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What does it take to build an MMORPG?
WyreWizard
Member Posts: 5
Hello. I've recently decided my life's goal will be to build an MMORPG based on my book. But I am curious to know what it takes. Can a guy build one on his laptop, or does it take teams of developers on hundreds of computers and servers? What are the costs? Can I build one for just hundreds of dollars or do I need to win the lottery? I've searched for answers to these to no avail. If anyone can help me, I'd be grateful.
Living on a lighted stage
approaches the unreal
for those who think and feel
in touch with some reality
Beyond the guilded cage
Casst in this unlikely role
Illequipped to act
with insifficient tact
One must put up barriers
to keep one's self intact
Comments
There is a MMORPG_Maker program, but it is 2d and not to the wants of the general public
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
Yes, you do need to win the lottery. MMOs have a budget on par with a Hollywood film. You could also dedicate a decade to building your own MMO at the expense of everything else in your life. Be warned tho, most players wont stick around for longer than a couple of hours even if you somehow manage to get the word out on it, as most of the game will be dated by the time you complete it.
Your best bet if you want to produce your own MMO is to get a job in the industry and start working your way up the ladder.
Just to make things clear...
I speak for myself and no one else, unless i state otherwise mine is just an opinion. A fact is something that can be independently verified, you may challenge such but with proof. You have every right to disagree with me through sound argument, i believe in constructive debate, but baseless aggression will warrant an unkind response.
You need to figure out a basic system (lvl, skills, abilities, crafting etc) then start to hard code it. This can be done independently of a graphical engine. When you have the basic rules you need to have a graphical representation of your game world, music, dialog and all that stuff. You need to add animations etc. Then figure out a good way to code how a client communicates with the server. if all computations are done on the server you will see alot of rubber band movements. if you allow the client to handle some info you need to ensure the game isnt easy to cheat in.
My tip would be to code the basics (skills, etc) first. To implement graphics you most likely need to hire professional graphics artists plus some professional programmers that can code efficient codes to minimize lag and computer requirements. The more you can code on your own before hiring professionall conmputer scientists, the less the project will cost. You can probably find start-up grants depending on where you live.
If you want to build a competitive MMO, expect alot of hard work and the project WILL cost lots of money. You can reduce costs if you are good at programming and mathematics. My suggestion to you is: pick up a masters degree in computer science (should take you 5 years of full time studies). During your studies you should try to find people that are interested in your project that can help you build your MMO on their spare time.
Time is your only expense as 1 man. Sweden has done fairly well though, look at Wurm Online or Love. Love is a 1-man team and Wurm was written by 2 people.
It's product delivery. It's not as huge as some might allude to it being. You will, however, absolutely need a team. You will need time. And you will need a definitive organization when it comes to bringing all elements together.
Story or lore- seems you got it taken care of. You might have a small team of individuals dedicated to small-script story, bringing NPCs into the world and giving them place, dialogue and purpose.
Programming- this is one of 2 big chunks involved. For the most part, there are engines out there that are either open source or free, but realistically, these are either dated, or tired. If you want your product to deliver, you will need proprietary software. You will need to tailor it to your needs. A good start for a programming team would be somewhere between 5 or 10, with a lead programmer who has experience- lots of it, especially with server-client splits.
Animations- this is the other big chunk. While programming is the core of how your game works out, it will be your product's animations that give it immediate definition, immediate immersion. Consider that most products that don't keep attention or interest for the first 5 minutes of exposure end up in the junk heap. Again, for a humble, respectable start, you'd be looking at 5 to 10 animators, with your chief art guy being someone who's fully familiar with all the ins and outs of computer animation.
Marketing- pre and post production. You will need a website that is updated and crisp, and a team of individuals who understand your vision and are dedicated to it. Building, breeding your community via forums and press releases is no easy task, and quickly becomes too much to handle if not monitored through a hawk's eyes.
You need alpha testers. You need closed-beta testers. You need computer security advisors. As far as building the game itself, you could probably get by with a team of 10 or so. You'd be surprised at how little is needed to make a functioning game. Your best bet, and most realistic one, would be to create a fully playable demo. Perhaps 1 region within a 50 or so region map, with a couple NPCs and other players, to showcase player-player-npc interactions. Take this fully functioning demo, along with a sample script of what other areas would contain in terms of content, and look for investments and funding from a larger studio or publishing house. With money and time, you can begin to outsource a lot of your projects such as animation or server-hosting/security and focus on the actual game itself- mechanics and lore.
Edit: Conventions are your friend. Once you have built a fully functioning demo, rent a booth at some small and mid-sized conventions where gamers are known to be. Comics, electronics, gaming conventions. Showcase your demo. If your product is solid, you will find representatives from larger studios contacting you.
Edit2: To give you realistic hope: There is a company of 20 individuals who service a specific software package for the US DoD. The company's name and product are irrelivant. This company is fully staffed at 20. This includes their programmers, their PR, their management etc. To keep numbers small, their VP takes shifts at the helpdesk, to paint an example. The software package they service nets them well in excess of 100million annually. The cost of making their product was something in the range of 3 years programming and testing time- I'm not privy to their financial costs. The point here was that they managed to form a unified team, dedicated to the purpose of their product, and they made it happen. While I don't offer the financial estimates here to show how lucritive things can be, I offer how a dedicated and realistic approach can be achieved.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
Yes, you're right I do have the story taken care of. My book is called Tales of Ancient Xenar: Warrior's Lore. I had it published almost ten years ago. I've been formulating the game in my head for a couple of years now after playing the World of Warcraft demo.
The game itself will feature 11 races, including 5 hybrid races.
Players can choose from 6 different occupations, including Warrior, Magic-user, Merchant, Priest, Scholar or Thief
The game will be heavily magic-driven as players can collect 500 different spells. But they don't learn spells by levelling up. Rather, they can either trade for spells or read them out of books. But lower level player won't be able to use more advanced spells
Also, players can craft their own weapons, armor and amulets. Amulets are necessary for spellcasting.
I'd like to thank the rest of you for offering the info.
Living on a lighted stage
approaches the unreal
for those who think and feel
in touch with some reality
Beyond the guilded cage
Casst in this unlikely role
Illequipped to act
with insifficient tact
One must put up barriers
to keep one's self intact
That sounds standard-ish with a few twists. I'd try it. If you ever do get into the production aspect, make a lot of customization! I love that. But I think the most sound bet is to get into the industry or know someone in the industry while working on a demo yourself to show to companies.
One idea I sort of toyed around with for my game is the ability of player to craft magical weapons and armor with the use of Stellar Metal. Stellar Metal has a lot of magical properties. But a novice player can't craft anything with it without learning from the Starsmith Veklor. I also toyed around wit the idea players can make stellar metal alloys to give it certain properties. For instance, if they craft a sword with stellar metal, iron and rose quartz, they can make a sword wit the properties of fire.
Stellar metal is also required to make an amulet. Amulets can be any type of jewelry, armor or weapons. As jewelery, players can choose numerious options, including jewelry type, shape, color and gems. Stellar metal must be cmbined with bronze, silver, gold or platinum. But unlike Earth, on Xenar these metals are plentiful.
Living on a lighted stage
approaches the unreal
for those who think and feel
in touch with some reality
Beyond the guilded cage
Casst in this unlikely role
Illequipped to act
with insifficient tact
One must put up barriers
to keep one's self intact
I concur.
What you can do is prepare a big, complete Game Design Document + a small demo with some sort of Free MMO Maker do give investors a sense of what you have in mind.
Alternatively, start selling enough copies of the book that it will be picked up as the next IP to be adpated to a MMO 9Think Wheel of Time). Note that there is no guarantee though, that you'll be ask to participate in the creatin of the actual game...
Judging from how you've presented yourself in this thread, I'd wager that you have a very immersive world in your mind's eye. The key, for you, will be translating that to playable content that gamers can *partake* in. Because of your literrary background, I'm sure that angle is one you're more familiar with than a more corporate approach.
You do not need to win the lottery. You don't need much money at all. You do need to do research. And you *do* need a plan. Do *NOT* start big. Aim for a manageable size. Expand when resources become available. Study CCP's growth. Read up on them. They are the standard I would suggest. Don't copy what they've done in terms of implimentation. Copy what they've done in terms of business model and product development growth.
From a skillset standpoint, you have 1 piece of the pie covered: story. You will need more. If this is truly a life's goal of yours, start getting networked with people who's skillsets you need. SBA and SCORE. Google both anacronyms. There are federal agencies and affiliates that are focused on giving businesses a solid startup (and continuation, as long as it fits the 'small business' staple). Both collectives are pro bono. You can seek consulting and networking as many times as you desire, and their experience and insightfulness is amongst the best in any sort of corporate field.
Best of luck!
Edit: Format
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
Find a dev team that is interested in turning your book into an MMO.
Be prepared to spend the entire development time making sure the IP isn't raped twice to Tuesday and back again.
You're a writer and it's your book. It's a good bet that you'd be way too invested in making sure people follow your story that you'd probably be able to make a good interactive adventure but a horrible MMO.
If you have no programming background and no game design background you would be doing your book a horrible disservice by trying to take this task on yourself.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Thank you for your opinions and suggestions. Here's a question: How many MMORPGs do you know have a character generation system similar to that of Maxis's Sims 3? I want to use that for my MMO so players can create truly unique characters.
By the way, I have no programming experience yet. I'm looking into taking video game design and development courses I've seen advertised on TV.
Living on a lighted stage
approaches the unreal
for those who think and feel
in touch with some reality
Beyond the guilded cage
Casst in this unlikely role
Illequipped to act
with insifficient tact
One must put up barriers
to keep one's self intact
You need a team that is skilled enough to make the backend IT infrastructure of a reletively large corporation then make it run some 5 times faster. Then need all the resources to make the infrstructure of the game. Then have a few times the content.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Its definitely possible to make an indie online rpg. I made a web game that is an online rpg, and now I have a nice little playerbase of like... 20 people. :-) Its nice though, I get like 20-30 log ins per day and people post on the discussion board, ect. Its a 2D game of course, and very small/obviously home made. Some people like that sort of thing though and its doable.
http://cnd-online.net
I have a goal that after I finish grad school I will start on my really good online rpg, a top down similar to zelda IV graphics and a lot of open choice options in character development and a musical system so people can record music and play together and stuff. The main thing to do when you work on these small projects is to keep things reasonable, dont expect too much from yourself and just enjoy the process. I will probably have some money when I get older and might get to put some into my future game, hopefully I can hire someone to help me with art thats what I am really hoping for. :-)
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
Basics:
- Learn C++ Programming ( C++ building environments are free )
- Learn 3 DS Max or similar software to build characters, objects, and maps ( ~5k / license )
- Photoshop or similar software to build textures ( 500 - 1k / license )
- Server and maintence costs ( I believe there are outfits that sell the whole package not sure on the cost )
I would think that gathering a group of people with similar interests would be an ideal situation. Creating a game in a couple of years in your spare time would definitely be possible.
As far as learning programming goes, take some courses at your local community/city college. A lot of older people as well as younger people take classes at these places and its a great place to learn, feel motivated to learn new things every day, and also to meet people with like interests and get a better grasp on your self limitations/expectations.
That is how I got started and I am really glad that I did. I took 2 courses, and went on from there teaching myself using the web. I dont think I would have gone anywhere if I didnt take those courses. I wish I took more.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
Look out for discounts, too. SOme schools offer them, and some don't, butit's always good to get a discount. As a student at my art school I can get the adobe creative suite (which includes photoshop among other things) for about 400$ and the same price for auto-desk maya (which is used for making 3-D models).
Also, there are a ton of videos online to help if you can't find a class, as a last resort. Books do exist, as well. One of our course books here at our school for our game design course is "Beginning C++ Game Programming" and you can find it for about 8$ used in some places.
What would it take to make a browser mmo like Ikariam or Travian in terms of money, time, skill needed?
You can do like most Korean company and just license a Unreal 2 or 3 engine and start designing games right away lol. Of course you wont be able to afford a license so just bootleg it ^^. like check out TERA being develop right now using Unreal 3 engine.. its amazing.. www.pvpve.com or Blade and Soul.. google it
http://www.pvpve.com/
Heres the best help you'll recieve.......get off this gaming forum and get serious if that truly is your plan, go to school and learn. Coming here to a gaming forum asking how to make an mmo....good god man :P
You need:
1 Artist, 1 Sound and music artist, 1 programmer, 1 storywritter and 1 people manager. If you multiply any of thouse jobs, your game will be faster done. It can be done by one person but I have given these cause I do not believe that one person alone can be expert in all of thouse fields. It is better to have a small good team of willing people that trying to be one man army.
You could do it on laptop but it will need to be good laptop. Also there are some free mmorpg software makeers out but best solution is to make your engine or modify existing one.
If you need help all you need to do is ask
I say it's better to ask than to sit around weighing things for eternity.
to sure of money, it would still probably take several years and at least a decent amount of skill. A game is still a game, in the browser or not.
Lol, people manager... Every fool coming to these forums wanting to make a mmo thinks they are going to be the people manager (aka the job that requires no skill) and lead a group of non-paid volunteers in creating a great mmorpg. Until they realize that people with abilities do not want to be told what to work on by someone who has an idea but no money and no ability.
IMO, you need to be a programmer. Code a game, and an artist will come, a musician will come. Once they know you are for real and a game is actually almost made they'll be happy/proud to become part of your team.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.