I plan on making an MMORPG

#1 1. Is there a public library that has internet access. Spending as much time there using the internet (legally) can save you thousands of dollars a year. You would not have to worry about your home service getting disconnected.

2. I do not mean to sound sarcastic, but get a good paying day-job. That really helps pay the bills. (Y'know the rent, gas, electric, food) It is difficult designing, developing a game while living on the street.

3. If you can afford books, pick up one on C++ programming (now adays, people might lead you into C#, Lua, Perl, etc.) Spend as much time as you can in libraries on these languages. Don't waste time trying to learn all of them. Pick one you like and stick with it, and fake your way around the rest. (I myself reconmmend C++, especially if you're going with Torque.) However, they all have some good points.

Some FREE IDE's you can start with are MS Studio Express from www.Microsoft.com. It contains C++, C#, Visual Basic, and a Web Development tool. Another one is Dev-C++ from www.Bloodshed.com

A book I know on RPG's (not neccessarily MMORPG's) are Programming RPG's with DirectX. I forget the name of the author. Alos look for a book with Muliplayer in the title. I also know there is book for the Torque engine that describes how to design multiplayer games with the Torque engine.

I wish you the best of luck!

#2 I wrote a thread on making MMORPGs here which details some of the pitfalls people run into in trying to create and MMO and get a team together. Since you're looking at fairly simple mechanics and a 2D setting, we can modify things slightly and say this:

1) You have skills and classes and towns- but what about lists of MOBs, NPCs, items, and mockups of the GUI? Understand that the largest bit of work for an MMO of any kind are the lists of assets that need to be created for the task.

2) Another good book on MMO creation I read is Swords and Circuitry. It's old, but he makes a lot of points that I tried to keep alive in that thread- it's all about assets and lists.

3) I know you're 16, but even so, if you're going to work with anyone else, get a Work For Hire and NDA agreement together and have teammates sign it. You don't want someone leaving your project and taking what they made with them, which effectively resets that portion of the work.

4) Get the free version of TGB and play with it. Learn Torque Script and that will help you with C++ (Torque Script is known as a typeless C language, which makes it very flexible and easier to learn than C or C++).

5) Be prepared to work. A lot. Even if you don't do the coding, there will be no shortage of work.

Hope that helps.

#3 Thanks you two! That really helped. I'll go to the library sometime this week and read those types of books and take some notes. This is pretty much my career path and I think it's time to start working towards it. And I've had many people tell me that this is going to be very difficult, especially if no one is helping me. I'm going to try to get my friend to help me (he knows a bit about C++). Again, thanks, this really helped!

By the way, when you say GUI do you mean some sort of HUD?

#4

Quote:when you say GUI do you mean some sort of HUD?

Yep.

#5 Alright cool, I'll get to designing that~

#6 Interesting enough 2 work on MMORPG, I plan 2 do the same but only as a starting idea. I really do suggest books on game programming like CJW said (has many of my own) they really help alot...well for me any ways. Studying on a specific language you like is recommended as C++ is most preferable these days. Make sure the game is well thought of with desings (you seem to have that),game interface (game controls), and many other aspects required.

#7 Just remember MMO games are the most work out of all games (although I would imagine that 2D would take a large part of the work out with bugs and what not)

You may want to consider looking in the jobs section of here and the gamedev.net forums and see if you can find some help online :)

#8 Also, some advice on prototyping. What I used to start building core gameplay functions was to use Excel, since you can strip away any distracting math and do all the skills, leveling, casting, damaging, dice-rolling stuff in there, usually without touching the Visual Basic side of it (you might have to if you want to loop things, but the math formulas are usually fine in Excel). If you don't have Office and don't want to pay, I believe Open Office is free, and there is also the Google version.

Once I had that done, I brought stuff into TGB and prototyped there, including my conversation system, which helped me run through a couple of iterations of how that works. Again, it was all with features in mind and had nothing to do with graphics.

Next, I moved into TGEA/T3D and prototyped in that with programmer art (none too shabby, but not production grade) that I could test against. Stock T3D art is good for that, and cheap/free modeling apps are good for making cubes and whatnot to stack in the testing level, because you don't need it to look good at first, just work good.

#9 I have to be careful when I write this, because it almost infringes on copyright law.

But to add further to what Mr. Southard said about prototyping, if you don't already know the math involved, a good place to find the math is one of the many source books for D & D or RPG games, and use them as a guideline, as opposed to strictly copying from them.

I myself find it easier coming up with my own ruleset while not trying to copy from the books. (Though I did purchase R20 Modern a few years back)

#10 Agreed. You can pick and choose the kind of play that you want and modify it to your use, and viola! You have a new ruleset. I would recommend figuring out what kind of gameplay you want out of the game first before doing this, as I switched from an Anarchy Online style of skill points to a self-leveling skill system (sort of like WoW's tradeskills, but used for all skills). It will save you time.

#11 I believe there are a few open rule sets out there (don't recall the name(s) offhand though) that you could use. For the most part there are a variety of ways to do things and then you have to look at dealing with the RPG elements. Simple things like do you want your armor to cause a miss (Ala D&D) or do you want it to absorb/negate damage? A lot of different things with doing weapon attacks and deciding when a blow is landing and how much damage it will do. If you are using a more SciFi environment how are you going to handle guns and such. Best thing you can do is think out the structure as much as possible and then go from there. Or you could try an existing rule set that is open to being used that a few people are using that is somewhat balanced so you can focus on content creation instead of balancing out a rule set (which is very complicated, but you do get more freedom to design it how you want)

It is no easy road though as it has been something I have been doing for close to 10 years now and it is always evolving and different games come out that change the landscape of what a player sees as acceptable or modern and that also factors into some decisions. The other hand though I get some kind of odd amusement out of developing stat charts and balancing NPCs out. It is kind of like an artform at times.

#12 Thank you all for your information (: I might be going to a good game design school. I think I'd much rather do all the thinking and artistic part and get a job with a company then move from there and make my own game.

#13 Didn't read all the comments but about the C++, there's a very good tutorial on cplusplus.com It is also possible to download it in PDF format and print it out (That's what I did) It helps you understand the basics off C++ alot better. :)

#14 True that!!!

#15 also www.gameinstitute.com

#16 Hello Mel,

How are your ideas coming?

#17 Hello, For an rpg like that i would use RMVX engine for that. No scripting required and very easy. It has online play too. You can do all of the things you named above (classes,quests,etc.) in minutes.

#18 http://www.rpgmakervx.net/
Everything you would need to make the game would on this site if you choose to use the engine.But the graphics aren't that good but you can have really easy, fast development.

#19 Well Mel,

It's been about six months now. Any progress you'd like to share!

#20 Swords and Circuitry was written by Andre Lemothe, Neal Hallford, and Jana Hallford. I have a copy on my desk - very easy reading with breakout boxes detailing terms and concepts. ISBN 0-7615-3299-4