It still costs a bit of money even if you never spend a dime.

Quite simple put if you are skilled enough to compentantly work on a MMO of any sort, you're skilled enough to work on faster indy/micro-indy/solo-indy projects that actually pay out for much less work.  Instead of working on one of the 99.99% of cases of NOT being "The Miracle group" that some how manages to work together for a few years when they blatently don't have to.

Of course there are a lot of sucesses, but that just gives a glimpse into how many other failures there are.

There's also a few sucesses of companies spending much less time on the project.   But once again these are edge cases of people with extensive libraries, knowledge of them, and extensive real experiance.

Originally posted by chill808
<Mod Edit>

For a guy that claims that no one else can read, you make a pretty impressive attempt to not read anything yourself. What I said was that OUT OF the 6 million budget, the software is not the major cost. The cost of the people and everything else is the massive sink, with labor being well over half the production cost.

Once again, if you don't plan to go with a paid team, then that is money saved. However, the odds of you pulling that off are just too slim for an MMO, unless the MMO has very little substance. You would need to not only build the game all by yourself, but you would also need to QA the game by yourself, and even balance it by yourself. It just isn't that plausible. There is no MMO out there that has been built by a single person, and there is a reason for that.

I wish the OP good luck, but at the end of the day, you will need a team if you want to achieve your goals, and odds are that your team wants to get paid. Plain and simple.

So I'll thow my 2 cents in since I have worked on several MMO's (Including World of Warcraft). We spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week making environments, textures, art assets for environments for several years. That's a team of 8 or so artists. The character team will have about ten or more and have to create the races, NPC's, Wearables, etc.. then FX guys for particle systems. Then coders to make the tools as part of preproduction which usualy runs a year or two till the pipeline is smooth enough to go into full production mode. Now WoW had a team of 70+ people and took 4 years to develop.

As much as I wish it weren't true, people demand eyecandy in games these days and eyecandy calls for a level of artistic skill. With juggernaughts like guildwars, age of conan and wow out there a simple poser model just dosn't cut it. If something dosn't feel professional most people turn away at a glance. I mean seriously look how people crap-talk a game based on 1 screenshot on these forums. Or diefy it based on 1 screenshot as the next wow killer. Pictures sell a game.

There are a handful of games like Runescape which are low graphics but do well. More power to em; they tend to have a young audience. WURM Online barly has graphics equal to Asherons Call from the 1990's but it has a loyal fanbase. Granted it's run by a handful of skilled developers that wear several hats.

No my friend to do a real industry mmo you must make a prototype to present in a pitch meeting. The pitch doc's usualy come from internal sources rather then outside licences. Companies will only consider producing a game (funding the development team) if they have a prototype that really wow's them or breaks new ground. But even a prototype needs eyecandy.

FYI I applaud WURM Online; I just wish I could get past the graphics to enjoy it. Ah well..

---

Originally posted by paulscott

It still costs a bit of money even if you never spend a dime.
Quite simple put if you are skilled enough to compentantly work on a MMO of any sort, you're skilled enough to work on faster indy/micro-indy/solo-indy projects that actually pay out for much less work.  Instead of working on one of the 99.99% of cases of NOT being "The Miracle group" that some how manages to work together for a few years when they blatently don't have to.
Of course there are a lot of sucesses, but that just gives a glimpse into how many other failures there are.
There's also a few sucesses of companies spending much less time on the project.   But once again these are edge cases of people with extensive libraries, knowledge of them, and extensive real experiance.

---

"GAME DESIGN 101
"I have a Great Idea for a video game...

how do I sell it and get rich and famous?"

by

Tom Sloper

NOTE: these articles are primarily aimed at aspiring game designers, but many of the concepts described herein also apply to those who aspire to other types of jobs in the game industry. This article is subject to changes and improvements; reader comments are welcome. ALSO NOTE: Board games are much easier to design than video games. If you're interested in learning about board game design (and it IS recommended, even for those who aspire to design video games), read article 20.

The short answer is: "Great, you have an idea. Now start writing. (But, by the way, nobody will buy your idea, don't be silly!)" The long answer (why you need to write, what to write, and what to do with what you wrote) is below.

So you want to get your idea made into a working electronic game.
There are two ways for you to follow up on this dream.

1. DIY -- Do It Yourself. Execute the idea into a game yourself, training yourself along the way as a game designer and/or programmer and/or artist, etc.

2. DIFTI -- Do It From The Inside. (You're "outside" the game biz at the moment.) Write your idea into a formal game design document, training yourself along the way as a game designer. Write more design documents too. Then, with those designs in hand, go to a game company (a developer or publisher) and take a job -- ANY job. The designs will help you get your foot in the door, but it's unlikely that anybody will want to make your idea into a game or hire you as an apprentice game designer. The designs may never get made, but now you're in the biz -- and you can learn & grow within it, and eventually make other original designs if you're good.

- Both of those paths (#1 and 2 above) require the same first step: writing a formal game design document. You have to do it. All by yourself. Do you want to be a game designer? Or are you just a person with one idea that'll never go anywhere because you can't be bothered to spend the effort? If the latter, you can just stop reading right now. If the former, keep on reading.

- Both of those paths require passion, perseverance, & perspiration.

- Either way, when you've finished, guess what profession you're in -- the games biz.

The latter path (#2 above, getting a job in the industry, DIFTI) also requires a good attitude -- you'll need to be a team player, a professional who works on projects without letting his own ambitions get in the way of doing a game other than his dream idea.

DIY: You're on your own if you want to DIY. Go forth and teach yourself how to begin, once your design is written (that's still a necessary first step). You will need to learn about programming and about management and business and marketing. Read my FAQs (see nav frame at left). Read the postings on the IGDA forums (http://www.igda.org/Forums/) and at GameDev.net's forums (http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/). Go back to school and learn everything about art and music and computers and business. Research. Learn. Create. Do it all, all by yourself.

DIFTI: A well-written game design is a great way to present yourself to potential employers in the game biz. They won't buy your idea (they already have great ideas up the wazoo, or they think they do anyway) but they might well give you a job (it might be an entry-level job, but hey, it's a job in the biz). That's how I got started, 20 years ago. I made a board game design, and I tried to get it published. Eventually (2 years later) I gave up on that, and used the board game as a part of my portfolio to get a job at a thinktank for electronic toys. I took an entry-level job as a toy modelmaker, and one day I had a chance to design an electronic game (see Lesson 18 for the complete story). Next thing you know, I designed two games for the Vectrex game system. Then I worked at Sega and Atari. In other words, I went the career route. My first board game idea has never been published. But I've designed and produced a number of electronic games, and have a great job.

So, now I need to tell you a little more about the topics raised above.

a. Why nobody will just buy your idea from you (or otherwise execute it into a playable game).
b. Writing a formal game design document.
c. Working in the games business.

Here goes:

a. Why nobody will just buy your idea from you. You didn't expect me to be talking about these things, did you? (^_^) You just wanted somebody to take your idea and run with it, while you sit back and wait for the end result so you can play it, right? And maybe make some easy money.

Forget that right now, it's not going to happen.

Pretend for a moment that you have a great idea for a novel, not a game. How would you go about getting it written and published? Would you go to a bulletin board and advertise looking for an author to write it for you? No, you would have to get off your butt and write it yourself. I have heard that a friend of Frank Herbert (author of Dune) asked Herbert to author the friend's idea and split the profits 50/50. Herbert refused, even though the guy was a good friend -- Herbert's reply was basically that ideas are easy; the writing is the hard part. Think about it for a minute -- would YOU want to have a friend come up to you, tell you a few sentences, then have you spend months hunched over a keyboard turning his few sentences into the Great American Novel? I doubt it. If you did spend months writing that book, would you want to give half of the money to that guy? I don't think so.

Now pretend for a moment that you have a great idea for a movie, not a game. How would you go about getting it made into a movie? You would have to begin by becoming a movie industry professional, get several movies under your belt, become a producer or studio executive, and off you go! That's the DIFTI route ("Do It From The Inside"). There's also the DIY (Do It Yourself) route: spend a lot of money (tens of thousands at the cheapest), write and direct it yourself, with the help of actors and technicians you hire. The end result may never get into theaters everywhere but could well prove your worth to a real studio. Either way, (DIY or DIFTI) by the time you're done, you're in the movie biz. And you earned it by hard work, not by waving your arms for a few minutes in front of a cigar smoker who then throws wads of cash at you -- it don't work that way.

Okay, enough pretending. Your idea is not for a novel or a movie -- it's for a game. How do you go about getting it made? First step: write the game design yourself. Then you can either make the game yourself (DIY) or use the design to get a job as a game designer (DIFTI)..............."

 

http://www.sloperama.com/advice/idea.htm

Do your selves a favor and read the rest of this article, the OP and chill808  espically.  Paul so kindly linked this earlier so I'm posting the first little bit from the website.  It was actually a great read.

I don't think a single person here was telling the OP to NOT pursue this, more like its hard work and if you are serious this is going to be a long and hard journey.

Take it from one of the gaming artists...

1.) Get a great group of at least 15 coders, because no matter how good you THINK you are, you aren't fast enough to learn mmo coding AND input it coherently to get a profitable game out in 20 years--- all by yourself. Make sure those guys have the experience to back them up, because they will make or break your 75 page idea. MMO coding is unlike any other language, if written well.

2.) Be prepared to write far more than 75 pages. Most decent storylines will involve hundreds of pages minimum, to flesh out. In fact, it is usually more than 75 pages just to flesh out art concepts to the concept artists, if you want to describe every detail they (we) will have to create.

3.) Be extremely well connected to the industry if you want press beyond that of neighborhood flyers. Much of the mmo press do not have time to take a look at every little possible mmo cropping up, including yours. It's all in who you know.

4.) Forget using Blender. Just never even allow yourself the thought. If you want to artistically design the game, go with AT MINIMUM, Autodesk's 3d Studio Max. Some games are being made using their Maya software now, but if you don't have large sums of money backing you already, don't attempt that. 3dmax is the most cost effective graphics software to make a playable mmo.  I would highly recommend getting a subscription, because you will update software faster than you think...

If you do not have those 4 items mastered, don't even worry about all of the myriad of other obstacles you could face, because you won't get far enough to see them, let alone your finished product.

I love the moral to all your stories- don't try...ever! Well thats fine you all can sit here give negative opinions all day long, I'd rather take the positive approach and tell him to try his hardest, to tell anyone who has the idea to try their hardest. The so called article of if you had a movie idea you couldn't get it picked up unless you had connections is bull. Obviously that guy had never been to Park City Utah where the Sundance film festival happens and people who show completely under the radar films get seen and they get offered a job in the industry.

Never once I said you could build a wow killer, or the best mmo ever, or the entire process would be easy. What I did say was that you could build an MMO there is enough info out there to build it, it would be easy to do without money, let me say that again so some people understand it, easy-with-out-money. Someone building their MMO would be a road to somewhere, whether it be to a MMO that becomes wildly popular or to the ability to get to a place where your ideas would be listened to. It all depends on your willingness and drive to get what you want.

Ok Chill808 is right, the moral is comming accross as don't try. That's not true. WHat we're trying to explain is the gravity of the request and the ammount of effort involved in doing it.

PIctures > Words. 50 pages, 100 pages, 3000 pages. People who are producers who control the real money don't have time to read extensive documents. THat's why they want a 1-2 page pitchdoc which bulletpoints what this game is like by compairing it to existing games that exist (so they have a frame of reference).

i.e. It has a seamless virtual world like World of Warcraft with instanced dungeons. 

Also use bullets to point out how this game is differant then the other games out there and why it will succeed.

Concept Art; Concept Art; Concept Art. As I said having a novel of lore and systems outline is great but that can be done in the preproduction part of the game. You need some visuals to sell the mood and idea to the suits. While you may have a clear idea of what your world feels like and the mood it evokes, words alone are not enough to really convey this feeling to people who are looking to invest millions into it. Get concept art; if you lack any artistic ability. Well that's a big hinderance and I hope you have an opertunity to convey your idea in words alone but having worked with alot of developers and executives they're very busy people who won't sit for an hour to hear lore to "try and get" the mood. THat's why concept art helps so much to sell the mood of the game and evoke excitment in your investors.

Protyping through 3D is great. Mirrors Edge was sold through demo video's made in maya to convey the sensation of park-cor in a first person game. Words couldn't sell that to people. Use 3d Packages like Blender.

Pitching a game is like pitching a script in hollywood. 1:10,000 people get their scripts made into TV shows or movies without connections. Go to conventions, con's, E3.. shmooze and make contacts with other designers.

A single 57 page doc is not enough to warrent a multi-million dollar investment. Especilly if it isn't based on an existing successul game model.

Why not just jump in and make a micro-MMO or similar.

That's quite simple I like having fun programming problems, rather than tiring ones with a team far to small to be doing what it's doing.   Even making a simple 2D game(fourth generation console) can get tiring if you're working solo.

______________________________

It takes even the "truely masterful" quite a bit of time to make third generation games(original wurmonline client dev).   Timelaspe1,   Timelaspe2.

These while far from the best examples because they're time based competition pieces, they're still pretty fun to watch.   If you follow the links you can even grab the source.

______________________________

All in all I'd have to say any MMO that the OP would want to play would take quite a bit more investment than 500 rushed micro-games, as amazingly impressive as they are.

 Do it like this guy and you'll be fine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mays

Don't get me wrong, I am certainly not saying it can't be done at all. There is a guy who IS doing it all by himself. However, he has much more going for him than a 75 page write-up. Just be aware that IF you want to seriously consider this, do your homework. Lots of it. Then stalk various devs at the more popular conventions. If that doesn't help, put up billboards in areas around known studios you would like to work with, mentioning your game. Have art, like the previous poster said. Maybe run cinematic trailers in tv stations where aforementioned studios are. THEN and only THEN will you start to get their attention, just a little. But once you have it, be prepared with enough renderings, video clips, documents to make them remember the courtroom in Miracle on 34th. They will expect no less.

And, all of it takes time and money. Both of which are easier if you can just get hired to the company, then pitch from the inside.

And for the love of the CG gods, please, never ever use Blender for anything. The art director will laugh you our of the conference room faster than you realize. Just a word to the wise...

Make a Lemonade Stand game with your own code and assets. 2D, 3D... whatever floats your boat.

Then go back and make it fun.

After you complete those two - IF you complete those two - then revisit your MMO idea.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Make a Lemonade Stand game with your own code and assets. 2D, 3D... whatever floats your boat.

 

Then go back and make it fun.

 

After you complete those two - IF you complete those two - then revisit your MMO idea.

Ohhh that's actually a very nifty and skillful design challenge.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Make a Lemonade Stand game with your own code and assets. 2D, 3D... whatever floats your boat.

Then go back and make it fun. 

After you complete those two - IF you complete those two - then revisit your MMO idea.

If somebody were asking me to invest in an MMO, that is the least I would require:  The software equivalent of a prototype.  Development is just a question of time and money.  Writers and artists are a dime a dozen, competent programmers are sixty thousand a year.  A computer game is just like any other investment except for one tiny little detail -- FUN.  If you don't have that magical quality built into the core gameplay before you start developing any content, you're throwing your money down a black hole.

Judging by the vast majority of games that get developed - and even get released - I have to assume there are more than a few idiots out there who actually DO invest based on storyboards. 

I figure there's a reasonable chance the sun might come up tomorrow, but there is one thing in the Universe I can positively guarantee:  no one who has a scheme for getting rich suckers to invest in his ideas is going to give it out to some jerk on an Internet forum.

DIY it mate, go and find some people like yourselves...looking to get into the industry, programmers, animators etc...
One thing though, what do YOU bring to the table?

You have an idea? So what, everyone has an idea...if your not bringing something to the table apart from your idea you will find it hard to really form a team.

 

If you really are interested in proposing a UNIQUE AND PLAYABLE idea for a game, try Activision. I've read on several sites that they are looking for original IP.

They need something to do with the gobs of money they get from WoW.

Originally posted by Dioren

If you really are interested in proposing a UNIQUE AND PLAYABLE idea for a game, try Activision. I've read on several sites that they are looking for original IP.

They need something to do with the gobs of money they get from WoW.

Starcraft MMO? WoW 2? Mechwarrior MMO? Diablo MMO? Do they actually need new ideas?

Originally posted by chill808

 

---

Originally posted by paulscott

 

It still costs a bit of money even if you never spend a dime.
Quite simple put if you are skilled enough to compentantly work on a MMO of any sort, you're skilled enough to work on faster indy/micro-indy/solo-indy projects that actually pay out for much less work.  Instead of working on one of the 99.99% of cases of NOT being "The Miracle group" that some how manages to work together for a few years when they blatently don't have to.
Of course there are a lot of sucesses, but that just gives a glimpse into how many other failures there are.
There's also a few sucesses of companies spending much less time on the project.   But once again these are edge cases of people with extensive libraries, knowledge of them, and extensive real experiance.

---

 
Alright now we're talking paul. Yes probably true if you're skilled enough to do that then you're probably at somewhere that pays. How do you know if the person is to young to work but skilled enough to program well. How do you know they don't have friends who help them for no cost. The biggest thing here is that you acknowledge there are successes, what determines success well I happen to believe through my own work and watching others that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Who's to say that your final project is an amazing mmo that wows the world, or it gets you the experience you need to get into the world then who's to say one day your idea from long ago doesn't come to be. The main point I'm making here is that the tools are there and available to anyone, the knowledge is available to anyone. Who are you to say it can't be done, instead why not encourage and see where it takes you.

 

"Hi, my name is chill808. My head is in the clouds. I live in a fictional world where anything is possible as long as you really, really try. And we can all be really, really, magical friends together!"

Listen Chill. If we were all on your Doctor subscribed happy-pills, we'd sound just as mentally crippled and overly optimistic as you. But we aren't. We live in a real world. With statistics, rules, and a governing god called Money.

OP. I will venture to say that every single person that visits this site has thought about an MMO they'd like to create and be on the market. 5% of those people work with vigil on their products in hopes for something more. 0% of them ever make it out of these forums with a realized dream to write about.

I'm not saying it isn't possible. But you need more than what you got. And you need more than what you'll be able to get without proper funding or a good bunch of connected people.

If you do happen to make a good shell of a game, even a polished product. Look at the market right now, how much competition do MMOs have? World of Warcraft being the reigning champion. A tyrant like Blizzard is able to roll new features and content out in the blink of an eye, this alone keeps their player base thriving. Take a look at Warhammer, a fantastic game with emphasis more on the PvP side of things. If Warhammer came out 'before' World of Warcraft, what do you think would have happened? Warhammer would have been able to compete much better with WoW, having a much large player base, and a whole lot more money to work with.

Simply put. The well of players is running dry for the MMO market. Unless you can create "The Next Big Thing", (and trust, the well of money required for a phenomenon like that would be as deep as the sea,) there simply will be no reason or way to pull the majority of players away from their current loves, for a new romance.

Elaborating a bit. Warhammer pulled the players away from WoW that wanted more wide scale PvP content, and maybe the players that thought WoW had too many fluffy kittens in it's programming code.

Lord of the Rings Online took players from WoW (and MMO virgins who simply love LotR) because of it's specific story and maybe some of the gameplay promises.

My question would simply be. Even if you were able to put together an actual game and pitch the concept.

Where would you draw your player base (read: profit) from?

Game publishers know this. Unfortunately it is rare that a game is created based solely on design and concept, (allowing the development of the genre and maybe gaming industry as a whole) rather than what kind of cash flow you can gain from it.

Lets see:   Force of Arms project,  Vajuras(real status unknown), techlord, and one or two Realmcrafter MMOs.

The first project and person has "removed themselves" most likely due to the fact there there are "too many potatoes" on the forum.  Lets see for Force of Arms they left shortly after showing a "lets have fun" reel and got flamed by the pub(who's surprised).   Vajuras was a reletivly high skilled person(who I think left the game industry) who had some awesome demos.

So it's not 0% just pretty close. 

__________________

For gamedev.net I can confirm 2 projects that are actually going somewhere(not really into community there though), and then another 5 or so that are actually micro-bussiness looking for fresh skill.   Needless to the "help wanted" forum generates anywhere from 5 to 30 threads a day with new projects or people looking to work on a project. 

__________________

Needless to say "The Internet" isn't a good place to find "Good Internet people" to work on an "Awesome Internet" project.

________________________

If I were to find a competent team I'd work on opensource for a year or two.   Then recruit people I've worked with and/or their friends.    There's soo many places you can draw from and tons of general-apps/network apps/graphical apps/ and similar.

Sold! Checks in the mail.

So it's not 0% just pretty close. 

Rounding down.

Still, you see my point.

First question...how much do you believe in your story/concept? 

Then how complete is it?  Lore, background etc etc.

Leonardo Devinci, to understand the human body and reproduce it correctly in his art took to disecting the human body to see and study every part of it.

Tolkein first invented a new language and built his story from there.

I think if you take an 'idea' to a company you probably will hit walls.  Ideas, concepts are a dime a dozen.  However if you have a deep rich story, a full story, then from that draw the game and all it's proposed mechanics etc, you might get your foot in the door at least enough times to learn a bit and further progress with knowledge and understanding of the industry.

I don't think you necessarily need to design a game to sell it, but you will need to at least get an artist on board with you to storyboard it.

The MMO business is huge and like writters and actors there is just such a big pool for companies to pull from that you need something that sets you apart from the crowd.

If you believe in you and what you have, don't let the 'can't do's' and the 'no's' get to you.  You are gonna need a thick skin, but use the time to improve, expand on while selling the story.  It's hard work and you will definately have to pay your dues but if you believe, you can do it.  =))

A storyboard is just as useless as a 'great idea' when pitching an MMO. At most it could indicate a good story, but it offers little or nothing in the way of whether it would make for a good game or not.

Originally posted by chill808

People used to say Edison was crazy, wow so glad he knocked out those light bulbs.

 

By the time Edison started making lightbulbs he was already a very rich man with a large team of engineers and scientists at his disposal.  He actually got his start inventing improvements to telegraph systems and selling the patents to the telegraph companies.  He was able to do this because he worked in the telegraph industry for years as an operator and technician. 

As far as the lightbulb goes, to make the mass production of ligthbulbs economically feasible Edison pretty much had to build the electircal power generation and distribution systems from the ground up.  He also spend a fortune developing a lightbulb version that was efficient enough to be economically viable. 

Edison was a crook who knew how to steal.