Okay, let me see if I can help a little bit here for people who want to make a game without huge amounts of time and cost that people actually want play.

     First, stop trying to build the largest landmass possible. While it's great to feel epic, it's not required. Vanguard ran into this problem of having a huge epic sized world, but very little of it playable. Exploring is great if there is something to explore, but a great empty expanse means little.

     Second, think in terms of true roleplaying with real roleplayers. This seems to fly in the face of many MMORPG players who can go through content at lightspeed, but therein lies the problem. You spend years making a game and content that they consume in a matter of months then demand more immediately. No company has that kind of resources outside of Blizzard and even they can't get it out fast enough for the power players. Roleplayers just need the tools to roleplay with. They can provide many of the storylines for themselves. The bonus is that roleplayers are more loyal to a game and will stay much longer.

     Third, add storylines not quests. If you add some open ended storylines, have GMs participate in them to make them more interactive, you will gain a following so fast it would make your head spin. You will have to install some pieces of the storyline that don't require GM participation all the time. Think of cameos and people showing up at certain times in the storyline until it's time to have the final climax. Some MUDs have been the most successful at this.

     Fourth, make the game skill based and less level based. I find that with levels, people are constantly trying to get that next level. Heck, do away with levels of any kind, even skills. Have them seek trainers to train certain skills, keep the skills hidden from the player (can't see that I have 78.2 in a certain skill, just that I'm pretty good at it), then have players have to actually use different tactics with different mobs. One of the best games I played did this and it worked very well.

     Fifth, have base professions, but allow some flexibility. Have each profession allow them to skill up primary skills faster and have other skills much harder to level up since it's not part of their chosen profession.

     Lastly, use tools that don't require huge investments. People used to create very good 24/7 MMORPGs with Neverwinter Nights. BioWare is about to come out with DragonAge that will do what NWN did but even better. It was amazing how many people made custom addons to the game so you could continue to expand the game fairly easily. Then you can concentrate on the roleplaying and gameplay, not the minitua of a plant placement.

     I played in a 24/7 NWN world that was restricted to only 13 levels (since it was based on D&D, it had to be levels). It wasn't that big, but it was very well done. They had events on a fairly regular basis and it kept people involved for a very long time. Absentee GMs will kill a game like this fast. While it was never 'huge', it was poplulated by very strong and very loyal players.

     One of the requirements you'll need is a lot of volunteers, especially as GMs. There is no way one person can do this. Since you are not trying to do it for profit, this shouldn't be much of a problem really. There are tons of people who feel the way you do and want to be a part of creating an MMO. They have time on their hands and want to help, so take advantage of it.

     If you decided you don't want to do it anymore, I completely understand. Hopefully this will help a few future MMO designers out there. No one should try to make the perfect MMO or compete with WoW. It's just not possible. Just stick to your vision, keep it small to begin with and most of all... have fun.

Originally posted by Theocritus

     What the heck is a MOVW?? Massive online volkswagen?? lol

I would guess it stands for Massive Online Virtual World.

The OP of this thread has inspired me.

I'm going to be trying to build a team soon for an MMO project.

updates to come soon.

This is exactly why I would never even try a project with the scope of a MMO, SPRPG or any game with a scope like the graphicly supercharged games we have today. I have mostly developed very targeted business software for specific clients thus far and have only recently looked into making a few games. I've been thinking about making puzzle games like Luxor, Bejeweled and Zuma as they are really the only type of games with a reasonably small enough scope for a single developer to accomplish that would still sell in today's market. I just need to come up with a winning idea for a game at this point... That is the truly hard part but one will come to me in time.

Bren

Originally posted by Brenelael

This is exactly why I would never even try a project with the scope of a MMO, SPRPG or any game with a scope like the graphicly supercharged games we have today. I have mostly developed very targeted business software for specific clients thus far and have only recently looked into making a few games. I've been thinking about making puzzle games like Luxor, Bejeweled and Zuma as they are really the only type of games with a reasonably small enough scope for a single developer to accomplish that would still sell in today's market. I just need to come up with a winning idea for a game at this point... That is the truly hard part but one will come to me in time.

 

Bren

Trying to do anything outside of this scope would be silly without a team of people to work with. Thats what teams are for.

Originally posted by raystantz

Originally posted by Brenelael

This is exactly why I would never even try a project with the scope of a MMO, SPRPG or any game with a scope like the graphicly supercharged games we have today. I have mostly developed very targeted business software for specific clients thus far and have only recently looked into making a few games. I've been thinking about making puzzle games like Luxor, Bejeweled and Zuma as they are really the only type of games with a reasonably small enough scope for a single developer to accomplish that would still sell in today's market. I just need to come up with a winning idea for a game at this point... That is the truly hard part but one will come to me in time.

 

Bren

 

Trying to do anything outside of this scope would be silly without a team of people to work with. Thats what teams are for.

I think that's pretty much what I just said... lol

Bren

There is some good information and advice in this thread but I'll try and provide a little more 'focus' to it.

Have you every heard of "open source"?  That's where Firefox (the browser) came from and there are many different games that have been developed in open source. 

Just go to your favorite search engine and type in "open source mmo" or "open source mmorpg", etc...  Then spend some time looking at the different information and tools that are out there.  You could fairly easily join up with a group to build a world or participate in the building of a world that exists.  I think you'd find it more rewarding to be involved in the use of your artwork, and helping to get it put into something that others will use, than to simply release it as "here it is... best of luck".