This guy instead of asking how to make a MMO in Unity, actually did that.

Dunno if anyone posted about this, but here it goes:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/454070

Normally it costs about $5, but due to a sale being in effect... Anyway, I'll wait until the sale is over as I believe he deserves the full price for what he was able to achieve (judging from the vids I've watched). Graphics aren't too great, but gameplay is nice. There are no quests or story, it's a pure "make your own adventure" sandbox, kinda like Ultima Online (AFAIK the dev is a fan of it).

What are your thoughts?

 

Let's ask the important unity forom questions first
- how many years of industry experience he have
- what are the performance
There it's done

 

The videos I've watched didn't seem to have any lag or framerate issues, so I'd assume performance is okay. No idea about the other question.

 

Is it the same guy who put datcha server/client on the asset store?

 

Its been mentioned before. I was quite surprised to see the Made With Unity thread.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/boundel-mmorpg-steam-greenlight.387417/
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/boundel-open-world-mmorpg-has-been-released-on-steam.401377/

@nidaynere isn't very active on the forums. Which may be why he/she has the time to develop an MMO.

In one of the other threads it was indicated that the game spent 1.5 years in development, and that the dev had built five other games previously. None of the other games are on steam under the same developer.

 

Yeah. He definitely did a nice job on this game, it's quality work, I don't know if it's a good game or not, but he clearly put quite a lot into it. It's definitely not a asset flip.

His youtube videos go back to 2011 when he was messing around with ragdolls and actually had a pretty good prototype going, so he definitely had some experience. Looks like he also worked on a few other titles in the process.

Ambitious games can be made by solo devs. But there's a big difference between someone serious about it and the kinds of posts we all know... and love.

Kuddos to the dev. Looks like solid work.

 

Although not a case of a complete beginner completing & releasing any kind of RPG it's still impressive that he did it. I like how recently we are seeing some Indie devs using more common sense. Reminds me of that other guy who made the RPG "Hero".

In both cases they focused only on a subset of the aspects/features of a AAA RPG. Made sacrifices as needed cutting this and that, not spending 1.5 years just making graphics and so forth.

Cool stuff! And I agree congrats to the dev for getting it released. Hopefully it will be received well because 1.5 years is a good chunk of time. I still am not sure if it makes sense business-wise compared to releasing maybe 6 smaller games in the same time. But he probably got more personal satisfaction going this route.

 

I think so.

But then again... if he's the sole holder of all a MMO's profit... might just be a great idea.

1.5 years to make a MMO single handedly, is that a world record btw?

 

Yes, @nidaynere and @bisaniyehocam are the same individual.

 

Well as I recall from on of his threads he mentioned that he occasionally got some help from friends on the graphics side. I think that is entirely understandable though. The amount of content needed for a game like this is pretty massive. It does appear that he singlehandedly did the bulk of it.

And you're right. While 18 months is a pretty long time to me for game dev (on same game) for the kind of game he did it's certainly reasonable and most likely minimal. This is where having completed 5 other smaller games before tackling this one paid off. And is good evidence of that advice being sound.

 

He made a great game.
Anyway i don't like many undetaillled floor textures and the outdoor lacks unique places and feels empty.

 

Hi guys, yes I'm the same user with bisaniyehocam but this account for my Steam publisher.

About the game, of course I got help from friends while developing the game but not professionally, and mostly ideas, great ideas especially on the game design side.

About the 3d side,
Except some props (thanks to my friends), I bought the all assets from Asset Store.

Maybe this game have not potential (I know that ), but playable with friends for fun.
And the game's world will be richer when got released (still in early access)
I may start to make a different kind of games with this engine in the future, but currently working on another Steam title.

 

Heck you already did a great thing. You got the foundation established and it's out there so people can give you feedback that may help to make it more and more popular. Hopefully you have a real feeling of accomplishment from what you've done so far!

 

Boundrel is awesome, just spent 3 hours playing it. If you enjoyed what MMORPG's were before World of Warcraft, check it out.

Unforgiving brutal fun, still a little rough though.

 

I don't know... the market for such small games is so outrageously flooded.

 

It probably is for small games in general. I only know for the games I look for on Steam there are maybe 10 to 20 games total. Also, I think it is inevitable that everything will be flooded. We're already seeing people tackling these MMORPG games.

Now that it's started I think it will probably motivate more people to do the same and others to try to put more and more into them. I don't see people stopping development of all of these games. But I have wondered if some of the "leveling off" in quantity of game releases is because a % of people switched to making their magnum opus of a game. If so, we could see many "big" games coming out within the next year or two. Just my guess of course

 

Hey, thank you for the awesome game! I've already clocked in 8 hours, wrote a guide (my first steam guide ever, unless I am forgetting something) and plan on more. Also left you feedback on the steam forums.

//edit: When I've learned about the fact it was made with Unity, I had to make this thread. I've wanted to spread the word anyway, but this knowledge opened another vector of it.

 

Sounds like a potential niche that needs filling.

 

Another thing: I've noticed that there are very little videos about this game and those that are there are from smaller youtubers (<10k subs). Have you tried to reach to bigger youtubers that specialize in MMOs? Or just bigger youtubers in general?

 

I don't believe throwing it to the wolves in an early state is necessarily a good idea.

 

Yeah I've always "known" just because I knew I couldn't be the only person who enjoys such games. Steam just provided confirmation. But yeah any game tiny or big that a person likes there are sure to be other people who like the same thing. It may only be 5,000 people on Steam but if the development cost is also tiny....

 

Not trying to knock the amount of effort gone into this, so firstly well done.!

I'm noticing a repeating pattern and it kind of stuck with me after interviews I saw with Epic / Ubisoft. That the art pipeline today is the single biggest drain of time amongst anything else in more adventurous games, I'm parphrasing here but that's pretty much what they said.

Again, another game get's released using a bunch of pre-made assets. Not saying anything is wrong with that, but there's obviously a message here errm somewhere.

 

Honestly, the increasing availability of pre-made assets will be very disruptive to the game industry. It will let very small operations build out ever increasing quality.

We're already reaching the point where you can do very impressive stuff with off the shelf work. Quality will only go up.

 

I think the en mass needs to be much higher than it is today, I see Manufactura 4K packs literally sprinked everywhere.!

It's getting there though, I'm not doing every single little mesh ever by hand. Bit pointless really.!

 

Yeah at this rate I wouldn't be surprised to see an Indie game made by one or two people within a few years that is similar to Skyrim. Right now these devs are still making some heavy compromises but these problems will likely become less as time passes. Certainly the people making games like this one and "Hero" will already have a good foundation to build on so if they do a sequel....

 

It won't happen. The amount of detail and stuff in skyrim is tremendous.

"A big open world that is fun to play in" sure, something to a similar level of quality, detail and completeness to Skyrim. No. It requires many, many people.

There will always be a gap between small projects and huge ones, certain things that just require tremendous labor, or many individuals. But... not all games need all those details.

 

Similar to not exact. But maybe close enough the gamers will see them pretty much the same even though us devs won't. There is always that.

EDIT: Although I don't have an interest in making something like Skyrim due to the work involved I am impressed with these recent games. Mainly because they seem to have made good decisions allowing them to capture the essence of a big AAA RPG. Add in a quest system and it's made a big jump. Add in a randomized gear name and stat system that repurposes existing content and another huge step. I dunno... it will be interesting to see what they come up with.

 

Not just "dev stuff" - like all the voice work - novels worth of dialog. Actual books in the game that flesh out the back story. Fauna that makes sense and feels holistic. Interesting plot lines, well written characters and cinematic sequences. The level of detail in all those little rooms and caverns. The background character chatter. The scripted ai sequences. The quality of so many of those little areas and extra details.

It's not all just visual art.

That point aside, the quality of "open world" that you can build out through asset store stuff is not too bad, and will again, only go up.

 

What is the current state of text-to-speech for Unity?

 

And how much of it is really needed? Seems reasonable that if gamers only heard the voice acting from the major characters in the game or even at certain points it may be enough. Just because AAA goes overboard on all of these things doesn't mean it is a necessity. I suppose another option is for Indies to sort of crowdsource the voice acting to their fanbase if needed... "many of you have asked for voice acting so please sign up on the site for the role you would like in the game. Yes unlike Kickstarter projects your voice can be featured in this game for free!"

 

When you skip ^^^^^^^^^^^ and just read the goddamn reviews......

"Clunky and old. Sometimes you can play a game and within mere minutes know how bad it is.

This both looks and plays like a poorly made game from the early 2000s. Nothing seems well done. From poor animations, sliding NPCs, modern type fonts on "ye old" castle signs, everything screams "uninstall me".

In order to succeed an Early Access game needs something, ANYTHING, to appeal and get your interest. This has nothing to offer and is instantly forgettable."

6/7 People found this helpful. That's a majority consensus, folks.

And when your supporters are basically saying, "This is a good start" and "pretty interesting for the price but things need to change"... and you've basically only snagged the unicorns (early adopters who want to believe)...

Kind of should give you pause.

Leaves me actually impressed. I am glad he did something. But if he would have taken our advice and started with a smaller scope game that he could actually have done well, rather than something huge like this? Probably could have done something super sick. Then again, he did what inspired him... and look what he has done.

There's lessons here.

 

You may not even need that if you target the correct niche. Morrowind, for example, has very little voice acting. Speaking of Morrowind there is a video that explains why the game is still worth playing today.

 

The game may not be "there" yet but that's just the risk of people trying to tackle games of this scope. Or it could be he just hasn't effectively reached his target audience. From what I can see the game has a "Mostly Positive" rating and about 550 sales so far.

Certainly a tiny amount of return for 1.5 years of effort when we consider much smaller scope games generated many times that number of sales. But... it's not like it is the end. Only the beginning. Or at least that is what I was thinking. He'll need to keep on building. Probably revamp all of the content in time. Or maybe just do a better job of reaching the target audience (all of the other folks who would rate the game very positively).

To me the lesson is don't tackle a huge game unless you can produce something like this quick enough to be worth making about 1,000 sales. Or if you just want to do it for personal reasons.

Still he has released something that is selling on Steam that is way more than I have done. And probably many others around here too.

 

It absolutely will happen. At a core of skyrim is a 3d object kit. And the world of skyrim is made by fairly small number of people using said kit.

For example
http://sureai.net/games/enderal/?lang=en

The ONLY portion of the game an indie won't be able to compete with is voice acting, mocap and marketing budget.

So, as soon as someone can buy an object kit, they will be able to build skyrim-sized world with the similar level of detail.

 

Once upon a time developing pong required a genius. Now we can spit it out in a few minutes. Doom was once cutting edge. Now a decent dev could knock it out in a matter of weeks. Soon Skyrim will be in reach of single devs. Of course by that time the AAA standard will have moved on dramatically.

 

That said there are solutions for motion capture using Kinects. Haven't tried them myself but they have good reviews.

 

Kinect Mocap is pretty low end, I wouldn't use it. The Perception Neuron on the other hand delivers professional results provided the people using it know what to do with it. It's more expensive, but the results are worth the price.

 

After briefly using kinect demos in the past, I'm convincing that this can only produce horrible quality results.

If someone is in need of high-quality animations they could just borrow two video cameras, put them at 90 degree angle, film an actor with them, and then animate (by hand) in 3d via rotoscoping.

 

It won't be. A single dev can make a 2d metrovania right now, but he can't make Symphony of the Night. Some things just require an attention to detail and a completeness that better tools simply won't compensate for.

Crack open Symphony of the night and compare it to modern indie metrovania's - the attention to detail makes the experience deep and rich in a way that smaller modern indie efforts don't capture. "Kinda like Skyrim" sure, big open map. Nowhere near the same level of quality or completeness.

Anyway, I don't mean to derail the thread. I just have a lot of respect for Skyrim and similar works. I also have a ton of respect for small efforts like the one we're discussing. Just because it isn't Skyrim doesn't mean it isn't a tremendous accomplishment!

 

Alright, prove it. Prove that it is impossible.

I don't buy your argument and it sounds like one of those cases where people declare that something is "impossible" before even trying to do it. In the end, "is it possible" is not even right kind of question. The right kind of question is "how can I make this happen?"

 

That's far more affordable than I was expecting.

 

I loved Morrowind! Never could get attached to Oblivion and didn't even try with Skyrim.

 

Lol, come on man. Skyrim has 60,000 lines of voice acted dialog alone. I'm talking about the quality and level of completeness of Skyrim -the actual thing-, not the general concept of "big open world game". No, it cannot be done by one or two guys with any tooling we're going to have in the plausible future. Huge teams can lavish attention on small details even in a giant scope. Small teams can't.

 

I still don't any reason why it couldn't be done. Sure that's a lot of voiced dialog, but what's stopping the dev(s) from going to a local college and asking / paying for some local theater kids to do lines of dialog? (Seriously, why don't they? This seems like a really indie friendly way of getting voiced dialog that isn't just some awkward guy trying to role play.)

How do you define quality? Graphically can easily be done. Size can easily be done. Bethesda scale bugs can easily be done. (I'm upset from dying on FO4 survival to a terrain clipped Frag Mine last night.) Voice acting would take time and money, but could be done. Fine detailing could be done, although it would take a lot longer. Hell, all of Skyrim's 150 dungeons were designed by a team of only 8 people.

 

I refuse to "come on".

And? Here's a mod with 250 voiced npcs.
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/8429/?

See, I just don't like this attitude when people give up before even trying to do something. People very often decide that something is impossible, when their goal is achievable and the only thing they need to do is to start walking in the right direction.

 

As much as I love an argument (and simply can't resist) - I've already had this argument at length in the old "AAA in Unity" thread and some of the similar. Plus I think it's kind of disrespectful to the game we're discussing. Just don't paint the picture in huge strokes, look at the fine details. Everything from the UI, to the abilities, to the amount of clothing and equipment, to the huge voice acting, to the number of quests and cinematic sequences, to the scope of the ai scripting. I mean all the details, all the polish, all the scope. Two or three guys can't build something equal to Skyrim. In it's entirety. As complete. As detailed. As polished. As large. If you think they can, then we're just talking about different things or you haven't seriously considered or analyzed the details.

 

Why would you want to do this? I can never get why people feel the need to make games that compete with AAA games. There are so many cool stuff out there to do that are unique and different.

Skyrim's best feature, imho, is the AI. You can do this in a game with a small team. So use that as a centerpiece and build your game around it.

 

Sure, but for some people their dream game may very well be along these lines. Many of us have played at least the three most recent Elder Scrolls games and some of us have played every single one. I don't doubt there are concepts from each one that we enjoyed and those we didn't.

Over the years my "dream game" has shifted. These days it's not too far away from being my own Elder Scrolls game.

 

I don't understand this either. I may well just be the oddball but it just seems "off" to me... this growing number of people who seem to think Indies should be striving to create experiences as much like AAA as possible.

Probably because (perhaps the biggest) appeal of Indie games has always been that they were everything but anything like AAA games. This "bigger & better" drive just seems wrong to me. It almost seems like folks around here would prefer there to be no (different scope and quality) Indie games and instead just want more AAA style games only not made by AAA companies (or maybe that doesn't matter either).

 

Part of the problem is defining the difference between Indie and AAA.

Why can't an indie game not be quirky, why can't an indie game have a large scope, beautiful realistic graphics, etc? There isn't any real reason and setting these artificial limits isn't going to help anyone in the long run.

Finally, like @Ryiah said, these types of games are some people's dream games. They can either wait around for a AAA developer to maybe get close to the mark, or they can do go out and do it themselves.