I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now.  It results from seeing the cost of a text editor with syntax highlighting, which was more than $1 million.  That was rather stunning to me, I must say.

So this begs the question - if a text editor costs more than a million, how much does an MMO cost?  I've tried doing some rough mathematics in my head, but the best I can come up with is $20 million to $100 million.  Which is verging on astronomical considering they only charge $15 a month per subscriber (on average).

Sure, 100 000 subscribers paying $15 a month amounts to a fairly nice monthly income, but considering you could put $100 million in a bank for 5 years and make back $30 million odd, spending $100 million and making $130 million back in a period of 5 years from a loyal fan base seems much more difficult.

Does anyone have any clue as to what the real figures are like?

-Oscarian

The FE "Apocalypse Party" to celebrate the end of the beta test is now underway.  You can join the party by going into your actions menu (N) and teleporting to one of three locations.

The party also has a live broadcast happening on loudcaster.com/channels/38

Come and join the fun!

-Oscarian

[edit] It can also be seen via live stream www.livestream.com/redtears

My experience playing the beta is that there are a few issues still requiring attention.  An aweful lot of people are falling through the world, and it seems that some people with high end PCs are getting terrible frames per second.

The delay can only be a good thing.  The fact that it's only a one week delay indicates to me they know what the problem is, but need more time to impliment and test the fixes.

-Oscarian

I've seen other people in-game comparing FE to SWG.  I never have played SWG so I have no idea what it's about. 

But I really like the direction FE is taking.  Crafter centric, no sticky targetting, choice of close range or long range combat (or both), zonal pvp with rewards and risks, on top of that meaningful pvp such as being able to take over a faction town - and, it's fun to play.

The community is still developing since it's only in beta, but the core community are quite decent folks with a genuine care for the game.

-Oscarian

The rank requirements are across the board, both for the free version servers and for the paid version servers.

-Oscarian

Hi guys,

Trackmania Nations Forever is a free MMO racing simulation game that I have been playing for about 2 years now.

Consider this:

- A F1 style car that can go up to 1000km/h;

- It's 4 wheel drive;

- It can drift;

- It doesn't have gears;

- Tracks are made by players;

- Tracks have loops, wallrides, and other features;

- The game supports offline as well as online modes.

It's worth trying it out if you're looking for a "skill" based game (a game based on how much skill you, the player, has).

Homepage is: www.trackmania.com/

Enjoy!

-Oscarian

Trackmania Nations Forever is a free MMO racing game that can be played offline also.  It has a map editor which allows anyone to make their own tracks.

www.trackmania.com/tm/

-Oscarian

Thanks guys for your replies, even though I am a little belated in my thanks.

I've spent some time researching game engines and such, and fiddled with doing some coding, but I've been inspired a little by the community of Fallen Earth.  Which from my reading seems to be a community based on a gaming idea which has subsequently made it almost to the point of completion.

I can appreciate that any game requires a good business model, rather than merely being "I had this great idea for a game".

I'm going to spend some time, instead, focussing on writing rather than learning to code.  I have plenty of time on my hands, since I am unable to work due to illness.

So I am going to sketch out my concept of a game I think I would enjoy, refine it a little, and whack it up on a website somewhere for other people to enjoy/critique/poke fun at.

If only I could draw cartoons, I would turn my ideas into a webcomic.

-Oscarian

As you can see by my post count, I don't often find reasons to post here.

But, I'd like to share an observation I have made, in the few (maybe 7-8) hours of playing TCoS.

It seems to me that the people who enjoy the game most are people who like to "play" games, and the people who enjoy the game the least are the people who like to "defeat" games.

I'm the sort of person who used to only be satisfied if I could defeat a game, say for example - shooting every enemy ship and getting every possible powerup in a scrolling shooter game.  Now I'm a little older (woohoo) and I tend to play games merely for the enjoyment of it.

I like TCoS so far, but my reason is purely a simple one.  I like TCoS because it's new.  I played AoC because it was new (hated it after 2 weeks), I played WAR because it was new (hated it after 1 week), going back further I played WoW because it was new (hated it after about a year) and played SoR, my first ever MMORPG, because it was free (still enjoy it, but in irregular doses).

For me, the experience is akin to, say, watching the latest episode of Doctor Who.  You know you are going to get the same basic premise, with the same basic fundamentals, and because of that you are more aware of the differences, and yet you find yourself still drawn to something where you also know the eventual (general) outcome.

The quests are a little dull so far, but that doesn't matter for me because I'm more into the community in any MMO than the quests.  There does need to be a certain level of engagement in order for there to be enjoyment in between chatting, however.

I can't see myself subscribing to TCoS for more than a month or two, simply because it isn't what I would normally look for in an MMO, but as I said, the "newness" factor is enough to draw me in for now.

That said, I still have my own critisisms of the game.  But I realise that in any game the game mechanics are a planned thing, and most of what gets implimented into any game, MMO or not, has to do with the game mechanics, etc.

I don't like WoW any more because of the total focus on gear and gold.  I'm also not, generally speaking, someone that enjoys PVP.

All I can say is that, as others have said, give the game a go - since its (premium is) free for the first two weeks [edit] from launch day [/edit]- and if you don't like it, no harm done.

-Oscarian

I'd really like to create my own online graphical RPG.  I've had a quick look around for software, but nothing matches quite what I am looking for.

But then this gave me an idea.  In a community that has many people looking for their "ideal game", why not create a project to start working on a simple MMORPG.

The problem for me is, although I have some coding knowledge (very limited mind you), I don't know how the pros go about the business of making MMORPG's.

I'm guessing they start with a gaming engine and associated software for music and graphics, and go from there.

I'm sure there are tonnes of people with experience in this area that can help me (or if other people are interested, us) out.

Does anyone want to shed some light on how the process works in game creation?

(Say, for example, how do you make tiles for a perpetual world?  How do you make monsters?  Etc.)

-Oscarian

Originally posted by sassoonss

Originally posted by Gules_Aspen

Read a book.

i think i need to do that

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series were about the only books I've ever really enjoyed, although I read Magician in two days.  The first four books of Dune were also good, the fifth was just weird, and I never read the sixth.