[macosxnerd101]

Quote

I just done see why everyone is so hard pressed to assume I'm going to just try and pop out an mmorpg

As you've probably figured out at this point, we get a lot of people with only a couple posts that are looking for a magic formula on how to make an MMORPG in ten days. And honestly, for everyone I've seen ask this question, having the skills to start on an MMORPG seriously is a couple years down the road at least.

[ButchDean]

Red32892, on 11 October 2011 - 07:48 PM, said:

Yes. And I appreciate that. It's given me a good idea of what to look out. However the point keeps getting made that I am not ready to attempt this and yadda yadda yadda. Which really is unnecessary seeing as I will even admit I am not ready in the slightest. I just done see why everyone is so hard pressed to assume I'm going to just try and pop out an mmorpg without even trying to lean how to.

Anyways thanks for the info I got.

To be honest in your first post starting your thread you say that it isn't easy and you're not ready, yet you make clear that you have started making plans and clearly started the post looking for advice. That tells me that you wanted to avoid flaming by admitting you were not knowlwdgeable enough, yet asked the question anyway thinking that you are some way to being ready to tackle the problem of making an MMORPG. I respect your thirst for knowledge, but rest assured with what you have said already this project is going nowhere. When you get to writing any game, which you haven't indicated either way, you will be able to better perceive the challenges in making your MMORPG.

Slow down and take it in your stride. You need experience in making any game muchless an MMORPG.

[stackoverflow]

MMORPGs cost tens of millions of dollars to make. The funding for them is insane-- of course this is any MMORPG that will be played by a considerable number of people.

If your plan is to make a home-brewed MMORPG with an expected audience of ten to twenty people then you have a shot at it.

Set your expectations incredibly low.

Most importantly learn programming and don't try to make an MMORPG first. You will be spending a whole lot of time with a command prompt and making simple games like guess a number or printing small calculations' output.

[Kilorn]

An expected audience of only 10 to 20 people removes the first M from MMORPG. The two M's stand for Massively Multiplayer. If you're not dealing with hundreds or even thousands of clients connected to the server at any given time, you can't really consider your game massively multiplayer.

[stackoverflow]

Given there's no real definition of what Massive means, it's really up for grabs. To me it implies any number of users. An average game supports multiplayer-- say 2-4 players, or even up to 16. However, MMOs support anywhere from 1..n number of players.

That doesn't mean having 20 players means it isn't an MMO-- as long as it supports n number of players.

This post has been edited by stackoverflow: 12 October 2011 - 11:11 AM

[sparkart]

ButchDean, on 10 October 2011 - 06:34 AM, said:

Believe it or not more than half the work involved in making your game has already been missed in asking this question (no design, not team in place, no overall project planning, no indea of required tools or even where to begin!).

Hence the question.

Start off learning some of the main components. Learn how to make a simple game which consists of manipulating images on the screen through input. You should be familiar with the basic idea of the game loop.

Once you're familiar with that look at some tutorials on networking. For an MMO you should learn about the client-server model. The basic procedure involves tweaking your game procedure by adding the network initialization and network update (which would involve receiving and sending information).

Just think of networking as another form of input/output that would modify the game's state. Just as a keyboard key would modify the state of the game, data that you receive/send will do the same.

As a beginner to networking, you would want to start off small, which would be a chat program (or even simpler, an echo program). For an MMO focus on the client-server model.

You will develop two applications, the client and the server.

To implement the server application:
-Learn how to initialize a connection to listen for incoming connections.
-Learn how to receive/send messages for each connected connection.

To implement the client application:
-Learn how to connect to a server.
-Learn how to receive/send messages from/to the server.

On the client side, you can manipulate your client's state based on the received messages. For instance, your client will constantly listen for messages (e.g. a chat message). Upon receiving this message, it will change the state of your game, i.e. display a chat message.

Learn the chat program as it is a really beginner level application that will help you understand how to implement more complex things involved for something like an MMO. You will slowly but surely grasp the idea. Eventually you will start looking for optimization techniques and that is another question on its own.


edit:
I would like to take the time to show you guys what comes up when I type "how to make an mmorpg" in Google.

http://knol.google.c...make-an-mmorpg#
I received absolutely zero information regarding the question asked. I did not ask for game/mmo engines. Although, still quite useful if I decided to take that approach based on time constraints.

http://www.devmaster...uilding-mmorpg/
This is actually a decent guide, but superficial. In fact, it's one of the more useful articles I've read when I was 14 and asking the very same question.

The problem is that an mmo is really complex. But at the same time, not so complex. It's just bunch of simpler concepts mixed together. It's actually a good project to start off because it teaches you many concepts. People always argue that you should not start off with it because it involves many things, but I think that is not a good way of thinking.

This post has been edited by sparkart: 16 October 2011 - 05:36 PM

[Greltam]

I attempted what one might say as an "MMORPG" around my 1st year in college. I managed to get the server/client paradigm implemented, had the client go through the server to access a database with account info, gameloop with drawing, movement, "enemies" that just jittered around, some music... I could manage two clients and a server on my laptop.

Needless to say it was TERRIBLY AWFULLY BAD. However, in the pursuit of jumping off a cliff to my doom I learned a lot of things, and I believe I have become a better coder for it. Maybe I'll post a video on youtube of it.

To OP Red#'s, if you do write something, that doesn't take 5+ years(I spent about 4 months) it will be sh*t, but don't get frustrated, everyone makes sh*t in the beginning.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=Cd2sMDQBwiA

This post has been edited by Greltam: 16 October 2011 - 07:24 PM

[ButchDean]

Nice work, but those are elements of an MMORPG. Detailed gameplay interactions are missing for instance.

[Greltam]

I realized I was in way over my head about halfway through and burned up most of my time trying to figure out the basics. Threading and Client/Server communication weren't taught yet, and about the only thing I knew how to do was write Swing and connect to a database. I still don't think I'm up to writing a Client/Server game yet, and it's been 2 years. Need to focus on "Gameplay Interactions"