Some Encouragement for people who want to make games/mmos

*Since it was perceived differently than I wanted to, I changed the topic title.


So part 1 is partly about how I got where I am today and what I figured out for myself why I can do an MMO
and part 2 is more talking about how to turn your project into mouth sized pieces, what to expect, what not to expect and where to start working

https://fartoindie.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/how-to-start-your-own-mmorpg/

https://fartoindie.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/how-to-make-an-mmo-part-2/

 

You dont sound like someone that's ready to make an mmo...

It all reads like a 'you can do it if you put your mind to it' speech with nothing useful in regards to actually making an mmo.

 

While I only briefly skimmed through your articles I feel like it's fairly obvious that they are little more than a pep talk rather than an actual answer. Your second article isn't even strictly related to MMOs but can be applied to practically anything.

Additionally you'll want to format them better and ideally include some pictures that better show what you're describing.

A common term for this by the way is modular design. One article that is fantastic on the subject is by a developer at Bethesda describing how they applied it to Skyrim.

http://blog.joelburgess.com/2013/04/skyrims-modular-level-design-gdc-2013.html

 

@Farelle - If you take out the "massive" an mmo is just a multiplayer online game. So make that. Then, make it bigger.

 

I've always felt that stripping out the multiplayer from an MMO leaves you with a game that is not too dissimilar to one of Bethesda's titles. Starting there wouldn't be a terrible idea. You could always follow it up later with another game that has multiplayer (massive or otherwise).

 

Here's an actual real simplified explanation/guide on MMO architecture by IBM:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ar-powerup1/
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ar-powerup2/
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ar-powerup3/ar-powerup3.html/

 

Who are you and what MMOs have you made?

 

*Unity Produce a Make An Instant MMO Button* Omg! lol.

 

Sometimes I think it'd be a fun little experiment to work on one just because of all of the people who seem to think these things are the Holy Grail of games. Except I'd be leaning more toward a Micro Multiplayer Online game. A proof of concept that could be scaled up. Maybe next year. As of right now I still plan on getting into 3D next year. Who knows though. I am having a lot of fun working in 2D now and just really getting back into Game Dev seriously (for a hobbyist). Maybe I could do a 2D version of an MMO. With Atari VCS retro style graphics to make it easier for the artists to fill out the game world easier.

 

Took me a while to realize why you were talking to yourself. Got to be more careful with the ignore button

 

*blinks* oh well, I was assuming that there would be some opposition...I tried to make it clear that it's not about "making an MMO" but how to START, where to start even, since alot of times I was reading that question from someone "how to make an MMO?"
It felt like there were only technicalities thrown at that person or "find out the stuff yourself" or "you can not do an MMO on your own" or "you need alot of money".
I wanted to counter the negativity and give something more basic, something that you could not only apply to MMOs, but about doing anything. I just took MMOs as an example, because they seem to be one of the most controvers things in terms of making one of your own and also, because ultimately, thats what I'm interested in.

also I have to say it's rather interesting how some of you didn't seem to have really read what I was writing....I made it really clear, that this is no tutorial of any sorts and that I also made very clear how much work it is (on the second part) and how to actually be able to see that huge amount of work, by giving some examples on how to disassemble your project.

It might be easy to see where the huge amount of work is for someone who is alot deeper into that subject, but it's not easy for someone who is rather unexperienced. If you want people to stop asking that question, than I suggest actually explaining something, than trying to keep them from doing it. It won't hurt anyone to try and make an MMO, you guys are not responsible, if that Person is sucessfull or not, so I see no reason for that kind of behaviour.

@BoredMormon Hello, my name is Silvia and I'm working on my own MMO, I just started "properly" since June, so there is nothing I can show off in that direction and I'm aware that it sounds highly suspicious, but most games (not MMOs) I made are either lost, are not working properly anymore or I don't wanna show them because they are "not good" and merely student projects. If you want to see my progress on me being a game developer, from the very beginnings (who knows where I will be in a few years) I suggest, reading the rest of my blog.

@GarBenjamin I agree I hope I can get my project to a stage at some point that it will show that it's possible
On another note though, there is Wurm online, good example of a 2 man team with no mmo experience making an mmo.
There is Istaria, then there is homepages dedicated to Indies making MMOs like this: http://www.trueindiemmo.com/
etc. It's visible that there aren't many though.

@CaoMengde777 thanks I should update it at some point XD it's not exactle representing me anymore, hair wise XD
and yeah, we make our own reality

Oh btw. guys, just a little note in general, I just gave you links to my own blog, so if youa re interested in what I'm actually doing and how I'm learning and also a little bit about the technical stuff I'm doing, feel free to look into it
The amount of blog posts I did and what I have done so far, should give an indication how serious I am and also, how I try to approach the big bad MMO monster, in simple terms: yes, I'm starting small and I try my best to learn what I need to know.

oh someone just linked this to me just a proof that even Wow looked like really really simple in the beginning: http://kotaku.com/very-early-screen...7vNEoqg.0&utm_referrer=https://www.google.de/

 

It's not really a holy grail, it is just a massive amount of work. Way more work and things to consider. Also, in order for it be successful, it has to be successful. A typical amateur game like a clicker or endless runner can make a few bucks, but mmo's can only work if there are a lot of players. And scaling is the biggest challenge. You really have to have it scaled large from the start. Sure you can scale content and story, but be, network and framework really have be be built from get go to work at scale. Those things impact playability and design choices. Consistently is critical to maintaining a player base, if core gameplay is radically changed later to adapt for scale, you can lose your base. There are a ton of moving parts.

 

@Farelle copy&paste for you from proven guys, just because I do not want to explain you anything more:

• This is a commercially developed game engine, built for demanding and leading edge game development. The smallest commercial development groups building on our technology have perhaps 8 - 15 people on their team, and the largest teams have several hundred people.

 

yeah and lot of em have no heart and spirit in what theyre creating, its a pay check, and they get paid to have coffee breaks and look up cat pics on the internet

but yeah...

 

I think the responses you are getting is because of your wording. "How to start an MMO" the implication is that someone who has successfully created one, is providing insight. Tons of people have started MMOs. That is the easy part. Finishing one is a different story.

The amount of people who write, comment and blog about game design and development is about 10,000 to 1 compared to those who actually create successful games. Unless it is solid technical information, or insights from someone has had a successful game, it's really just random thoughts. Less blog, more build.

 

Right there with ya!

 

Sorry for the harsh welcome. We get tons of new users around here wanting to make MMOs with no prior experience. So far exactly none have come back with finished games. So you can understand my skepticism. When you have an MMO then you can give people advice about how to make them. When you have released a complete game you can give people advice about how to finish a game.

Until then do yourself a favor and curb your ambitions. Build something small. Work your way up. Since June you could have built a couple of games and had them on the market.

For now why not blog about the journey of making an MMO, rather then giving people advice on how to make one?

 

@Teo I don't know what this even has to do with this topic, you aswell as everyone else knows that alot of people use Unity, from hobbyists to big hundreds people strong studios, there is no explanation in that.

@zombiegorilla I'm trying my best but you can probably agree that writing a blog and making a game are 2 different worlds, so I try to keep track of my work with that blog and when I write some motivational like speech I'm mainly doing it for myself, just this specific blog post, I thought I could spread my "insight" from starting and I don't need to have a finished MMO to talk about that, I just need to have started an MMO and that I did.

@BoredMormon Yeah I understand that skepticism very well, I didn't want to create the feeling that I would know everything or that I know exactly how to make an MMO or that I'm super experienced with it, I just wanted to share something that helps myself also, to keep going, how NOT to give up on it, which seems exactly one of the problems that alot of people have. Not to mention that it's frustrating to know that by trying to do something like an MMO that you will definitely not get immediate results.
and again look at my blog, I have some posts about the development of a smaller game project "Dragon shooter", which is a really simple game that I used to see if I can get past my insecurities and actually code something working.
and in overall I made that blog to track my progress of making an MMO (and there are alot of posts since june), I should mention though, that I can not work full time on it, since I have a small child, below a year, so progress will be slow, but I'm very determined Since June I started the blog, but I'm working on games for years and if you have read my "part 1" I was a bit unfortunate life wise :/

I wonder how many newbies out there think they can hook up on someone experienced, just to find out that after years, they were only being led like a pig with a carrot on a stick.

No one lives a perfect life, so I hope that in a few years I have more to "present" and then having all that Blog behind me, to back up that I wasn't just "lucky", should help those who think they will never get out of the struggle.
Of course, this puts me under alot of pressure, since I practically say, that I will be sucessfull which is very bold claim to make, but give me some years

 

You haven't actually beaten that hurdle yet. But best of luck with your game!

 

Blogging or keeping a dev diary is great thing to do wether starting or experienced. Nothing wrong with that.

However, this is the official Unity forums, as such many people come here specifically looking for help, instructions and information on how to build a game. The title and op of this topic say that you are suggesting answers and providing development advice. So, you are bound to get some negative responses as you really don't provide that. My suggestion is that you keep at it, but skip the advice part and clarify that it is a personal journey, and not a how to.

A blog about a personal journey might be interesting to read. Advice from someone without experience is not. Your attitude is great and positive, keep that up and you'll do fine.

 

@Teo no, I don't consider you as harsh, I consider you as someone who tries his best to find everything that could make me realize how desillusioned I am, despite the fact that this was never a discussion about IF I should make an MMO or not.
I don't even know if I want to go into detail about it how you interpret so many things into what I'm saying, that I'm not writing.

And the truth...oh yeah the truth The truth is, I'm a graphics designer, I studied games and Animations, I made several games that I never published out of insecurity, I did research about games for years, whenever I had the spare time to do so and I made the decision of making games a long time ago. I did several prototypes, made graphics for games, tried myself in programming, learned how to make my own music, analyzed games, researched about how to advertise games, where to publish it, how to publish it, I can do 3D aswell as 2D, I did programming in javascript and C#, I have worked with Cryengine, UDK and Unity, I have learned maya AND 3dsmax and I can use Blender. I know how to texture and how to make modular models and how to make tilable textures. I can use photoshop and I know how to create a Corporate identity....
And I know, like KNOW, that I can't fill all the roles forever, but I will need to show something to someone to even gain any kind of interest of someone else to work with me. So I have to start alone.

and in short to debunk some things you said:
-you assume I'm not listening, because I don't agree with what you say, if you would read properly, you would know that I'm aware that it's a big undertaking and that I did quite extensive research!(there is more than 2 pages on that blog)
-I said those wow screenshots proof how really simple wow was in the beginning, not how difficult it is to make it!
-I didn't ask for opinions, I stated my reason in the Beginning of the topic...
-I never said it would be one or 2 man job, what are you even arguing with?

and now tell me where you got all your experience from? It's okay to discourage people from doing something, without experience, but it's not okay to try to motivate people the same way?

 

@zombiegorilla hmmm so you say it's mainly because I chose this specific title? Everywhere I tried to make sure to make it very clear that it's my personal opinion, personal experience, that I'm a "newbie" myself, that it is NOT a tutorial and that I left out technicalities.

I think it's as important to know what to do with your human/emotional side as knowing your tools, how to program etc.
So I thought it would be fitting here.
If people got upset, because they hoped for a different kind of answer I'm sorry that you feel that way.
I thought I made it clear what it is about.

 

Your new title is much more clear.

 

oh btw. thanks @BrUnO XaVIeR for your links in the beginning Alot of compressed Information there

 

=))
I am an old wolf.

Something motivational for you: Start publishing your games for Android or PC, with ads eventually to give you some motivation from material side, the amount of displayed ads per days, is really motivational for some peoples, you can find plenty of information on this forum. Also is a great experience, from all points of view, starting from publishing, and peoples comments on your games, ending with social media marketing. Also considering you CAN draw stuff, there are plenty of programmers who want to team up. Just be sure they are fair, and you both get fair shares from. That's usually the biggest problem in situations like that. And continue.. after you make 10-20 small games, think about MMO's again.

Edited for minor typo's.

 

And its also worth a pat on the back for getting this out there and discussed. A lot of people are too scared to even go that far. Thumbs up for that.

 

thanks Atleast now I know what I have to expect when posting in these forums and it's less "unknown"...


@Teo and what if I don't do as you say?

 

Agreed. I meant Holy Grail as in so many people are on a quest to build one.

 

for some it might be moby dick

 

Lol true. And fitting. Everyone has their own whale to conquer.

Hey while you're responding... what makes MMOs so interesting to you and any specific kind like FPS or RPG?

 

Nobody force you to do anything. If you want to break your neck alone trying to do an MMO's, is not my problem, at least we warned you.

 

one thing is probably the social aspect of meeting people from all nationalities, when I played my first MMOs i was faszinated by it that people could communicate with emotes only, if they couldn't speak english And I thought thats awesome. Then there are things like the open world, I like to explore and I like to talk with other people about it / shar emy experiences and even though I could play as example skyrim and do the same, it's still not the same as a friend involving themselves into the same world and experiencing it even with me.
Then there is probably also the aspect of just diving into a complete world and if players are acting accordingly to the world, then I think it's far more immersive than any single player game with just NPCs around, we are far from good technology to make proper AI yet, so players are the closest we can get I think.
not sure if I'm missing something, but I think this sums it up pretty much.
And I think I'm mostly interested in RPGs, specially fantasy, but that is rather a preference than anything else, because it seems to be the most fleshed out regarding character immersion. FPS are usually too heavily towards player VS player, which I'm not such a huge fan of.

Not sure if I was answering your questions feel free to ask me more

 

not my first time that I did something people thought was crazy

 

Sounds like fluff to me

 

Removed a bunch of useless posts where users ignored the topic and generally used it as a soundboard to argue with each other. Those guys can't reply any more. And if they keep on, it won't end well.

As for the topic, MMO discussion is encouraged, it's a valid topic everyone

 

MUD is technically an MMO. Something like that can be done by one person.

After reading that, I remembered the feeling I felt when I first time finished Silent Hill 2. When after many hours of the gameplay you are going to final segments of the levels and the reality is breaking apart around protagonist with "real" and "mirror" world merging together into something else. And then there was the ending.

That was feeling of awe.

Few games could provoke similar reaction, but every time when it happened it was unforgettable and powerful experience.

I wonder if the amount of people that want to build MMOs and Minecraft clones indicate that they never experienced anything similar.

 

WoW remains one of the most amazing game experiences I've had. I refer to wow classic of course.

 

yeah honestly I'm a bit sad I missed out on games like ultima online or the old star wars galaxies or wow classic, I don't know, maybe I'm simply too young or I was not looking at the right corners in Internet
And one thing I also noticed is that games, specially MMOs seem to go more and more into a cookie cutter direction, about being a Hero. I actually don't like that at all, I think it takes out the feeling special about being a Hero, if you know that everyone else is also and from all i heard, earlier MMOs were not trying to force you into a role of a Hero and you could be aswell just the potion brewing maid that sorts all friends loot when they come home from a raid
And too many games have come out that are focusing so heavily on PvP and full loot and very punishing character depths, that I wonder how they even find new players to voluntarily torture themselves for months, before they reach a state of when they can do the same to others

So one of my motivations might be also, that I think I have some good ideas and want to realize them I don't care how long it will take me, but working on it, makes me feel alot better than sitting still and hoping that maybe next year my dream MMO will come out

and I know of some "smaller" community MMOs that exist since 2001/2003 etc. that even though they have a very small community, players are still playing it and developers are still developing and living from it. I'm certainly not expecting to become rich from it or to even get any money from it in the beginning, but that's also not my goal.

 

A better goal to shoot for as some have mentioned is a virtual world rather than a full fledged MMO.

MMO implies large scale, like thousands of players, but it doesn't necessarily make it a fun game because to achieve that scale you need to cutback on the content that you most likely crave in the first place.

A virtual world on the other hand could be as small as a hundred players max online at a time(which would still be a huge accomplishment). With a smaller world you can spend more time on customization and those special mechanics you feel are missing from the cookie cutter RPGs, so that the experience for those 100 players is special and worth remembering.

A single person can make a large world, but it will likely contain vast swathes of blandness which is not going to attract a userbase.

 

It is pretty similar to the many RPGs where creators always insist on turning your character into "chosen one".
Probably related to "power fantasy" type of games and games where developer really wants player to feel "special" for some reason.

Reminds me of "Action games vs Darksouls" comic.

 

Farelle,

When I saw the title to your thread, I knew what was going to happen.

A few things you said here stood out....

Great! So you are doing this because you want to do it. You don't care how long it takes you, which is very good because it will take you a long time, especially if you do it alone. But that is okay.

Exactly. So ignore the naysayers. I do not know why they feel the need to tell everyone they can't do something. If you fail, then you fail and it is part of your learning process. But if you succeed at making something that you want to make, then wonderful. There will always be people, many of there here, who will tell you that you cannot do it, that you will fail, and that you "don't know what you are doing". Ignore them. Surround yourself with supportive people.

I get it..because I am there as well. We have a small team and are making a small MMO. I do have experience, unlike you, working on a team (a very large team) and a few other MMO's, but as a writer. We started seriously about a year and a half ago to make our MMO....I like to call it a Mini-Mo, since we have no desire to have 100k players.

I am sure I got the same flack as you did, but I guess I have proven myself somewhat over the past year or so on the Unity forums because they seem to leave me alone now. lol

And..there is one big difference. I don't feel the need to come on the Unity forums and get support from other people here. I know that if I work hard enough, give myself enough time, surround myself with people who believe in my goal, then I will succeed. That doesn't mean that we have a 100% chance of being successful, it just means that we will continue to move steadily toward our goal, which at the moment, is all we want.

If you look around, you will find that some of the very people that tell you that "you can't do it" have also had failures. There is no guarantee. However, doing this for yourself means you can never truly fail...because just the learning and the growing means success.

Feel free to PM me and maybe we can connect. I welcome young women to this field. I have two daughters who like you are artists and I am grateful to people who have helped lift them up.

Ignore the naysayers...it doesn't matter what they think. Listen to the people with good advice and experience. You will learn a lot.

 

It never was your problem. But you are never afraid to tell us how wrong we are. Good for Farelle.

 

whenever I hear, that MMO aka Massive multiplayer online would means several thousand or hundred thousands of players, I am a bit baffled since no MMO I know has actually allowed that many players on the same server ever, but what do I know

If "small MMO" or mini- Mo is the more acceptable term I'm okay with that

and thanks for turning the discussion more pleasant now, I already started to get worried that this is not the right place to talk about game development, except you have already years of experience and know exactly what you want to do or have very specific technical questions.

I wanted to get out here, on the forums, publicly, because I was hiding too long, not getting in contact with people really, because I was always afraid that I would be titled as "just a dreamer" "naive" and "unrealistic" when all I want is people to talk about game development and how much I enjoy learning

It was bad enough that I was disappointed in my own studies, because they wanted professional results and everyone to stick to a single profession/try to be more real world- worklife oriented, when all I wanted was learning as much as possible, but only a few were actually supporting it...

I love games

 

That all makes sense to me.

In many ways I don't really care much for multi-player games. As far as just playing online with a bunch of completely random people that inevitably include a lot of butt-heads who do more to ruin a game than anything else. Some games seem to attract those types far more than others.

I do like multiplayer as far as being able to play something like Diablo 3 with my cousin. We've spent hours in there and definitely would not play the game nearly as much if it was just playing the game alone. These games provide a game world where we can interact with each other inside that world. Very basic interaction but still enough to be meaningful. As simple as "hey come over here and look at this flippin elite pack I found" or "Goblin!!!" and even occasionally "holy &^%$%$ HELP!"

Definitely there is no reason to not build your MMO. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders as far as realizing you need to break it down. That is the key. I've never made an MMO but the key to all things is just break it down.

The asset store seems to have a lot of stuff that you could use. Inventory systems, path-finding, character controller, even world building and dialogue/quest management. Might be a pain to get them all working together and some might have bugs or otherwise be in need of customization to offer exactly what you need. Still they'd be a good foundation. Probably saving some time.

I think a lot of times people just use the term MMO and, like you mentioned in another post, they don't really mean a grand WOW-like game as it stands today. They just mean to build that kind of game experience on some scale. And that is possible. Nobody is going to build WOW in a year or two. Including the real developers of WOW.

Sometimes I think the people here forget that such games didn't just come out and were instantly at the point they are now. Most games don't. They are continually improved over time. In some cases over a long period of time. And making something equivalent to what they had as their starting point is certainly doable by one person these days. Content will be your biggest need I think. And there is plenty of that on the asset store.

I've suggested to others with this goal to just build one small area. One little town. If you can get just one town alive and working that is a fantastic foundation. Then you can add in quests, navigation, combat and such in the area outside that town. Now you'd have two of the main chunks complete albeit in miniature. Then maybe you add a cave in the outside area that leads down to an old dungeon. You get all of that area completed. Now you have building blocks to create a full-scale game world. Customizing towns, outside areas, caves and dungeons.

Just take it a piece at a time and it will be very doable. Just time-consuming.

Good luck! I hope you stick with this and build your game and share updates with us along the way

 

Mini-Mo is my made up term! Feel free to use it though, maybe we can start a new trend. lol

I get that. However, realize that many of these people just are not very good with words, some are rather shy and awkward, most in a good way though. Some just like to tell everyone, especially newcomers, how they should do things, even though many have never published a successful game themselves. Ironic, yeah.

Regardless of their curmudgeon ways, their "know it all attitude", their inability to see that dreams are a good thing, I still love them.

The Unity community, for the most part, is a wonderful group of people, overwhelmingly men though and overly protective. I guess they feel the need to protect new gamers from themselves and don't get that it is reaching for those stars that helps us to learn.

Maybe it is because so many are fixers, and want to solve our problems rather than let us jump off the cliff.

I must say, I am this far because of them.

 

Exactly! People are quick to point towards World of Warcraft and it's peak of twelve million subscribers, but they fail to consider the actual number of concurrent users per realm. According to data collected by Realm Activity the average number of players per server is about three hundred with the peak being about five hundred.

 

I don't know... Wurm Online was made by 2 man team (Notch and some random guy) and is quite successful MMO (by successful I mean being able to both pay the server bills and pay its creators something on top of that).

 

that seems a little out of context I was replying that to someone, because I really did not say that I will be forever working on my project alone Tbh I just leave it open, depending on how far I get on my own and how overwhelming it is and I took wurm online as an example of groups that are smaller than what is generally to be perceived a good size for a proper MMO, but they still pulled it through.
Btw. "that random guy", his name is rolf and he is in charge of that game now, for quite many years and quite successfully.

 

Now I'm just picturing a multiplayer where everyone plays a dwarf in Snow White.

I just read an interesting article about how many AAA studios that spent years putting multiplayer into their games are now releasing the next iterations as single player as they found fans engaged more with a good storyline & replayed & talked about the game more.

 

I can believe this....which is a total 180 on how I felt when I was younger. Back then when I had tons of time to game I was all about the multiplayer games. Now that I am "old" and have kids and family to take care of multiplayer is just frustrating more often than not with some exceptions.

Just got Star Wars Battlefront for the PS4 which is 90% multiplayer(no campaign) and my wife was laughing at me when I was playing because I get insta-gibbed by someone I hardly ever see 10-60 seconds after spawning each time...I probably won't get much play out of this gorgeous looking game.