New customer, Noob, and hobbyist MMORPG questions

#1 One thing is that after purchasing the engine you should make all posts in the private SDK forums.

Now oneto your questions.

1 - Yes its possible to make a MMORPG, but anything is possible when you have the code. Natively the engine supports upto 128 users.

2 - There is no native database code with Torque. There was a project to add it. The project had been dropped by those working on it but there was a resouce posted at click here I would recommend searching the forums and resource for MMORPG. You will see what people concluded and recommended before you. From books, to threads, to other random stuff.

3 - QuArk is used for interiors. The game Marble Maddness used it alot in its developement. You will also need a C++ compilier to change the Torque Engine for your needs.

4 - As I mentioned earlier you can search the resources on MMORPG and get a bunch of stuff including books.

But my best advice for you would be to not go the MMORPG route. Even at a hobby level you should think smaller in scope. There is so much to MMORPG beyond 3D Engines itself. Such as the database, servers to run, how do you get enough people to even make it worth having the ability to have >128 players. Nothing is more boring than logging onto a game that requires 100's of people to be fun and in the result its just you on a laggy server. (I have done that recently. Not good at all)


But even if you want to go forward and I am all for that. After all its a hobby so why not! I would still think in small tasks. Keep each small task meaningful so you have something to show at the end of the task. Maybe at first its to add your own characters to the FPS. Maybe its create the castle you want. Maybe its getting the dialog working correctly.

Hope that helps. I know others here will chime in. I have found GG boards to be very helpful.

#2 Absolutely agree with you 100%. Great reply by the way.

There are some things I forgot to mention which I guess would be more helpful as well.

I have a Visual Studio 6 all set up for compiling.

I am a professional network security engineer, which basically means I have some knowledge in ALOT of different things hehe.

My MMORPG idea is like I said "a total hobby" so there's no rush or stress or anything I need to piece together quickly. I have a lot of experience with TCP/IP and netcode which includes some socket programming (although it was for syn/udp flooding, which won't be terribly helpful in this endeavor).

The server isn't an issue right now because depending on size and number of people connected, it wouldnt take much. Later on I'll worry about load balancers, database performance, locks, etc. Right now though it'll all be on one machine.

I totally agree I need to think "small" at first. A castle is a great idea to start. It will be a long journey I have no doubt... I just want to be sure I'm starting off with the right sirst step (or the right equipment).

Thank you again for that great response.

#3 You might want to subscribe to MUD-DEV and/or vworld-tech - marvelous mailing lists to lurk on.

Torque's network technology is very nice. It's built on UDP, and with some tuning, should be able not only communication between clients but also across servers (if you do the shard thing).

#4 Forum search...

MMORPG


Speed searching

#5 Wish I would have searched more before posting heh. Thanks for the links.

Ok so from what I understand the "front-end" is great for an MMORPG, the "back-end" portion is lacking (database, client/server, .

So follow up question, I've been looking at NeL (http://www.nevrax.org) too. Is anyone currently working on a NeL/Torque engine/game? Or has anyone looked closer into the NeL/Torque framework to see how difficlt it may be to integrate (backend = NeL/Front end = Torque)?

I'm just trying to not have to reinvent a wheel.

I really have to laugh after asking about Torque and MMORPG's, everyone here must be really sick of it... thanks again for the responses (and for not flaming me).

#6 Sorry for the bad typing/mispellings, getting late here...

#7 Be careful with NeL...it is under a GPL license which is incompatible with TGE's license. You would be unable to use both in anything you released (like the client) but it might be possible to do something like have a custom relay server that the sit between the client and the NeL backend (which you wouldn't release). Just wanted you to be aware of a potential problem.

#8 Hrm, how did I miss MMORPG questions? ;)

OK, it sounds like what you want to do is basically make a graphical MUD, am I correct? If so, it's not that hard. Dbase functions are not hard to add to the Torque world; basic "persistance" functions in general are not tough.

You *will* need to have a good coding knowledge, and a knowledge of database application in C++ programming. Or know someone who does - our project's lead programmer has a great deal of experience with database integration with client-server systems, so this sort of thing is a snap for him.

To answer the direct questions:
1. Yes, but only if you have the above skills. Otherwise, you might be better off trying something with persistance code already integrated. NeL is one option, and someone has recently advertised a MMO engine built around BlitzBasic (http://http://www.mmorpgce.com/). I have NOT looked at it myself (yet), but it might be worth checking into for a small amatuer project. Another place to look might be http://www.worldforge.org, an open source project that is developing an MMO game system at a veeeerrrrryyy slloooooowwww pace. ;)

2. See Dan's excellent bit - nothing to add here.

3. I'll add a recommendation for The Gimp, which is nice software to handle a lot of your painting/texturing needs, and open source/freeware.

4. Books to look at of note are those from New Riders - they have an excellent book on the MMO industry and development called "Developing Online Games: an Insider's Guide", and another stand-out written by Richard Bartle called "Designing Virtual Worlds". Both great books.

Hope this helps, we're one of a couple teams working on a commercial MMO with the Torque engine as a base, so I'm always glad to answer what questions I can.

#9 First this is not a flame, just some things which should be considered when creating a MASSIVE project. This is also all personal opinions of someone who haven't created a MMORPG. I'm also very sceptical to indenpendent MMORPG development. That was my word of warning, now for the long rant I feel coming.

I'll start my ramble with summing up the words below in one sentence: I would seriously rethink the idea of creating a MMORPG as a commercial venture. I can see why you'd be interested in creating a MMORPG for personal research purposes but with a commercial project comes investments. You will pay for this kind of project with enormous ammounts of TIME. Time which will most likely be lost. Go into the project expecting to lose your investment and make sure your team mates feel the same way. There's nothing worse than ending up with an unmotivated team thanks to progress being unusually slow. Independent games usually suffer from sudden development stops. People lose interest when projects take far longer than expected. A MMORPG is never finished.

For some reason Planeshift comes to mind.
They've been in development for a long while now and it shows how much work people have to do in order to just get the basics completed. It's a project which have had some very talented people working on it since at least 2000 and they're seriously lacking in content. If you are able to pool the skilled people required to go as far as Planeshift has gone you will have invested a lot of their and your time. Even with today's substandard MMORPG release quality I would not say Planeshift is ready for commercial release. It is a great independent, unfunded project.

On the other side of the spectrum you have the Romanian(?) MMORPG Realms of torment which is as close as you can get to an independent MMORPG with some funding. They are working full time on this project WITH funding and yet they are forced to release it with minimal content. Reportedly they are around 20 people working 8+ hours a day since 2002.

Some people will argue that there are MMORPG's out there created by independent studios. The most successful one I can think of is Lineage. Anyone who played their early version will know that the game was very simple as far as content went and it was isometric 2D. It also did not show variations when characters changed equipment. All these things where carfully considered timesavers. The game was also released when the MMORPG market was far less saturated and everyone thought it would just continue to grow.

There is a reason why there are top-down or isometric, independently developed MMORPGs. Content development time will be shorter. 2D is slowly being phased out though and I seriously believe making a 2D game now will hinder your games success.

Development time on all kinds of games is steadily increasing as we move closer to "photoreleastic" games. Consider the ammount of content you will need for your game. Just looking at the models you will need, a standard animated character model will approximately take anywhere from 3 weeks to a month to get ready if worked on full time. I'd imagine you have at least 10-12 monsters designed in your document and at least 3-4 player models. These are actually normal non massive hack n slash style game numbers if you think about it. You're probably looking at far more in a massive environment.

Again, consider Planeshift, they are 25(!!) people in LEADER and MANAGEMENT positions. I would seriously consider joining an already established project if you are interested in learning how to develop a MMORPG. Take a month and work with one of the established teams just as a field study. If you are going to do this you need preparation for what lies ahead.

Continued further down

#10 If you still want to go ahead you might want to take your design and divide the ammount of content you have with 10. Then take a look at your planned number of clients for each server and divide it with ten as well, that should bring you to an acceptable ammount of 100 or so clients, which is natively supported by Torque but I am unaware of how well the torque server works with 128 clients connected and in the same zone. Take a look at the work done by Joshua Ritter on MMORPG's with torque. Also look at GORPE. Study those who have tried before you. GORPE is still active I think, join forces with them. You need to take shortcuts. If this is your first game project, incomplete ones do not count, then your ammount of content is most likely incredibly over ambitious. Everyone is over ambitious on their first projects. Scale your project down.

Please do not lead team members on by showing screenshots of Torque and saying you've gotten that far. It's an engine with years worth of development. With the ammount of rewrites you'll have to do, many parts of that work is null and void. Torque was not designed with MMORPGs in mind. It's an engine designed for games where quick response (i.e twitch games) is crucial. It was not designed to serve massive ammounts of clients. If you'd scale your project down so that you end up with a zone where ~100 people would be able to enjoy your game and get enough variety to keep playing, you will get some temporary funding to expand your game with. Design your game so that it is not repetitive by nature. Maybe have a few servers running different persistent zones where the static content is varied (ie caves, terrain, trees and so on). Use tricks in the same way Diablo did, ie wary monsters by changing skin color. Reuse content wherever possible. You'll need the saved time.

Anyways, if you actually read this thru you've got a lot more stamina than me and that will increase your chances of even reaching the prototype stage. Please do comment on where my views on independent, massive projects is flawed if you think I'm wrong. I'm here to learn.

Cheers,
Peter

#11 @Peter: I don't think your views are "flawed", since you raise many valid points.

I do have a few things to add, however:

Technology is catching up, even in the Torque world. Enough people need and/or want TGE to be able to handle a persistent world project that they're creating additions such as GORPE and Terrain Manager to help it along. Between that and the code snippets already available, you do save months if not a year or so in development time.

You are right on the fact that it's a huge project and a hard road to take, and I've been walking that road for about a year now. Not quite at a playable alpha stage, but I'm a few weeks away if things hold. It's not a project for the faint of heart, though, and before this year's worth of work, I spent 2 years working on the design docs.

On the other hand, and this is something I learned from Jay Moore at IGC that really stuck with me, because it was absolutely true: Why are we calling these projects Massive Multiplayer Online RPG's?? A more suitable phrase is Persistant World, which is the same thing, except it doesn't sound like you're trying to become the next Star Wars Galaxies. There are smaller PW's out there that can break even with just a few thousand users, and that's not an unreasonable number to shoot for.

Obviously, you need to plan for the contingencies(NOTE: planning for the project to fall apart is not a sign of success and should be avoided) like growth and content additions. Sometimes, being small can work to one's advantage. My own project is launching one area, and will continue to add content afterwards, and so design is done on a "larger" gameworld than will actually be available at launch. This scares people as well, but aside from the constant manpower crisis that it's caused, it's not a big deal.

Peter is completely right in the content arena, and you need to be extremely creative in developing mobs for your game. Actually, I have some tips on how I do it, because when I model mobs, I model at least 5 at a time, and I can model them in a day because they're all part of the same "family" of creatures, so I reuse the model and save time.

[continued]

#12 I so the same with interior layouts, and my work scenes in trueSpace are usually a collection of a dozen or so objects that are related to each other. Basically, it's modelling in bulk(what I need is a texture artist to texture my models, if anyone out there is looking to brush up on those kinds of skills, hint hint). Animation is a bit harder(trueSpace's fault, as the bugs keep me from getting anything useful out of it unless I fight it for far longer than need be).

I think this approach to modelling, while a bit "odd" to some, can be a benefit. Unfortunately, the previously mentioned manpower problems have slowed my project to a crawl, but I still expect to be able to finish it.

One important thing in looking at a project is to note whether or not the people involved have plans beyond the game, looking at the infrastructure and support and business needs.

#13 Since Justin has stated he's making a for-fun non-commercial game, I'll assume Peter's talking to me here. :)

Peter, I would give the same advice to anyone telling me they wanted to make an MMO via bootstrapping: rethink what you're trying to do. We have been at this just over a year now. It is an immense amount of work, a huge investment of both time and (for indies who are self-backed) money, for an uncertain payoff.

For me, an entreprenuer who has in the past started businesses, and taken over failing ones to turn them around, I enjoy the challenge and risk. This field is one which rewards ingenuity, guerilla marketing, and innovation, and our plans lean heavily on all three areas.

Our lead programmer and co-owner is a polished professional with over fifteen years of experience coding. His most recent project was in fact an "MMO" in essense, albeit not a game, and using a text based client instead of a 3D one. But much of the code used to create such a thing is virtually the same as that used to convert Torque to use as an MMO.

For design, we have worked out a game which is firstly (and perhaps most importantly) like nothing else on the market or in development. Innovation is key in this field, and this game will be startlingly different in enough ways to stand out, I believe. It is only by the barest margins a RPG persistant world, and carries almost as much in common with Planetfall as it does with Everquest, but truly resembles neither.

For art (the most difficult part), we plan to outsource much of the project's final work to a studio. Yes, I am aware of the pricetag for this sort of thing, but compared to the time and trouble involved in doing it in-house, the fees involved are a savings.

For scale, we are modeling the game to pass muster with as little as 5,000 subscriptions. Our target if we are are publishing through non-traditional means will be 10,000 subscriptions, far smaller than most "MMOs". Of course, our desired endstate is to establish a relationship with a publisher who will get our boxed game into the retail chain, but we are *not* relying on that for initial success, and our business plan can be modified to either startup with a mass release, or move to a mass retail release later after we self-publish.

For content, we have refined the game down to core elements, which we are focusing on in a tuned manner. I can't go into too much detail there without releasing trade secret IP before we're ready to do so, unfortunately. Suffice to say that we are attacking content in an extremely unusual manner - in fact, the "content", in terms of what gameplay is about, is the core of what makes the game bold and unique. We have been careful not to overstep during the ten month design process, and many "good ideas" have been discarded as too complex or too unnecessary to the core game.

Our design document is nearing completion, and should be finished by the end of March. It includes a solid business plan, a variety of budget forcasts which compensate for possible difficulties, complete lists of every GUI, every mechanic, every bit of art or sound, every map, every feature, an overall design concept with desired "feel" of gameplay, and rough algorithms for much of the needed code. We have gone through something in the order of a ream of paper so far, and the final document will be around a hundred pages, give or take a bit. Not including the art lib of concept sketches for all artwork.

(Continued in next post.)

#14 We are progressing well. With the design complete by mid to late March, we will proceed into full-fledged development. Based on our current progress and pre-existing code base, we expect to have a "working model", or pre-alpha, with limited forms of the core features and mostly placeholde art, by sometime in June. Alpha will follow from there, where all features will be added. By the time we go to beta, we expect to have 98%+ of the release content already in place in the game; we will not make the mistake of adding content during beta. Since we will already have a completed design, alpha will be for content addition, and beta will be used for refining the game systems and bug hunting.

Whew, this was long! I am well aware that we *can* fail, Peter, and I do appreciate your concern in the spirit it was sent. This is a challenge that we have undertaken, and plan to complete, though. And I do not believe we will fail. My strongest area of expertise is perhaps marketing, and I have watched the evolution of the online game industry carefully. The genre is changing, and the market is desperate for a multiplayer game that breaks from the mold. Something fresh and new. I believe that most of the games in development will not provide that, and that in fact the big titles due out over the next year will do more to reinforce that feeling. It is into that void, that niche, that we plan to step.

#15 Yeeks, hope I did not scare everyone away from the thread, or offend anyone. =( Was not my intention at all.

#16 Not at all Kevin. I work double shifts on weekends so I only get small windows of opportunity to reply in the mornings ;)

Sounds like you're on top of things, which is not at all an easy thing to do with a persistent world game.

#17 I also am interested in using Torque as a front end for persistant world game. Ive already built a small pw game and have been wanting to make it '3d' for a while now.

Ive looked through the mods and have found the isometric view mod which will be what I plan to use(plus others I think will be huge benefit).

Things im not sure about and hopefully someone can offer some advice is on the following(im an experienced programmer, but Im new to 3d design):
1. Turning off all network coding of the engine. I have my own code for that.
2. Adding models that the character can walk on top of. Im guessing this is a BSP model that people prefer to use? For simple Pyramids, I would use Worldcraft?
3. Anyone had any success getting motion capture files from Turbosquid and applying them to your bipeds and imported them into Torque? For a indy project like mine Im expecting to rely heavily on premade models/animations.

Thanks,
Eric

#18 @Eric: Here's a little info for ya...

1) TGE network code is *tightly* coupled with the engine. It's not a matter of turning it off as much as replacing a LOT of core code that runs through many(if not all) of TGE's classes.

2) This can be done with either the BSP-based DIF models that TGE uses, or you can use static DTS models, though with complex collision meshes they tend to drop framerates. You can also use DTS objects without collision and use invisible DIF collision models that are a little simpler and are easier on your framerates.

Hope that helps.