Yes... I know you told me not to but I have to try. MMORPG

So as you all know I respect everyone's professional opinions here and I have taken everything you wrote on that thread into consideration. It's still growing without control, guess a lot of interesting discussions started there and people trying to disprove each other lol. Programmers are passionate individuals.

I am not denying it's probably ridiculous to start building an MMORPG for my first project but I am doing it more out of extreme curiosity rather than "I want to make the best game for everyone and be a millionaire". I mean, that would be awesome but I know to keep my expectations realistic now.

I just wish you could direct me the right way to begin understanding how to build a platform for such a project. How to design such a game and where to get the resources for it.

This is a perfect example of what I want to make but better (without all the ads and pay to win system):

This is priority:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/wild_shadow/realm-of-the-mad-god
http://store.steampowered.com/app/200210/

This would be nice in the future:
https://terraria.org/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/259680/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/262060/


I know that if a game has pixel art it doesn't mean it's easy. I am not another kid who thinks he will create the next best mmorpg just cause he has a good idea. I am just curious about the process and I am a very hard worker and I already started studying C# and UnityScript like many people suggested. Also I am drawing every day and getting better at it every time I try. I don't work most of the week for the next couple of weeks so all I do is reading and studying and researching. If there's a will, there's a way.

Edit: Maybe a better idea would be to make a game like Realm of the Mad God without network capabilities and then add it later? I just want to know the process for an mmorpg project. How much can something like this cost me? Not just to biuld but to run regularly with proper servers in the US, UK, Canada and a European server.

 

The reason people steer newbies away from MMORPGs and similar projects isn't because they're impossible or even extraordinarily difficult... It's the complexity of all the parts together and the sheer volume of parts that need assembled.

It'd be much easier to approach this idea if you're not also learning the Unity interface, programming methodologies, animation, game state management, networking, UI, audio, lighting, modeling... Anyone trying to explain MMO-level stuff would either have to explain all that kind of stuff as well.

The fact is... If you make it through learning all the basics, you probably won't need an explanation on how to make an MMO, because your experience will point you in the right direction. You'll have picked up the skills you need to succeed and know where to go to learn those you don't have yet.

No matter how hard a worker you are, how big a dreamer, or how fantastic your idea, there's just no substitute for experience.

 

Last time I investigated into server hardware the cost was hundreds of dollars per month for dedicated servers. This was some time ago though and Cloud computing wasn't quite as widespread at the time.

 

Very well put. Ok well, if this is as clear cut as you said it then I will drop this for now. I just wanted to know the process, but if I won't be able to understand it at this point, I rather not waste everyone's time. Thanks for a great explanation.

Ye I was afraid of that. See I wanted to make a game for very cheap. I deserve it as the person who made it but the community deserves my first game to be free or very cheap since Indie game developers are the ones who are there to help me grow. Plus I am not greedy, and if a good game is cheap, you will probably make more.

Cloud computing has developed a lot even in the last year, I work with Cloud Computing a bit.

 

To add to my first post and perhaps more directly answer the question:

- I would NOT recommend building a single player version and adding in multi later. That just sounds like a nightmare, as I'm sure @Tomnnn would agree.

- Server costs can widely vary, depending on how you handle it. If you're writing your own server application to manage games, you could run it on any number of VPS services. But you get what you pay for, and the cheap ones will fail you when you need them most.

 

This is why people told you to start smaller, if you have no idea where to start then you should start somewhere else. Also, posting "tell me how to make a mmo", doesn't show a lot of personal motivation. I can almost guarantee you that noone who frequents this forum has completed an mmo solo, so noone here can offer you the advice/insight you need. You're most likely on your own in your quest.

 

You seem more level-headed than most, so don't be put off too much. Just know that people aren't telling you not to do it just so they can steal all the MMO glory for themselves or anything.

Go through, like, ALL the tutorials and just tinker around as much as you can. Make a few basic projects and see how you feel about your MMO in a few months.

 

Better yet choose projects that will teach you the knowledge you need to know to eventually make your MMO. This doesn't necessarily mean jump straight into multiplayer games, but you should eventually make some. You could also work with server-side code in a more passive way such as tracking player scores and creating leader boards.

 

Good point. Try an MO before a MMO.

 

Ye I was expecting it to be more complicated but I think I will just build a game like that for single player. When I know enough to create an mmorpg, I can do it all over again and better.

What about LAN? If I only want it to be playable as multiplayer on a LAN network or even Split Screen, is that also complicated?

Ye I guess I will worry about the servers when I am ready for an mmorpg project.

Ye I am not saying anything against that. It makes total sense. I am just extremely eager but I also know when to pull myself together and start from the bottom. I am not arguing that everyone here is right. Sure, there are the odd genius people who can do it and some with little issues but I doubt I am one of them lol. I guess we will see after I finish a couple simple games. By the way, I didn't want to do this totally on my own but I just didn't want a huge team. I would love to work on my own but I don't think I am there yet.

I totally understand no one is here to put me down and steal the glory haha. I have an uncle who is a very successful programmer and he is very harsh with me. It doesn't put me down but makes me stronger and more eager. Sometimes too eager for me to realize I am shooting to far. Since my first thread on this forum, I have read/viewed more programming tutorials than I have in my entire life. I became a basement mole haha. I started buying and playing games more for the learning experience rather than enjoying the gameplay only. I really want to create a game like Realm of the Mad God; even if it is single player.

This is great advice with a great example, I shall research how to get it done.

 

Understand, I'm not trying to dissuade you from your dream. I'm in the middle of a procedural zelda clone with wc3 style maps, so I understand the want to take on big projects. My only point is that asking the unity forum how to make an mmo is probably not going to yield very good results. You'll find a lot of posts by me in my history, but none of them ask "How can I make a procedural zelda clone?". I had a good idea of what I wanted, and I did a lot of googling to figure out how to implement it.

 

That's definitely a good way to go, then. You'll probably even be able to reuse certain parts from the single player version, so it wouldn't be starting over from 0.

That said, I still say DO all the tutorials first. Reading/watching stuff is one thing, but actually going through and creating objects and writing code is much more powerful. And don't copy-paste anything... Write it all out yourself. Then do it again, but this time from memory and not from copying them. Then extend the projects the tutorial guided you on and add new features you think of.

And THEN start on your single player MMO.

 

Ye I didn't take any offence I know it's always better to ask more direct questions rather something vague like I did. I just have so little experience which made me go that way. Which was the main reason you suggested I take it easy and not jump straight to a huge MMO project. I'd love to see your game when it's ready.

Ye I can't wait to get started. When I said I was reading and watching tutorials I should have probably mentioned I have been actually writing code too. Mostly broken code but I am getting better with every error. What about making it LAN or Split Screen. Is that also something a beginner shouldn't attempt? When my game is ready, you guys will not have to pay the $9.99

I am working with Tiled right now. What kind of art tools do you guys use?

 

If you really want to do this, start with a mini-MMO.

A simple protoype or room that has people inside walking around and chatting. Add in a login system, and perhaps some basic inventory and trading.

Just getting to that point, and getting your architectural design solid to support that will be a step in the right direction.

If i had to make an MMO today (I've worked on 11 published game titles as a Unity developer), I would go with something along the following architecture...

uLink with PikkoServer for realtime multiplayer. PikkoServer is very expensive but just plain uLink as second option.
Gamesparks for authentication and player data/inventory management
Amazon EC2 instances for servers. With regional clusters in Europe and the US.

From your mini-MMO you could keep iterating and adding on features.

One big fail I see with a lot of MMO's in the early stages from noob developers is they tend to focus on creating this massive world with beautiful scenery * cough check out the Unreal 4 forums cough * and plaster these images all over the place, yet you never see any gameplay, there is all this hype about the game, yet the developers haven't even showed prototypes of their combat or crafting systems.

Don't fall in this trap and buy hundreds of $$'s worth of assets in the asset store. Go and build prototypes of your main in-game systems first. Get free models for it and get the logic working first. Building the environment and the shinies is the easy part, after that everything gets a lot harder.

 

Thank you so much Meltdown. You really inspired me. All of you guys. I cannot stand games which fooled you by looking like the next best thing but all it ended up being is a mirage of something that's not there. I have even stumbled upon games on steam which are copy paste from the Asset store which made them look and feel like Ass.... I am still going to start with single player and post it here for you guys to bash me hahaha and then my first MMO attempt, I will do as you said, Meltdown. Once again, thanks a lot!

 

Don't hack your MMO onto your single player game though.

Start afresh, but take what you learnt in your head from the single player game into the MMO.
The MMO development needs a completely different mindset.

When a collectibe plant spawns in your MMO, it needs to be spawned by the server. the server is the owner of this plant, which notifies any clients and now tells them to render that plant on the screen. This plant instance will have an ID from the server.

If the client picks up that plant, you would send the plant ID to the server along with the playerId having collected it.

I'm not sure if you would implement this sort of logic in your single player, but as you can see the logic can be very different. And what if two players collect the plant at the same time? How do you resolve that?

Some things to think about

 

You've just blown my mind. People here said that it's not that they don't want to help but that I won't be able to understand their advice since I didn't learn those concepts yet. I am a pretty logical guy and it's not like I have never programmed anything before so I understand what you're telling me. I just didn't think about that until you said it. I have so much to learn. Let's get started. It's almost 1AM so I can finish at least a couple tutorials/exercises.

And yes I am not usually a person who likes to take shortcuts. Those shortcuts make the road longer and you end up with more bruises lol. There is a smart failure and an unnecessary one. I like to create everything I do from scratch. Like math... If I am stuck, I start over on a blank page. Same when I write music or program something.

 

Someone on here did some estimating and figured to make a decent one it would wind up costing 20k+ (all 3d tools and everything) and take up a good part of your life. 2d pixel art is very time consuming. It's really down to math. If someone says they want to make an MMO, they tend not to think of it by what it is... basically starting your own business.

Besides, when it's done... what would you do with it? Pay thru the nose to keep it online until you have to shut it down?

There's better ways to spend a year's worth of time and wages

 

20k seems a bit (i.e. a lot) cheap. I'm working on multiplayer card game, much simpler than an MMO. The funding I'm asking for for the peer-to-peer proof of concept, without paying for my own time, is more than double this.

 

Another MMO thread..

I seriously think some one from Unity should put an official post about costs of an MMO, and what means to do one, just to show some kind of authority.

 

I'm actually working on an MMORPG right now (me making an offline role playing game).

 

Haha, good one!

 

20k for software licenses to develop the game perhaps. That's how far 20k will get you.

Then you need to think about staff costs, server costs etc etc.

I'd ballpark a decent entry level MMO at $2 million.

 

Entry level, good said.

Honestly, If I would have the money to start and MMO, I will think a bit more if shall I put them in MMO considering today market, is very risky that you will get anything in return. As you can see almost all MMO turned to F2P, and even WoW is in trouble.

I would probable invest the money in something else, less risky.

 

If you do start making games & want feedback check the Friday feedback held for 2 weeks on & 2 weeks off in the game design forum thread. It's just opened again if you wanted to check out what others have done, provide feedback & read what the other feedback is. It's daunting, I posted one out of curiosity & the feedback was polite & most importantly it was useful. People suggested changes for things that I never saw as issues after being so close to it for so long, but the changes were needed once they were pointed out & I stopped & actually looked at them.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9b5rsaXNB-KVXhxU0NobWRHVmc/view?usp=sharing

@Schneider21 it is done. Behold, a singleplayer game that was turned into multiplayer!

notes:
-WSAD to move
-when you first start it, press 1 to host the server
-press 2 on other instances to join as clients
-the game only starts when 4 clients are connected (so you need to run 5 instances )


There. Synchronized multiplayer where the players and level do not have any networking components anywhere. I made a monster

 

I think the reasons are outlined over and over again in every post someone makes about making an MMO. This thread is adding to that, consider this an unofficial warning for making unnecessary threads, next time it's a real warning.