Nin Online's History


Ueda

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The History of Nin Online

More images coming soon..

Introduction

Nin Online's history dates back to 2006. This was the year which I decided I wanted to make a Naruto online game. What made me want to do it?

During one long holiday back in 2006, I started watching the early episodes of Naruto and I was really obsessed with it. I was sure that there must have had been an MMO based on this world. I knew that It was too good a concept to not have one based on it and sure enough, I was right. At the time, there were two projects attempting what I would soon find myself doing. They were NarutoQuest and NarutoRealm. The latter being the game project created by Robin, who I'll talk more about later on.

After realizing that none of these were released, I decided why not make my own! So I googled "MMORPG Maker" and found a Visual Basic 6 engine called "Konfuze" to use, I started learning to do my own graphics badly, opened a forum and which became the rise of..

2006: Naruto Project

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Back then, I gave the game a working title. It was called "Naruto Project". The graphics the game was based on was mostly edited from other sources, graphics released into the public domain, and even rips from another Naruto game project back then known as NarutoQuest. The game was based on a really crappy engine, which back then I was modifying and programming on. I was really bad at pixel art or any form of graphics for that matter.

Suprisingly, the game gained a large amount of attention. Though the Internet was a much different place back then, and there wasn't any good Naruto BYOND games released at the time.

Early 2007: Hidden Villages Online

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I renamed the game to "Hidden Villages Online" abbreviated as HVO. The game was still really bad, based on the same horrible engine. The graphics slowly improved as people pointed out the faults with the game's graphics and I started working on them.

The game was starting to shape up, it saw a release at one point, the server was hosted "24/7" by a guy who volunteered to do it on his VPS. It saw constant downtime due to the server files being unstable and buggy. I eventually decided to close the server and rework the game entirely.

I was a dumb kid, and after receiving a few fake C&Ds, I decided it would be best to throw aside the Naruto theme and make it a purely "Ninja" online game.

Mid 2007: Hidden Villages Online: Inochi

Yes, I did a sequel to a game which was barely ever released or known to anyone. Inochi means "Life" and the reason I added that into the title, which seemed to make sense at the time, was because I was going to focus the game on the living aspects of the game, like being a civilian. I'm not sure how I expected this to work out, and so the idea never lasted.

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Late 2007 Nin Online

This eventually came to be the title i stuck with for the next 6 years. it grew onto me, it was my game - the game I just had to make - from that point on. I continued using the graphics from Hidden Villages Online: Inochi. The game was going to be less about civilian life, and more about Ninjas.

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The game also lost a huge part of its fan base when it became a ninja online game and I almost entirely left out anything related to Naruto.

Because of this, my motivation to create Nin Online literally vanished one day. I hated everything I did in terms of planning and graphics that point.

Early 2008: A Short break

I took a long break from working on Nin Online, I started working on a few other projects and because of one of them I met Robin the creator of NarutoRealm, one of the games that inspired me to start making games and what was back then known as Naruto Project.

One day, I pitched to Robin, to bring Nin Online and Naruto Project back as one project. He agreed, and we started working on an amazing project. We had a large, active community with thousands of members.

Late 2008-2009: Nin Online remake 1

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Nin Online started off with whole new graphics. They were good at the time, and I was finally grasping how to make really good, solid graphics, thanks to working with Robin who had an eye for these things.

The game project's development dragged on for over a year without seeing a released. This was due to both Robin and I having really busy schedules.

Initially, because I was studying at the time, I was working on the game a few days a week, which soon became just the weekends, and slowly.. progress just stopped there.

The game's graphics was constantly being reiterated by myself, and I spent so much time redoing the graphics just as Robin had spent a lot of the time rewriting the game engine (for the better). But because of this, the development never made substantial progress.

The community was large, active and filled with enthusiastic members. But eventually, my graphics skills improved too far that I despised all the work I had done up until that point.

The game died in 2009 with a long apology to all our followers. But I promised that Nin Online would be back, better one day.

June 2013 to Today: Nin Online

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Yes, it took 4 years. But I improved a hell lot since then. I'm determined this time to create a game fast, to get a release early, and work our way up from there.

Nin Online has always been on my mind since that day in 2009. I missed the project, wanted to work on it again, but every time the idea of bringing Nin back came to mind, I felt it wasn't the right time. I was waiting on a good game engine to be released, one which Nin would be perfect on. But then I realized, there is not going to be a better time to make Nin online than now.

I started making graphics for the new Nin online. Day after day, I just kept making these graphics with one goal in mind - release a game. I was determined that I would learn to code the game myself as well.. But that's when I met Whack/Eddie.

At first, when I posted around forums for any interested programmers, I was looking for just anybody to take on the role. But this guy came in and blew me away. He is talented, hardworking and fun to work with. That's when we started getting online everyday to work together on.

Lets see where we can take Nin Online from here ;)

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I remember seeing those older graphics from time when you worked with Robin. I was blown away :D. I started as you, wondering if there is naruto online game and then I found your game and several other projects. I decided to make my own online game and googled "free MMORPG maker" which brought me to eclipse/touchofdeathforums and then here, back to the start. :)

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I remember seeing those older graphics from time when you worked with Robin. I was blown away :D. I started as you, wondering if there is naruto online game and then I found your game and several other projects. I decided to make my own online game and googled "free MMORPG maker" which brought me to eclipse/touchofdeathforums and then here, back to the start. :)

 

Ah, Vus :) I'm glad we have similar experiences then.

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