Development time for a full-featured engine?

[bunzaga]

Hey Im also prepairing to embark on a long term goal of a mpog. I don't think it will necessarily be a mmpog at first, but all I can say to you is don't listen to the nay sayers.

I don't even know 1/2 the stuff you probably know or even a 1/8th of the stuff a lot of people here know. I don't even know what a sdk is. But thats not stopping me. We all need to start somewhere, so why not learn as you go? Its better then sitting around doing nothing and dreaming!

Anyway, I have been messing around with a program called DX Studio. I have been using it for about a month or so now and I can already do several things that I never thought possable. Im not sure how it compairs to ogre, or the other engines mentoned above, but if your looking for something where you can just get in and get something done, its worth a look.

Also from one crazy dreamer to another, perhaps making a mog right off the bat isn't the best approach. I have been reading a lot of books and posts and different peoples 'lessons learned' and what I would do is first create the game on paper. This way you have all the game mechanics, objects, stats, etc made. You then just need to convert them to 3d. Next I would start with something like a single player version of your game. This would give people a chance to 'see something' and get in and test out your game mechanics, test the 3d engine, etc. It also gives you a chance to build up your fan base. Finally I would move into the mpog type game. You then have solid game mechanics, concept art, a fan base, experience with 'what went wrong' in your single player missions, etc.

Anyway, this is the approach I plan to take. Like I said, I haven't programmed since high school ( about 10 years ago ) but i jumped right into DX Studio, which also has a built in networking functions(such as database and .txt output for character sheets, etc.)

[DogmaD]

My 2 cents:

Building both an engine and a game is not a smart idea. It will be far too time consuming. Either build an engine, or build a game, both have very different requirements.

As for the MMO genre. I think it is doomed to fail. I think it really comes down to a question of Quantity vs Quality. Would you rather create a huge game with subpar written all over it? Or a small game that has quality written all over it in even the smallest aspect?

With a MMO this question becomes deal breaker. What I have seen many times is that people start on the next medieval/cyberpunk fantasy MMO with not a shred of originality in sight. With a team that is so small that generating the needed quantity of quality content is simply not possible.

What we are left with in the end is an unoriginal, ugly game, with a minimal amount of gameplay which is not even a MMO yet. Because for it to be a MMO, you will need people to play it for years to come(be it a 1000, 10.000, or a 100.000). Now where are you going to find this amount of players that are willing to waste their time in yet another unoriginal, ugly game where there is not a whole lot to do? That is my view on it anyway .

Now, this is the approach I am taking on the game I am developing ( tba ). Build a game, not an engine. This game should need only a minimal amount of content (the exact opposite of a RPG). Make the content that you create high quality, hire good artists when needed, my observation is that good arists are rare and they don't work for free. Concentrate on pure gameplay elements. Use clients as servers, communicating with a single master server that keeps track of scores, clans, etc. This is managable and tough enough as it is with a small team or budget.

[Imperil]

As for the MMO genre. I think it is doomed to fail.

Not even close, considering it's the only surviving PC genre (other than your once a year blockbusters like quake, HL, etc) and will continue to do very well. I was at EBGames the other day and there was one shelf of PC games and 75% of it was MMO titles and expansions. It is actually the direction a good majority of different games will be moving in. You can easily read it based on analyst findings or just talk to other developers working on MMO projects (commercial-wise).

So you can 'think' it is doomed to fail, but in reality it is quite the opposite.

[Bloodypriest]

I think he meant 'indie MMO' are doomed to fail.

[Imperil]

I think he meant 'indie MMO' are doomed to fail.

Ah yeah that would make sense in a way. I mean it used to be viable ala Runescape, Tibia, etc but the only reason those games are able to continue growing in subscription numbers is by having that initial playerbase (which is now near impossible to get because of a vast majority of lower quality mmo games). The communities they have built up are their number one asset as word of mouth keeps bringing more and more players in. It's not impossible, but is about 10 times harder now with the other ones having an estabilished community.

[bunzaga]

Who said I didn't have origonal ideas? :p

Ive been playing mmorpgs since UO came out, Ive beta tested several, subscribed to several. I have a pritty solid concept of what makes a good mmo vs a bad mmo.

I agree with you though. Quality > Quantity. As far as a player base I have no illusions as to how hard it will be to break into the genre, I don't know the first thing of making or running a mmorpg. I do have faith and confidence in my ideas and opinions of the way a mmorpg 'should' be and I am sure others will see my setup and in the least, be tempted to play.

[DogmaD]

Who said I didn't have origonal ideas? :p

Ive been playing mmorpgs since UO came out, Ive beta tested several, subscribed to several. I have a pritty solid concept of what makes a good mmo vs a bad mmo.

I agree with you though. Quality > Quantity. As far as a player base I have no illusions as to how hard it will be to break into the genre, I don't know the first thing of making or running a mmorpg. I do have faith and confidence in my ideas and opinions of the way a mmorpg 'should' be and I am sure others will see my setup and in the least, be tempted to play.

I was not saying that your project is unoriginal, just that in general there is little originality in the (indie) MMO genre. I am also not trying to offend people here, it is just how I see things. I am not going to say that people shouldn't pursue their dreams, I just hope that they take the dream into a realistic scenario and actually see it come true at some point. Having dreams is easy, making them come true can be awfully hard.

Ah yeah that would make sense in a way. I mean it used to be viable ala Runescape, Tibia, etc but the only reason those games are able to continue growing in subscription numbers is by having that initial playerbase (which is now near impossible to get because of a vast majority of lower quality mmo games). The communities they have built up are their number one asset as word of mouth keeps bringing more and more players in. It's not impossible, but is about 10 times harder now with the other ones having an estabilished community.

This is one issue. The second is content creation these days. It takes a lot of time. It used to be quite easy, but these days we are starting to hit the photorealistic boundaries. Where it used to take a couple of days to do an animated character, these days it can take a month.

You can see the effect on the average game, where a single player game used to give about 20-25 hours of content, these days games have already dropped to 8-15 hours. This is with larger teams and far higher budgets. It is getting to a point where indie developers will have a hard time to keep up unless they learn to merge projects and work together. Drop, or combine their current dream to pursue a shared one.

Now, we have recently started to hit new content creation demands again. Where game like Doom 3, and HL2 already have a demanding art creation pipeline, the next generation, like Crysis takes shaders and physics to the next level, demanding very advanced art creation tools. If you start a MMO now, just guess at what level you have to be in 5 years to be competitive.

[Jerky]

@Imperil: When you had over 400 users in the first week of your project, the community thing is not such a problem .

@DogmaD: You have a definite point there regarding content creation, but that still does not make the task impossible IMO. With all the new tools out there, investment for an artist to make quality content comes down to almost nothing.

Dropping one's dream to combine efforts it not only a problem with these type of projects. Using these forums as an example, there have been TONS of ideas and suggestions to do the same on any type of project, most notably on good tools, but it never materialises.

As far as getting teams and player bases, I think that argument can work for both sides. There is a large portion of MMO players that are drifters. There is another large portion that are free-loaders. The drifters are always looking for a new game and the free-loaders are always looking for a free game. Getting players comes down to advertising. If you were to get slashdotted or get some articles on MMORPG.com or some other gaming sites, you would have players in no time. Wish announced their open beta and had the number 1 download on fileplanet within hours. A couple days later, they had had 60,000 downloads.

For getting teams, I think it is similar. Getting one from here is difficult (as most of us know the history of MMO recruitment threads on the Ogre forums), but there are people out there who are just looking for a solid project. More and more people want to break into the biz and are looking for a project to build their resume. If you build it, they will come. I have been able to recruit a number of individuals who would not normally have wanted to join an MMO project, but after seeing our site, community, team and effort, they changed their mind. This does mean that you have to go it alone until you can have some good stuff to show, but, if you aren't ready to endure, you chose the wrong type of game to make.

[Imperil]

@Imperil: When you had over 400 users in the first week of your project, the community thing is not such a problem .

I don't mean to deter you or anything like that but you are completely wrong and building the community is one of the hardest aspects in actually running an MMO. The standard in business is that 3-6% of people that actually say they will purchase a product will actually do it.. although usually it is a littler lower than that. On one project I worked on there were over 50,000 unique visitors to the site within the first month but on launch the subscriber number was nowhere near that in the beginning. Out of 400 users you are ahead of the curve if you can convert 30 of them into paying subscribers.

I know you mention slashdot, etc and those are *needed* media PR to do along with your press releases, but just remember that everybody else is doing this as well I constantly see EQ2/WoW postings.

Like I said I don't mean to deter you, but I know how insanely hard it is to build up a community and a nice-sized playerbase. The worst thing that can happen is bad word-of-mouth as it will put you out of business almost instantly whether you are a commercial or indie project.

[Jerky]

I realize all that, but I still think it is a bit unfair to compare us (or any here) to a commercial MMO. We neither hope or expect to make it commercial either. Others here may, so my arguments are based on my project, and not as "us MMO makers using Ogre," as most of my posts have been. We have no delusions of grandeur to compete with the big boys. I was only using our numbers in comparison to other upstart MMO's, wherein we are ahead of the game. Our game is, and always will be, targeted at a niche market. Your advice directly applies to anyone starting with no budget and wanting to be commercial, so it is not bad advice, by any means, I just don't agree that all of it applies to PW's situation. I am sure we are different from others here, so it could still apply to many MMO-hopefuls here (using Ogre).

I completely agree about the public part. That is why I have mentioned in the past our "association" with Wish as a blessing and a curse. We owe our user-base to that, but there comes some expectation with having that name on our project. For example, just yesterday I had a new member join and PM me saying how great Wish was. He then proceeded to ask where the download to our client/server was, so he could set up a shard. I mention this because he made some assumptions and did not read out front page, where it clearly states our purpose, and objectives. The expectation he had in seeing the "Wish" name blinded him to reading the main page (I assume).

About bad press, you are spot on. I think that is part of the reason why Mutable Realms decided to can Wish. This is another reason why I do not worry too much about our community still being small. We have no desire to be slashdotted, etc just yet. That is a dangerous game. Hero's Journey (as a good example) stayed completely off the radar until they had made some great progress and were ready for the scrutiny of the public eye. Now, they have made such a name for themselves (without even having a finished product yet) that they are already reselling their engine to other MMO's.

Also, I dont see the words indie and commercial being mutually exclusive, as you imply in your last sentence. That is just semantics though

I know you aren't trying to deter me (cause it should be obvious by now that I can't be ), and I respect your opinion greatly (as well as xavier's). Believe me, I know that our chances of doing this are very slim. That does not mean that we should not try though. It only takes 1 insane person to make an insane idea a reality .

[Imperil]

Ah ok I had no idea you weren't going to charge subscriptions, etc. Free is a different ball game although you still compete with commercial offerings for players.. it's just when you go pay to play you are in direct competition with games like warcraft, eq2, etc no matter what. I've heard some people say hilarious things on gamedev like "we're going to be pay to play... but we aren't competing with commercial MMOs, warcraft, etc" which is always good for a smile

Free to play at least you can get people to stay longer and a lot more people actually try it, although it is still hard just ask Radu

And quite honestly I wouldn't say your chances are slim at all, I'm not sure why you say that. Technology-wise building a zone-based MMO is fairly straight forward and a solved problem... but obviously the content creation is huge. I wouldn't call it a slim chance at all though, it's all about perseverance.

[Jerky]

... although it is still hard just ask Radu

Yeah, another reason we want to stay below the radar and plan and test beforehand. Those post-mortems were an excellent source of information.

And quite honestly I wouldn't say your chances are slim at all, I'm not sure why you say that. Technology-wise building a zone-based MMO is fairly straight forward and a solved problem... but obviously the content creation is huge. I wouldn't call it a slim chance at all though, it's all about perseverance.

Well, we aren't zoned for 1 . We are pretty ambitious with what our goals are. Our largest concerns for now is content. We were lucky enough to get some programmers this year who freaking rock, so really it will come down to perserverance. Getting artists who are self-motivating has also been a challenge. Because I do a lot more than just art, I haven't had time to hold hands with some of our artists, and they have gone inactive and have been let go. Even if we had lots of artists, art content would still be the main problem, as you mentioned, due to the enormous amount needed. Luckily we are starting small for alpha .