf game. (I want to drive some into Rausch)
4- there is a general interest in this idea from the public.

I beleive the selected project leader should have some financial stake in this. I have found that to be a great way to keep managers motivated.

I would not be a builder/scripter on this. Quite frankly, I suck at both. I am shocked they even let me into the building forum.

If we decide to move forward on this I can attempt to secure additional investors as well as lay a more concrete fund raising plan. If we get an impressive group of motivated people on this project, I beleive it will succeed.

Let me know what you think.

This is where I wish Linden support of themed sim's hadn't died, but in fact had taken another twist, especially for interesting scripted and game-related projects such as this.

I agree that a full course would need more than one sim.

Is there anyway that you could develop these "holes" in pieces on an average-size piece of property, then combine them into a larger golf course later?

My thoughts are the vehicle sims -- it would be wonderful to be able to walk into those and say "race" or "golf" and see the terrain/objects change from a raceway to a 9-hole golf course.

Any chance of Linden support for this project?

Hello

Galleria Sims with the support of avalon. would be willing to cover the 75% remaining with Schwansons 25%. avalon. has agreed to help on the project, not just in terms of US$ but to also create a unique design and look for the island.

In regards to the 4 points you made:

1- we had a talented and motivated project leader - Myself and Fizik have shown a degree of competence in project management, with both Galleria Sims and avalon.
2- we have a team of competant volunteers to assist. Several people here are very and have volunteered themselves and their participation is welcomed.
3- we had a SIMPLE working prototype of a golf game. It all depends on this
4- there is a general interest in this idea from the public. we think the interest exist

Let's chat

Briana Dawson

I think it's a great idea!! I can't wait to go play!

Definetly. A Full course would require around about 4 sims approximately. A single sim is good for a par 3 or 4. (so claims Fizik my only golf experience was prom night }

Briana Dawson