Intresting post about developing an MMO
I found an interesting post about creating MMOs and, well, where the shortcomings come from, and why they are considered so complex but that they don't have to, necessarily, be done by a team.
Post on MMOs (Stack Exchange)
P.S. Please read more than the first couple answers
Post on MMOs (Stack Exchange)
P.S. Please read more than the first couple answers
Thanked by 1Tuism
Comments
Have a look at what this guy has done alone, it is honestly unbelievable
Whenever someone handwaves a problem away with a glib dismissal that doesn't demonstrate any understanding of the real causes of the problem, you know it's not going to work. Some of those (like the :"Oh, just use AWS!" one) were pretty classic ;)
Pointing out that something incredibly rare does happen, doesn't help you replicate that thing yourself. Everyone always seems to want to believe that they're somehow the ones that are just about skilled and dedicated enough. The ratios of people who believe that vs people who actually do succeed are so tiny as to imply no useful correlation between the two.
“We're taught that in life, we should try to look on the bright side. Not in this case. In this case, assume rejection first. Assume you're the rule, not the exception. It's liberating. But we also know it's not an easy concept. -He's not just into you”
(original: following that rule how did people first get into coding or game developing, many people make games not many of them are famous or make buckets of money)
@dislekcia good ^^, as you probably guessed I like being optimistic (to a fault sometimes I guess XD)
@dislekcia and @Tuism may ask what language you code or prefer to code in?
I guessing there is a bit of a mix up here, I'll give an example, if you created a tick tack toe game and you have it play with two players locally, expanding it to allow people to play together on LAN (or even through the internet) is almost as simple as expanding the programs ability to send and receive data and exposing the ability to mark which has been selected, which might not qualify your tick tack toe game as an MMO but it's a basic example of how a single computer game could be expanded to be playable across PCs.
For example coding methods for communication in Java is as simple as using sockets (can't speak for languages like C++ but I think you can use RAKnet? there) also when people mention a MMO the general assumption is made that you want some high functioning game, it doesn't have to be so, it can be as simple as having different balls rolling around the screen that each person controls. Like the people there said, it's not hard to code the basic fundamentals for an MMO (e.g. raw framework for connecting and basic communication, like a text MMO) but it is hard to create a MMO people would want to play (e.g. WoW with its thousands and thousands of quests, etc).
The major thing is that those small steps each took an amount of effort, attention, skill and vision that almost makes a mockery of the size of that step. Almost. But only if we look back from our spots on the escalator that's been built over those steps and forget what it was like before the escalator, before the path. Before the mountain we're trying to climb was even known to be a mountain (and not, say, a hill or a pomegranate).
And with our 7 league boots, we forget that we still need to take steps. We can run with the help of tools, but we can't jump to the top of the mountain... Running needs agility and balance and you have to know where you're going and be able to stop and turn around if necessary. Experience makes bigger games out of smaller games. Experience is what you get each step.
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And don't get confused between the ease of opening a connection between two computers and the complexities of what data you send over that connection. My first game industry job happened because I'd written a networked game (well, I'd managed to write a bunch of networked games and the most recent one didn't totally suck) so I got hired to build the multiplayer for a PSP game that was being ported from PS2.
Every networking tutorial for games tells you how to connect machines together. Rarely do they tell you what you should send and, even more rarely, why. Some games are relatively simple, granted, but as soon as your complexity increases on the timing sense, even a little, things very quickly escalate - so many edge cases and issues are caused by trying to make two different computers share the same time progression.
Those people who said it was easy to code the "basics" of an MMO, have you checked to see if they've actually written any MMOs? Are you making assumptions about MUD networking, or have you actually played with a MUD framework (DIKU is pretty nice to get started with, if you're interested - it has the best crash recovery systems I've ever seen) and messed with something that does fixed tick updates? I'm not trying to dissuade you with all this, just maybe point to the milestones along the path that you're not seeing right now - how else are you going to run it? ;)
if you dont know about it :)
IF that's what you mean (cos I really can't read anything else from what you're saying, and if I'm wrong please correct me), then you haven't read our very-important FAQ (http://makegamessa.com/discussion/749/read-first-the-makegamessa-faq#Item_1) :) Game dev is NOT a bucket of money goal. Game dev is a passion goal.
And then the answer for how did people first get into coding etc was because they want to and they were passionate about creating engagement and creating play and blah blah. There are many reasons and no two person are the same.
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I learned Game Maker starting from a year ago, I'm planning to move onto Unity. I'm by no mean expecting to "make bucketloads of money". In fact if I know that if I pursue this game dev thing seriously I can expect to be living a lot less easier than I am now for a long long time. And I'm kinda fine with that. But yea, who doesn't want to maximise their earning potential? Of course I'll make money if I can, and I want to learn how to make more money off this passion, but I certainly am not doing it for money.
I can haz a MMO :P
For real, one thing in this thread that I would like to know more about is @dislekcia and what it is that you ported to PS2 from PSP? You sound like a super interesting person sir!
I was toying with the idea of having online play built into "my basic platformer," but never stopped to think about the actual work involved.
A friend of mine is starting in Game Maker for a 2D game, while I have created a 2D game in Java using LWJGL (mainly just missing story line (have a very basic one)/art/level design but other than that it's fully playable), and the reason I'm saying that MMO development in it's most simplistic view is not that hard is because of my own experience (e.g. NDO has a fully working server which listens for commands through dynamic class loading lending it to easily become a text based MMO)
I totally get where you're coming from about more complex games being easier to make now and you're totally right. It's just that MMOs are not a great place to start with that logic - yes, they may be simpler to build than they used to be, but they still have many more problems than single-player, same-screen or even session-based network games. All I'm saying is work your way up to them, that's all. There are some pretty out there assumptions in this thread ;) Eh? What's the logic behind that statement?
Do tell me though where my assumptions are wrong