Which part of creating an Indie MMORPG is impossible?

Every single person says its impossible, but why? They never say why, or in what way?

Is it the amount of 3D Assets needed?
the networking interface?
the physics engine etc?

which part is impossible?

If I have a library of assets, and work on expanding it to get nearly all the assets I need.
If I learn more and work on the physics engine
If I then hire a coder and have a friend to help me, and learn myself how to code a bit and work on the game mechanics.
If I have a fully made game, a full list of assets needed, all the gameplay mechanics, storyline, scripts down, every name of NPCs, mobs everything down and made via Maya/3DSMax/Blender/ZBrush...
If I have shaders, lightings, fluid simulations
If I have full Audio, Voice actors
If I have artwork, advertising down, marketing, gameplay, trailers etc

Why is it impossible? Can't I hire someone for the networking etc? Which part is impossible?

 

I dont think an indie MMORPG is impossible by any means, if you have the knowledge its definitely achievable. There are many examples of huge games that are indie, take Minecraft as an example. The only thing i would not recommend is to get on a really big project if this is your first time, its a typical mistake among game developers and most of the time things that start as good projects end up not getting finished.

 

Nothing is impossible if you have the will and the way.

 

Maybe not impossible, strictly speaking. It's just a lot of work which requires proficiency and it's unlikely any sane person would really want to do such amount of work without a well funded team of professionals. And when (IF) it's done you would have all the marketing and maintenance issues etc.

 

I never said alone, I meant with a small team.

Also how do you learn to become "a professional"? What do you need to learn? Are there courses?

Marketing I got covered

 

Not impossible... not easy, but not impossible.

You seem to have a reasonably firm grip on the situation. Know your strengths, and weaknesses, and what you can hire/pay for.

Go for it, there's nothing holding you back.

 

It's not impossible but not easy by any stretch. Generally the people who want to make a MMORPG are very limited in their knowledge, almost ignorant to the amount work needed.

I know hardly anything about mechanics and what if I went on a forum and said "I'm going to make a super super fast road car, where do I start?" I'd get exactly the same reception as many developers do on here.

 

I understand what you mean Josh, but it's still possible to do, I am looking for someone to point me in a direction of where I can start.

I want to jump into the MMORPG 3D Project, I do not want to make boring 2D Games or android games or something.

 

So what's stopping you? Get to it! Start with getting your server-client architecture up and running so you can at least have two clients connected to the same server and see each other. That's a long way from an MMO, but it's the very basic first step.

Don't know how to do that? Then it's a perfect start for you - go read up on how to make this happen.

 

Sounds good guitarxe.

Any idea which software/plugin for Unreal or whatnot will be best for network architecture? or all custom coded?

I am aiming at getting 256 people / map.

 

If someone is asking those questions, it is realistic to say that it is almost impossible, due to a lack of experience. It is very unlikely that someone who doesn't see the difficulties will have the passion to finish it.

 

It's not impossible. You just have to spend a lot of time learning the API of some cloud systems which is a pain. It's a big headache all round.

For example you could make your MMORPG on Google App/Cloud Engine. Or using Google Play API. Or lots of things.

Just keep it simple. Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry simple. As in hardly a game at all. Then you can add user requests once it's done! Good luck!

I'd say the hardest bit would be implementing the subscription service. Then dealing with complaints from customers who forgot to cancel/the game went offline and lost their scores/ etc. Nightmare! And if you made it free and a million people played it you could be saddled with a big bill from the cloud company!

 

But thats what i don't get, then who makes the thousands of MMOs out there?
Who made RUST? etc?

Why isn't it possible?

If you mean it's not possible given my current knowledge well thats obvious. But is it impossible to learn while doing?

 

When you don't have the experience and knowledge: "Everything is possible in life" !
When you have the knowledge: "I'm not enough crazy to start working on a project that will took me several life time to complete or several hundred of thousand $"

Pepole have no clue how much work making a game require.

Making a game is as hard as building your own house when you never did something like that. And you can be pretty sure it won't be a palace the first time.
Making an MMORPG is like making a 30 floor building alone...

And yes it may possible to build a 30 floor building in your life with your hand.... Believing you won't give up after 2 years of work, and leaving you with a pile of wood or stone, is very optimistic!

 

Shouldn't you be over at the UE4 forums?

 

I am at the UE4 forums, they aren't as active.

So I should just give up? What if I get funding to hire a team? I will see

 

From my point of view it is absolutely unrealistic. It is the overall complexity of the project that makes it impossible for someone without experience.
Making a multiplayer game that can be played online is already fairly complex. You need to have the infrastructure, you need to be able to react to issues. It would be nice if the server was properly protected. It is not possible to just hire someone for the networking. The networking needs to be tightly integrated in the code.
How do you plan to synchronize states of the players? Do you use a server-client solution? If you want physics, it needs to run on the server. Does the software even run on the server? Which data needs to be synchronized? How well does it scale? Can certain game play elements be changed, such that it becomes more scalable?

Don't even think about making an MMO first. The maximum you may achieve at first is an online multiplayer game.

 

If you think that you would lose interest in a smaller game, I don't see how you wouldn't lose interest in an MMORPG once you get down to the nitty gritty.

 

It's just more, more of everything. Artwork and network architecture has to be the biggest pain out the lot, or you just end up with an ugly empty world with nothing interesting and a small player base, you need more staff for the vast amount of proficiencies needed and most engines don't come with decent out the box support for this sort of stuff. There is a lot of back end modification which requires even more skilled developers..

MMO's are time draining / VERY expensive / never ending projects, which require a mass amount of skill. All that for the chance of it falling flat on it's face!?

I'm not trying to be rude, but it's one those questions if you have to ask you really shouldn't be attempting it.

 

It is not impossible, but you are certainly underestimating the amount of effort. Firstly - what is your skillset? Not coding, but can you at least provide art assets?

Second, the proper way to 'learn on your way there' would be to learn through making other games. Make that boring 2d game. And make another. Publish them - fail, learn, adjust, make more. The only way to gain the experience needed to make complicated games is by making simple games.

Or you can be like me, who already had a strong coding foundation and a reasonable art foundation, and unrealistically start with an epic multiplayer RPG (not even MMO, just 4 - 8 players), only to find myself starting over from scratch 3 different times and burning 2 years of time. Even now, after scaling back my scope and reducing to single player, I'm just now reaching a playable demo and full list of features - and thats with coder art. I now face the daunting task of gathering art assets, which are very numerous in an RPG.

If I had done smaller games first I know i could have avoided the pitfalls that I ran into that forced me to scrap things and start over.

 

It's not impossible but the people writing successful MMORPG's have lots of experience and usually diverse teams. Don't even focus on the networking or technical coding stuff, how long will it take you to model, texture, rig and animate one character/monster? Then tie those animations to code etc.

For me that takes a long time and I haven't even touched gameplay yet.

 

> Which part is impossible?


1. Funding your own MMO during the process of development.
2. Removing idea guys from the team

Examining the thoughts and process, filtering lies from the truth. I've never seen someone tell all lies. Getting rid of CEOs from fake companies, not entertaining cheats, not entertaining nonsense, and removing people with fake degrees.

3. Getting good artwork and models.
3b. Hiring good artists and modellers who will come to work, to work for you.

4. Learning from the mistakes of others (Ashes Cricket 2013, WinterKewl)
5. Using all licensed UnityPro during development (including licensed Maya, 3DMax, Photoshop, etc.)

6. Convincing others, that it's not a good idea to make a MMO, unless they can do it. It's better to make short games (quick results) rather than a very long and difficult game.

If you make a MMO and fail, you have nothing to show...

 

Armies of hundreds each. Okay, I'm slightly exaggerating. There are tons of Korean studios that get away with a lot less, but it's mostly because the tech is outsourced and maintained by other groups. There are still hundreds involved, it's just not in the immediate team.

I'm pretty sure rust isn't an mmo.

I'll refer you back to the armies of hundreds. Just take any mmo and hack off 99% of it. You might be able to accomplish just that much in five or so years.

To be the cynic that most devs become when they hear these topics, the first thing that anyone looking to get into game dev has to do is kill all illusions of grandeur. Knowing your limits and knowing what you can actually make means that you are far closer to actually finishing something.