MMORPG's.. In the past couple of months (and probably the success of big name MMORPG's like WoW may have had something to do with it..) I have seen so many amateur/starting developers with the goals/dreams of building massively expansive online multi-player's and it raised this question in my mind..: "Why do they possibly concieve of such largely ambitious and effectively unrealistic goals?" I mean, how can any young developer, with no prior knowledge of programming, 2D/3D art or composing, possibly and truely believe that they can create: "An ultra-realistic, 3D MMORPG with a real-time combat system like tekken and built in support for vehicles with realistic driving mechanics (a la Halo) and a built in property management system (a la sim city), with real-time ray-tracing and beautifully-rendered, normal-mapped models, and (etc etc etc..)" I mean, for something that in the industry would take a million-dollar budget development team of 160 people, at least 7 months to create, why do they still think that its even concievably possible for them to achieve (in there own life-time)..? I'm not saying its impossible to create an MMORPG as a small indie developement project.. It's just that those around here with sense and experience know pretty well what it would take to commit to a task on such a huge scale and most competant indie devs who consist of teams of maybe 20 or more, would probably think twice before taking on such a huge venture as the resources it would need to implement even the bare minimum features of the standard MMORPG, would be substancial.. So literally what is it that drives all these amateurs to fly off at 130 MPH in the hopes of creating the next Asheron's Call..?

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Original post by ArchangelMorph In the past couple of months (and probably the success of big name MMORPG's like WoW may have had something to do with it..) I have seen so many amateur/starting developers with the goals/dreams of building massively expansive online multi-player's and it raised this question in my mind..:

You've only noticed this in the last couple of months?

Newbies have been trying to make MMORPGs since as long as I can remember. There's even a bit in the FAQ about it, and I think boolean's sticky addresses this issue also.

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"Why do they possibly concieve of such largely ambitious and effectively unrealistic goals?" I mean, how can any young developer, with no prior knowledge of programming, 2D/3D art or composing, possibly and truely believe that they can create: "An ultra-realistic, 3D MMORPG with a real-time combat system like tekken and built in support for vehicles with realistic driving mechanics (a la Halo) and a built in property management system (a la sim city), with real-time ray-tracing and beautifully-rendered, normal-mapped models, and (etc etc etc..)"

It's precisely because they have no prior knowledge of these things that they think they can do it. They don't realize how much work it involves, their overambition comes from inexperience.


I'll leave this open for the time being, but I'm not entirely sure how much useful, relevant discussion there is to have on this subject.

...and I would say the start of their experience is to visit forums like Gamedev where they would be told exactly how ambitious their project is. :)

When we started out a few years ago we were over-ambitious, but at least we had contacts with people from the industry who told us that there was no-way someone was going to give a start-up the large large large sums of money we would have needed to make it, no matter how good the design (and it's still something we'd like to develop in the future) - whereas, most start-ups do not have that luxury and visit the forums for advice.

It is possible, also, that despite their inexperience in the production implications involved in such a massive design choice, that they quite correctly assess that despite this unawareness in a technical and production resource context that this is where the market is going, and they need to think in these terms if they believe they are going to have a chance at success.

We all know how many people troll this business with grandiose delusions. Most of them drop out once the success conditions begin to form tangibly and comprehensively.

Perhaps despite their technical knowledge, they are reasonably prognosticating market description. Or, am I giving them too much credit? Feedback is welcome.

IMHO,

Adventuredesign

FWIW, MMOs and an endless procession of cheap Flash games may be the only viable indie development strategy for some time to come until the problem of distribution is dealt with. As a Tale In The Desert shows, you can make a MMO with 2 - 3 people in 4 years. Of course, it still took over a million dollars. [rolleyes]

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Original post by ArchangelMorph I mean, for something that in the industry would take a million-dollar budget development team of 160 people, at least 7 months to create, why do they still think that its even concievably possible for them to achieve (in there own life-time)..?

It's because they are unskilled and unaware of it. It reminds me of me trying to build a car out of plywood when I was 12 years old... couldn't see why Dad wasn't keen to help.

I am very aware that it is impossible for me to create the mmorpg described in this thread.

And yet i try and try. I think it is fun and i learn alot.
I think alot of people have this attitude and people just assume that they are deluded/ignorant.

My vapourware mmorpg is gonna be the next big thing, just you wait and see!

Before MMORPGs it was FPSs. Before that (a little before Gamedev's time, but not by much), it was RTS games. In general people who know little or nothing about actual game production want to make whatever type of game is popular. They don't yet realize that it's not a question of what you can dream up on paper, it's a question of what can be produced in a reasonable amount of time and will work on todays hardware.

I wanted to make a mario-like game when I first started. That may just be me, though.

P.S: Michalson, I always have fun finding out what your avatar is from. Looks like it's evangaleon right now.

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Original post by fractoid Quote: Original post by ArchangelMorph I mean, for something that in the industry would take a million-dollar budget development team of 160 people, at least 7 months to create, why do they still think that its even concievably possible for them to achieve (in there own life-time)..? It's because they are unskilled and unaware of it. It reminds me of me trying to build a car out of plywood when I was 12 years old... couldn't see why Dad wasn't keen to help.

Hehehe. Lego helicopter when I was 8 :D