Is making an MMO worth the trouble?

Making an MMO is easier than ever thanks to tools, platforms, and engines that address most of the technical challenges. But does that mean you should still do it? I feel like there's more value in creating small games, seeing them through from start to finish, than pouring all of your resources into a massive (pun intended) project.

 

Easier doesn't mean easy. Just less daunting.

I'd build my way up to it, if that was my goal. Maybe you got a dream MMO in mind. Break it down into lots of smaller games, and make them one by one. Like if you haven't made any game at all, start with a simple FPS game where you walk and do... something. Shoot or slash or collect stuff. Just the tiniest part that the rest of the whole would be built around.

Like, my dream game isn't MMO, but it is big open world. So that's too much to learn all at once. First then I make a simple game with the intent to only learn how to do the world streaming, and develop workflows for making all the art, etc. Baby steps. Cause even with the baby steps, you find out they are much larger than you expect.

 

Almost exactly what we are doing. Break it down..and if you fail with the smaller parts, you will probably fail with the entire project. MMOs are not easy, even with all the new technology.

 

((Opinion.

No. I could never understand people's fascination with this genre in particular.

 

I guess the guy ( or girl ) who will dev a unity addon with a big red button written "Make my MMO and put it online" will be billionaire

Please call me if you do ^^

Till this, i'll dev on my very own.
On this for example: https://forum.unity.com/threads/carcassonne-medieval-city-vr.612034/

Happy unitying !

 

You know, steam has a "MMORpg tycoon" game. In early access.

And no, he won't be a billionaire, as user base is not that big.

 

true^^
But.... it's just a dead-before-birth idea.
What if all people make the same MMO ? XD lol

EDIT: i guess you should say this to @charlesamat x))

 

Seems to me they are already all making the same MMO. LOL If I tell someone about my game, they look at me like I am crazy...why? Because our game is different. You are supposed to all make the same game...right?

 

You don't need to look far really, to get an idea. Just look into current FPS market.

 

Ok, posting unity / development tutorials is allowed (though we will have better place for it soon), however just posting vlog entries and never actually participating in the conversation, is spam. It’s just promoting your social media channel. That is not why these forums exist. You can post this kind of stuff your Connect profile but not here.

The video has been removed. The topic will remain open for now as it is an active discussion. If it happens again, it will result in a formal warning. Keep in mind this forum is forum community support and discussion, it is not a marketing or promotional resource.

 

The premise is flawed. The hard problems in an mmo haven't really changed much and the tools to address those haven't changed much either really. A lot of the challenges are not even engine related. And engine specific features that do factor in, are almost always tailored for other genre's. Little to nothing has been done with mmo's in mind in major game engines.

Engines getting better, more performant, etc... Sure that helps mmo's, but no more then it helps most other game genre's. The bar to make a competitive mmo I don't think has really budged significantly in the last decade.

 

What are your goals here? If it's "compete with WOW and get rich" then it's almost certainly not worth the trouble. If it's to have a cool hobby and learn a bunch of technical stuff, or that you like messing with networks, or any of the other interesting problems you can learn about and solve along the way... why not?

Many people think about whether or not game dev is worth it by considering what things will be like after the game is done. Just as important to think about are the months or years where you're doing the making.

That said, I'd start with a few small projects first, because they'll teach you stuff that saves more than their duration when you move onto bigger projects.

 

Yeah, why not? We are actually making a game we plan to publish, but compete with AAA MMOs, with 100s of people working on a HUGE open world game?

Nope. We are making a niche game that may find an audience because it is different and a game that I want to make and that I want to play. We have a small team, 5-7 people, and we are much slower than a AAA game and one of us has a day job and two starting college. But....we do not have dreams of supporting our family with any game.

Getting rich with an indie game of any kind is likely not to happen. Competing with AAA games is, in my opinion, the wrong attitude. Rather than compete, we should strive to take those risks that AAA games cannot do.

 

Well i can handle the zombie but i give up facing the gorilla

Keep cool and let ppl talk please

We're in general discuss and naturally ( at least i think this is human ) people will talk about their experience ( just like i do ) moreover because of the far too wide question/intro.

IMHO this is the perfect place for taunts, kidding, laughs but also sprouts for serious dscusses ^^
Mebe am wrong ( just like am often ) but i just express my feeling.

You as a moderator cannot expect more from such a wide/vague question
And as am the only one who posted a link, i take your words: vlog entry for me.
Sorry if i seemed to promote anything.... I work on this project for now 2 years and never got a penny.
I posted this as an example and i guess many people here can do the same.

Unity users are sometimes wealthy ppl but also sometimes ( and hopefully from my POV ) hobbyists.
That's those people i love: bringing ideas, kikin asses, laughing and pulling everything higher

I'm here to share.

I don't care to promote

At last but not least, i have to thank you for your presence @zombiegorilla - moderator
Without you, this forum would be nothing

Happy unitying !

 

It might result in moderation if goes too far. We do not tolerate taunts or any potentially abusive behaviour. We also don't tolerate childish behaviour. For more chatty behaviour I recommend the Unity discord channel.

These forums are for mature discussion and sharing of ideas and development, problem solving in a Unity context. I know you mean well, but I have to remind people the forums are specifically for development overall

 

Mmo's can do extremely well financially and the global market is pretty big. It's a niche but a sizable one and profitable enough to be interesting. At the same time budgets are all over the board and don't always correlate to revenue in a way that makes sense if you don't understand the market. There are a a lot of variations in the genre some just taking far more capital then others.

Black Desert Online for example generated a billion over 4 years, from a studio that claimed ridiculously low dev costs. Even if you believe their claims are deflated hugely, which I do, it still shows the potential and what can be done on a relatively small budget. I think their real costs were likely several tens of millions.

Asian studios definitely have a better grip on the market IMO. Western studios I think tend to have this attitude that what's popular in Asia is entirely due to things that are specific to Asia. But that isn't entirely true IMO. Asian studios have shown a real knack for finding the best bang for the buck, and that mmo's are popular in Asia means they get to iterate on the problem more. The west is better at doing big name IP mmo's with huge budgets, but that's about all they have shown they are good at in recent years.

 

You are incorrect. My entire comment is about the OP. Please stay on topic.

As a wise man once said:

 

I thought there was something unusual about someone turning up on general forums just to say that they'd rather not make an mmo ..

However I think the topic as it is is just going to be an opinion contest. The answer is always 'it depends'. Generic answers don't do justice to people who have done difficult things in a rational, clear headed and carefully planned way.

 

Making a space shuttle is easier than ever thanks to tools, platform, and engines that address most of the technical challenges. But does that mean you should still build a spacecraft?

Watch my space shuttle building tutorial on youtube, like and subscribe, and don't forget to check out my patreon where I have my super secret space ship building pro tips!

 

Remember way back when an MMO was a way for a large organization to get free money? People bought EverQuest, _and_ paid a monthly subscription. No other type of game could pull in that much cash. Then World of Warcraft proved an established MMO could be dethroned, while raising prices. Even if you didn't think you could be the next WoW, a successful niche MMO (maybe Age Of Conan) was one of the most profitable things. This was before Freemium games existed.

But those days are a long time ago. I don't even know the top MMO now (which isn't close to being the top game).

Today I suspect that cell-phone MMO's are a good way to get IP. People can identify more with 3D monsters and characters, then you can re-use them for a card game (HearthStone, in WoW's case) or whatever. And there were so many MMO's made it's probably easy to find hirable people with the skills.

 

I was thinking about designer/developer perspective, not money grab perspective.

The genre, as far as I know, devolves into a hamster wheel with chat client that has 3d avatars. Kinda feels like a waste. Because someone might've spent a lot of time developing the world and lore, and most players don't even read it.

Then again, maybe I don't get it.

 

Didn't modern MMOs start out as MUDs (Multi User Dungeons) think ascii or text based adventure games like RogueLikes. The programmers had them running on University servers and people could play the game by logging into a terminal/console.

My point is could you make a fun retro style simpler MUD instead of a complex and resource hungry MMO.

After all MUDs and MMOs all started with people realising that they could play adventure games with a computer as the game master.

Potential benefits you could find a niche group of retro enthusiasts as a player base e.g. Dwarf Fortress.

And maybe you could spend more time on adding depth and less on polygons, shaders, FX, animations, terrain, buildings, tools, weapons, creatures, flora and fauna?

Although there might be a happy medium between MUD and MMO.

Or maybe you could make a roguelike with a multiplayer option.

 

Runescape was made by two people using a tech that was deem ridiculous at the time (javascript), and so was dofus (flash) made a team of graphist with little programming experience, there was also sherwood (shockwave) made by one person, that used procedural map to manage content, and many instances to keep load light.

MMO is the one thing I don't advise to chose, there is only few exception. ALso I know nothing substantial about backend, server, and network ...

 

I used to make muds with groups of people. So much fun. Honestly, not all that much different except for...well you know, the graphics, and lighting, and a zillion other things.
That was a long time ago. Really not a bad idea if someone really wants to create a multiplayer experience. Great way to learn.

 

I've been working on one for the past 3 years.... so I hope so

Spoiler

If you're expecting to power through and get one done rather quickly, you are in for disappointment

 

Let's not forget one of the most amazing features that is completely missing from a modern MMO. Being able to restart the server to apply new changes without everyone losing their connection. Part of this is due to not having an actual client but I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be feasible to do with an MMO too.

 

That's an interesting feature. Maybe a RESTful interface between the client/server and heavy use of client side interpreted code could get you a lot of the way there today?

 

I'd probably see "no maintenance downtime" as a negative. If it was near the top of the features list, it would make me think they're more interested in screwing around with tech than making tinkerable, balanced classes, and interesting fights. Maybe I've seen too many games where they're so proud of this one thing they did -- like when MMO's first got ultra-realistic water -- that they forgot to make the game any fun.

 

As a counterpoint... if they don't have to take servers down for maintenance then they can much more easily tweak and iterate on things, because they don't have to stop people playing to do it.

From memory it's standard for servers to go down once per week or two? That's a pretty long iteration time.

Definitely agree with this in principle, though. I'm often the blunt one who looks at a thing someone is putting lots of effort into and asks "so... why will your players care?" It's surprisingly easy to miss!

With that in mind I wouldn't advertise it as "no maintenance downtime". I'd advertise it as "live updates and balancing" or something like that, because that's where the value really is.

 

It's one of those areas where there are a lot of lessons learned. Info is available but you have to know where to look.

The normal best bang for buck approach is a blue/green setup. Making a new build active is a final step of force disconnect and routing change. It's instant basically. But scheduled downtimes are better experiences and also give you additional time to deal with stuff that might go wrong. So a zero downtime solution wouldn't really help, you would still schedule downtimes during low traffic periods for other reasons.

 

That doesn't sound right -- the way skills work is tweaked live, while people are playing? That might be fun the first time.

 

Just like with any other tool obviously you'd still have to plan when it's appropriate to do what things. The fact that you could do stupid stuff with it doesn't invalidate the fundamental approach.

 

Nowadays making MMO or multiplayer game is less daunting thanks to freely available tools. Actually I've started creating my own MMO few months ago: https://gamedev.blog/devlog/mmo-alone-second-month/.

However creating a full-fledged MMO is still ton of work. You're essentially creating a framework with ton of related and interconnected features, that will have to work through the network. I've actually written (a bit long) article about creating indie MMO games alone (https://gamedev.blog/design/coding-an-mmo/) if you are interested.

To summarize the article, you can create indie MMO alone as long as the idea behind your game is something small. So no hundreds of models, textures, sounds, scripts and features. There are many people who already made small multiplayer games on their own, most of them are not feature rich MMORPGS but you get the idea (and reap the monetary benefits). It's possible as long as its something simple, and the more complex gameplay you try to create, the more months of work it will take.