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So You Want To Write Your Own MMORPG

Posted by Hemos on from the grats dept.

Jari Komppa writes "After getting tired of tons of newbies starting MMORPG projects as their first programming project and calling for help on flipcode message boards, I decided to write a little rant in attempt to give these people some idea of the magnitude of the project they're starting. There seems to be hundreds of these projects out there.."

4 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. Newbies. by n-tropy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At the very least more ppl will get into programming starting projects way over their heads. In 92 I decided i wanted to do a mud... Tackling a major rewrite of a mud was a bit much for my programming skills at the time but after reading through all the code (could tell you what a function did and where it was at the time) I ended up doing many minor improvements. I never did do even a quarter of what I intended but It gave me the push to polish my skills. After the projects die I'm sure the surviving ones will be able to canibalize the remaining ones for usefull code... all that work won't be for absolutely nothing. The best way to learn to program is to work on something your passionate on.

  2. Re:What's the point? by Rentar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wow, a non-trolling first post ... I thought of doing such a thing myself ;-)

    I basically agree, but:

    • There might be newbies who actually had those thoughts in the back of their head, but need to see it black on white to really realize this. For them this is a good rant. They will probably join another MMORPG.
    • Those newbies who are quite serious about starting such a huge project will do it, wether they read this rant or not. They will learn it the hard way (which I don't think is all to bad, as long as the hard way doesn't include any lethal or damaging situations.)
    • Most rants primarily help the ranter. I'm sure the author feels better now, that he brought his thoughs to paper (well ...).
  3. They're everywhere by RQuinn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been programming since high school and I'm currently a CompSci student. Over the years I've been a part of many scenes, and people like this are everywhere.

    I remember QBasic forums I'd read. About once a week someone would come and ask for coders and artists and soundmen for their killer RPG that's ten times better than Final Fantasy 3. Or sometimes, it would be the just slightly less annoying post of "How do I make RPGs?"

    Just a few years ago, I'd taken an interest in Half-Life coding. I never go too deeply into it, but I participated on message boards answering questions that I could. Over six month's time I got no less than 25 people contacting me asking me to be the lead programmer on their great new mod that would beat TFC or (later) CounterStrike.

    Even playing EverQuest, it got out to my guild that I was a CompSci student. Immediately someone approached me asking me to program for them since they had a great amazing idea for a game better than EQ.

    All of these people are simply people with ideas, who haven't yet realized that ideas aren't worth shit. They think that their idea is so wonderfully unique that it will carry them all the way to the top, despite the fact that they have no useful skills. Some of these people will listen, and scrap their big idea and start on something small to learn to program. Most likely though, they will realize that the game making business isn't the thing they thought it to be, and so they will give up and go back to just playing games.

    But there's always someone with an idea out there who over estimates its value. And they'll just keep coming.

  4. Guilty! by rufusdufus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am a very experienced programmer; after retiring I decided to try my hand at a massively multiplayer game system. I got a long way too; my graphics engine smokes any of the the games out there today. My network engine is distributed and robust. Oh, its a glory to see.

    All except that its not quite finished yet, and probably never will be.

    I knew the magnitude of the problem, or thought I did. And I was right...about the programming end of it. Its a big task, but I'm a big programmer.

    But taking an engine and making a game is just plain overwhelming. The content for a decent game is a lot of work, mostly artistic. Polishing all the edges takes time, what I thought would take two years, I now estimate at about ten (1.5 years into it).

    My suggestion: don't go there unless you have a big team behind you. Ever notice how big the credits pages are for games? Take heed!