For anyone who ever wanted to make an MMORPG

[tye stik]

Alright, this is big news for anyone who has ever said to themselves... "man, that would be cool if i could make my own MMORPG". I for one think this is totally neat, and its about time an opportunity like this came along.

Anyways.... its called multiverse.net/. If you ever wanted to make a multiplayer game this place provides you with a platform to start with.

I was thinking of getting some friends together and starting a game developing team. So far i have 4 decently skilled programers, each with experience in making their own games, so i'm off to a good start. I live with 2 of them so we have this totally awesome LAN set up in the basement (next to the hydroponics lab, lol).

Yeah, so i wanted to get some opinions about this "multiverse" and also some opinions about pseudo-professional game developing in general.

 

[ShizZy]

It's really hard to say. I've been in the independent games inustry for about 7 years, long before I started emu programming, and I can't tell you how many people I've heard say "I'm going to make a MMORPG" and never come close to finishing it. As for this platform, I've never heard of it, and I've heard of a lot of game engines. They don't seem to offer any screenshots or anything, so you cannot see the quality of the renderer, effects, etc. (if this even is a game engine and not just a netplay solution). Anyways, it's late here, so I'm not going to go too far into detail before I fall asleep on my keyboard. But if you're seriouselly interested, I suggest you explore your options a bit. Torque Game Engine is a very affordable indi platform with an award winning multiplayer setup and renderer, based off of the Tribes 2 technology. Something to think about...

 

[tye stik]

Hmm, interesting. I'll definitely look into the Torque Game Engine.

The 'Multiverse' platform is still only beta, but i like the fact that its completley free. There are some interesting incentives that Multiverse advertises, like how they take care of credit card payments (like if you wanted to charge people monthly or whatever) and what not. I'm pretty sure that their legit, i read an article about them in CNet news. Whats interesting is that their trying to centralize all the games into a cingular community, which i think is a great idea.

Yeah, anyways... I'm really interested in developing games semi-professionally and i seem to have inspired my comrades, so. If you know any helpful sites or things that may be of interest to my cause i'd definitley appreciate them.

 

[zenogais]

If you want to work on an MMORPG I'd suggest working on one that's already pretty heavily in development. The Mana World is one I contributed to for a while, and if you're looking for a place to start this would be a good one.

 

[Doomulation]

But this is pretty cool. You can develop a small, simple game, and if doesn't matter if you succeed or not, because it comes at no cost to you. If you start earning money of it, then great! You will lose nothing either way. Not to say it isn't hard, though.

 

[tye stik]

But this is pretty cool. You can develop a small, simple game, and if doesn't matter if you succeed or not, because it comes at no cost to you. If you start earning money of it, then great! You will lose nothing either way. Not to say it isn't hard, though.

My sentiments exactly. Not only that... your game automaticaly gets a consumer base with Multiverse's idea of 'cingular network' for all games. If someone could make a truly ground breaking game to push this company to the mainstream... it could be revolutionary. Its like a cost effective solution for aspiring game developers.

Note: The title of the thread read: " For anyone who ever wanted to make an MMORPG" when infact you can create any type of game you want. That reminds me... Quake 2 is open source!! get it here.

 

[Cyberman]

My sentiments exactly. Not only that... your game automaticaly gets a consumer base with Multiverse's idea of 'cingular network' for all games. If someone could make a truly ground breaking game to push this company to the mainstream... it could be revolutionary. Its like a cost effective solution for aspiring game developers.

Note: The title of the thread read: " For anyone who ever wanted to make an MMORPG" when infact you can create any type of game you want. That reminds me... Quake 2 is open source!! get it here.

Ummm don't you mean Quake 3? Quake 4 is scheduled to be released sooon.

As for cost affective, that is relative. If it is ineffectual in what you want to do, then, it's cost prohibative. The problem with network interaction is you have the following VERY pertinent issues.

Where the decisions are made? (Server/Client) Server is best and most secure.
What information needs to be exchanged (client to server server to client)? In the majority of cases the server sends changes and the client sends input stimuli to the server. This leave the client to perform animation and physics update based on the servers model. It also updates status information.

The big issues come in what type of system is the data based on. IE NWN is AD&D based. Chrono Cross used a level less system (which was definately interesting if not a bit frustrating at times ). In any case you have to allow the battle engine data to be updated etc.

Bottom line is you can be all things to all people. I'm sure for some things it will be fine, however most things do require customization.

As an example running a simple animation of picking something up in the game has a huge number of issues and possible methods of implimentation. If you wish a cut scene for the pickup, then you have to consider what you want the motions to be. If you want it frame for frame custom or a built in generic animation. Then you have the application of that animation to different models..

As you can see it's not as easy as one might wish

Cyb

 

[Azimer]

Animation, modeling and skinning are a pain in the ass. Especially for hundreds of models. Find yourself a team of artists... programming isn't everything... and imo the easy part.

<edit>
If you weren't talking about 3D graphics... my apologies. You'll never go mainstream in this eye-candy generation. Look at your competition.

 

[ShizZy]

I second Azimer. Most experienced developers put at least 12+ hours into each textured/animated humanoid model - at least at the quality to compete with current generation titles. Otherwise you can pay for it, the same job can run anywhere from 200usd to 2000usd, depending on who you hire. A game like a MMORPG can have hundreds and hundreds of these models. Sorry to discourgage you

 

[tye stik]

Originally Posted By Cyberman
Ummm don't you mean Quake 3?

Nope, I mean Quake 2. If you follow the link you'll see that its the Quake 2 download section and its where you can get the source code for it.

As you can see it's not as easy as one might wish

Yeah, i've known that from the start. I'll just keep cracking at it, tapping away at my keyboard, eventually something will come of it. I dont expect anything soon, although i've set some short term goals for the project. My friend is in a graphic design class and he can build some crazy shit, he has such a nice computer. Having started on this grand undertaking, i realize its gonna take a looooong time.

As to what Cyberman was saying, about the network interaction of the servers and what not... I'm not even close to that part yet, infact... i dont even know if i want to add multiplayer support at this point, seeing how much work there is to do. First i think I'm going to create a complete game that actually works ( I've made a couple 2D games, I'd like to experiment with 3D).