General Discussion

Originally posted by Barrikor

 

---

Originally posted by qazqaz123
Let me give you a advice.. take a good look on the story of Darkfall.. theres a reason some games take ages to develop.. You really that dumb/smart that you think you can do it all by your self and actualy get ppl to play it ?

(Mods please dont get offended for my question and stop banning me :P)

---

 

Well, I think I can do most of it at least... When it comes down to it I suppose I'm not all that smart really, but I learn things faster than most coders I know so that's got to make up for something... I answer to your question I'm probably on the "dumb" side :)

Once I finish some preliminary projects and a couple browser based games I'll be able to hit this project full force.

Did any of the Darkfall devs write any thing about that? It'd be interesting for me to read if they did...

No offense taken BTW :)

It is really not about whether you are smart or not. Today's software development is really about knowing the tools and do not spend time on doing something that has already been done, as opposed to 20 years ago based on pure intelligence.

No one on this planet has enough time and memory to be proficient in all the necessarily tools (from networking, to UI design, to graphics, to database) to build a MMO. My guess is that you will need at least a 5-10 people team to even do a serious attempt.

Furthermore, I also don't think modern game development is all about software. It is about project management, design and how to make different parts of a project works. The era of a single hacker can create a good game has gone forever.

Well.. The first reason I would probably never give this game a second look is the space / planet theme.. not really into those and usually steer clear of them. I like pvp, and that is mostly what i do when i play but I have friends that don't so much so i wouldn;t play it if it didn;t have safe zones as well, simply because my friends wouldn't play it. I like to play games with my friends and if they aren;t going to play it why would I?

Update:

I'm nearly finished with my current project. Next I'm going to write a (strategy) MM browser based game. I should be finished with that by the end of summer.

There are a couple of people that want to help me write the MMO when I start it. (All they really know is .NET and DirectX though...) I also know an artist who will give me a decent rate per item. (or maybe I'll just force myself to finish learning blender...) Also the MMO has a name now :)

Don't be discouraged.  A great sandbox style MMO that is equal parts space and ground is exactly what I've wanted since SOE wrenched SWG from me.

I'd definitely play it.

What is your experience in programming ?

If you have little to none, as I suspect, try to write a simple game such as Tetris or Pong first. Measure the amount of time it took you to do it to a satisying quality.

Then multiply this number by a few thousand.

Then, ask yourself if you are willing to spend all this time in the future years to make your idea a reality.

Making a MMO on your own is not impossible, but it's a severe challenge even for an experienced programmer ( especially if it's half as ambitious as what the ideas of your original post suggest ). Make 100% sure that this is really what you want to do in all your free time for the next 5 years. If you have doubts: don't start.

---

Originally posted by Nyast
What is your experience in programming ?
If you have little to none, as I suspect, try to write a simple game such as Tetris or Pong first. Measure the amount of time it took you to do it to a satisying quality.
Then multiply this number by a few thousand.
Then, ask yourself if you are willing to spend all this time in the future years to make your idea a reality.
Making a MMO on your own is not impossible, but it's a severe challenge even for an experienced programmer ( especially if it's half as ambitious as what the ideas of your original post suggest ). Make 100% sure that this is really what you want to do in all your free time for the next 5 years. If you have doubts: don't start.

---

I must confess that my experience has been a bit limited... but I think I've already messed with most of the topics I'll need to know...

So, if your asking for my biography, here it is:

My first language was QBasic, after that I taught myself VB6 and was able to accomplish quite a lot with it... I actually started an RTS in VB6 but found that after I had only 100 units on the screen it slowed down and started to flicker a little (I was new to programming back then and I did the back buffer wrong, along with a lot other things)

(I did a Pong game in VBA, does that count? :)

Anyway, after I abandon my little RTS, I knew that I needed to learn more; so I went on a spree trying to learn JavaScript, C++, SQL and other things that I thought I'd need. I started making use of the Win32 API. And I started working with files, usually txt, csv, or ini. I wrote an (ugly) client-server chat program to learn how to use TCP and UDP. I also took some classes on Java and C++.

After that I focused in on web programming. I tried ASP because it comes with VB6 and VB.NET but I didn't like it that much and turned to PHP instead, as it is better supported, is a richer language than ASP (IMHO), and isn't controlled by Microsoft (As a web programmer I started to like Microsoft less and less everyday)(More than half my time was spent trying to change my pages because Microsoft's broken browser displays every other thing wrong)(For example: <div style="width : 100%;"></div> only goes 95% on IE6 for some reason)(unless you put "html{height: 100%;margin:0;padding: 0;}" in your css file)(Microsoft later fixed that and some other issues in IE7... causing the millions who only relied on Microsoft and on IE's querks to have their sites "break")

As I was doing that I watched various hacker (black/gray hat hackers) sites and forums, learning a few hacking techniques and how to defend my code against them. I was also able to pick up the hacker "mentality" a little bit and it's served me well ever since.

After this I took more classes at collage and I'm currently teaching myself Python and x86 Assembly Language. (I might have to take a class on Assembly if I can't learn it on my own)(I'm using NASM)

As for the MMO, I'm thinking that Python (stackless?) might be the one of the best languages to use, other then the fact that it's interpreted, so it runs slower than C++, I'd probably have to write a lot of the client in C++ (to speed the 3d)(OpenGL not DirectX)(for portability) and maybe parts of the server.
(That's how EVE was written mostly, but on the client I'd also need to do avatars, terrain, buildings, and all that goes along with them)

But as I said earlier, I can't start this project quite yet anyway, I need to get a little more income coming in. Also I plan to use pieces of what I write for the MMO for other projects that I'll be doing on the side (yes, I know that doing that will double the time it takes to finish the MMO)(but it'll let me breath a little bit)

I think that the way I'm planning on designing it, the MMO will be a little easier to make, by making the entire world dynamic and start out blank I think it'll be easier (Some argue that it's harder though) I think it'll make it easier for the game admins later too.

- That's my plan anyway, it's bound to change a bit when I'm in the middle but I think I'll be able to at least create a basic framework on my own. I'll update this thread if I have any new developments.