...trying to make the next big MMORPG? Why are MMORPGs taken on so frequently, especially by beginning programmers, when there''s so much more to developing them (not to mention upkeep, maitenance, etc) versus RTSs or shooters or even traditional RPGs?

I''m not. I''m making an old school 2D side scroller that''s like Samuria Showdown meets DBZ with Mario and Sonic level designs.



peace

-Sage13

I'd say a few factors:

1) They're super cool.
2) Lack of knowledge of just how difficult they really are, and how much they cost to upkeep.
3) Simple greed.

Before it was that people thought they would make the next Quake, now it's MMORPGs.

I think I'll complete my next game tentatively called 'Tic Tac Toe of the Macabre' first. (and definitely NOT last)

-=Lohrno


[edited by - Lohrno on March 31, 2002 12:30:45 AM]

"Noone" is doing it because it has been done. Experienced game developers want new and original ideas, n00bs want simple experience gaining projects. But you go right ahead and do one.

quote: Original post by Lohrno
I'd say a few factors:

1) They're super cool.
2) Lack of knowledge of just how difficult they really are, and how much they cost to upkeep.
3) Simple greed.

Well, I've been playing Dark Age of Camelot a lot lately (still new, heh), and studying it because I think it's done a lot right that UO, AC, and EQ did wrong (benefit of experience). Then I read the post elsewhere by the guy who didn't know any programming and wanted to make a game like Ultima Online. I remember when UO came out, there was so much broken with it, and it was still a tremendous, mammoth undertaking.

Think about all the work that goes into (your favorite RPG here). You have to create a world, create a story or series of stories, create characters, make it all plausible, create items, create quests and subquests. Oh yea, and THEN you have to program it all, tune it, make it work, and zap some bugs.

Now multiply that to include 1000+ people, some of whom will be dedicated to finding every little problem and exploting it for their own gain. Also add a support staff for everyone to whine to. And someone has to be catching the bugs and patching them.

And after all that is done, it actually has to be fun.

I was reading the Dark Age of Camelot post-mortem on GamaSutra and they had 25 people working on it. Before it was released! With a $2.5 million dollar budget! And that was just to make it, that's not counting upkeep costs, infrastructure upgrades, and so on.

This is not the kind of thing you can build in the garage and host via your university's T1 (like a MUD).

(rant==done)

[edited by - revshannon on March 31, 2002 12:57:41 AM]

[edited by - revshannon on March 31, 2002 12:58:51 AM]

First it was Quake.. When you see a cool game then you say: YES, that''s what I want to do..

Newbs just want to make the coolest games and the ones that are most popular at this moment

But currently I''m working on a complete other game :D

In a couple of weeks I shall post some screenshots..

Speaking as a newbie myself.I think alot of us start off with a grand design for our games.We usually already have at least a genre in mind if not the game we want already fleshed out in our minds.It''s not until you see that chapter on functions and arrays that you start to realize that there''s more to making a game than meets the eye.You then start to scale your project back some.TextBased RPGs "Look"deceptively simply so we usually try to go that route.It''s not until you''re knee deep in cout statements that you figure that there has to be another way of doing this.

The road to hell is paved in good intentions

Personally im more into trying to clone the Baldurs Gate style of RPG. Im no big fan of MMORPG, i think they are boring, and i rarely play normal multiplayer at all, except for co-op mode in games where you can actually cooperate.

quote: Original post by revshannon
I was reading the Dark Age of Camelot post-mortem on GamaSutra and they had 25 people working on it. Before it was released! With a $2.5 million dollar budget! And that was just to make it, that''s not counting upkeep costs, infrastructure upgrades, and so on.

25 people, including texturers, mappers, designers, modellers, etc.

The people who want to make MMORPGs are doing it as a hobby, why spoil their fun? If you get tired of answering questions, make a FAQ.
These people who are trying to design the next AO are forgetting/stealing/using simple media and are self inspired, that knocks out about 23 of the group of 25 developers.
Funding then isn''t much of a problem as they will likely never get past the stage of showing off skelital animation demonstrations to their friends(oh yes, Thats always the best part :-)) and they will likely be stealing algorithms and not using stuff like dynamic radiosity, model distortion or more than simple ray-polygon physics.

It may be a tough project to start off with, but it gives them(''Us'' would be more accurate) a chance to learn _everything_ a simple engine needs.
On top of that, they have eternity and a day to learn everything they need.

quote: Original post by Ziphnor

Im no big fan of MMORPG, i think they are boring,

Yes, MMORPGs are boring, look at AO, UO and EQ, they are very comparable to games like Progress Quest(www.progressquest.com I suggest you try it out before you try a new MMORPG)
Thats why we need n00bs to come up with good ideas and accidently spill them in the prescence of a big developer.
Heres one: Remember those really old Alter-Ego games? You would live 70 years, experience a variety of situations, drink rat poison, flunk university, be fired from your entrepreneuring job and generally make as many mistakes as you do irl?
Try an MMORPG like that, instead of competing or levelling, have one where you live a normal life, Have alot of trained chatterbots on the server and loadsa jobs, lots of situations and instead of paying a monthly rate, pay a price for each life you live.

Or just join the WorldForge team, you''d learn a lot about working with a team and get to take on developing an MMORPG one step at a time.