Original Post
In conjunction with the GAME DEVELOPMENT ISN'T EASY! thread, the following is an interview I did with Radu Privantu (known as Raduprv on Gdnet), creator of Eternal Lands, a very successful indie-MMORPG. Radu was kind enough to take the time to do this interview, so massive thanks to him.
Q. How did you get started in programming? A. By the time I was 12 or 13, I had my first personal computer, which happened to be a Spectrum ZX48 compatible computer. It had an integrated Basic interpreter, and Z80 ASM was possible with a small but effective assembler. After playing a lot of games, I decided, like any 13 years old kid, that I want to make my own games. So I started to learn Basic, and got a few Basic books. Then I learned some Z80 ASM, at the age of 14, but didn't do much with it. When I got my first PC I was 15, and I started learning X86 ASM. At that time I didn't really make anything game like, but, instead, I focused on researching computer viruses, and how they work. My first assembler for PC was debug.exe (which is quite frustrating ), then Tasm. Years later I learned PHP, and, eventually, C. Q. What was your first game project? A. My first game project was some sort of "kill the zombies and bad guys" hack and slash game. I was 13 at that time, and I didn't have any programming skills needed to make such a game, but at least I wrote down the concept, and some maps :) The first real game I actually worked at was when I turned 19, for a Romanian game company. I worked there for about 7 month, but eventually quit, for some personal reasons. Last time I checked, the game was almost ready, but wasn't shipped. I heard they were looking for some publishers. I would like to mention that none of my code is in that game, they changed the engine a few times after I left. Q. What experience did you have once you stared EL? A. I knew C pretty well (but not much as I do now, of course), then I also knew some OpenGL (about 1/3 of what I know now, which isn't much at all), and had some experience with networking and such from an earlier failed attempt to make an MMORPG in assembly, and a successful attempt to make a very minimal web server in assembly. But due to my previous projects I knew which mistakes to avoid, and my programming skill was considerably better than before. Q. What problem did you underestimate most when starting EL? A. That's an easy question: Getting people to play the game :) I was assuming that once the game is in early pre-alpha, when all you can do is walk around, people will crowd the game. Which didn't exactly happen :) Q. What do you think helped get you past this problem? Was it something you actively did on your part, or did it just sort itself out. A. It was both, actually. What we did was to continuously improve the game, so that other players will like it. Then we started to advertise a little. Usually, the more players you have in the game, the more players will come. It's some sort of psychological effect, you don't want to play an MMORPG that is empty :) If you come and see no one, or just very few players, then you might think the game sucks. However, if you see a few hundred players on, you think that there must be something about this game if so many people are playing it. Q. Take us through a typical day when EL was in its infancy A. Wake up, take a look to see if everything is fine (ie. the server didn't crash), take a look at how many players are in the game, curse because there were usually under 5 players on, start implementing new things, do some brainstorming, fix bugs, stuff like that. At that time, however, I had enough time to program, and I wasn't bothered by people forgetting their passwords, mods fighting each other, users complaining they were mistreated by mods, users complaining they were scammed/hacked, and so on. Q. What was the biggest challenge that you faced when making EL? A. Keep working while everything seemed to point out that we'll fail. Everything else went relatively smoothly, it was like a higher power was helping us and gave us whatever we needed, when we needed it most. Q. How hard was it to find people to work on EL with you when it was still very small? A. As I said above, the Universe (or God, whatever you want to call it) seemed to smile on us, so we didn't really have a problem with getting help, even after we just started. For example, the head of the map makers joined us about 1 or 2 months after we started. In December, 10 months after we started, we got 2 programmers that joined our team, once the client was released as Open Source. Since then, other programmers joined in the fun. Q. Obviously they knew that EL had a legitimate chance of being completed. What do you think it was that showed them that the project was for real? A. They knew that the project was for real because we did have enough programming done to allow movement on maps, and we also had some art done. The first person that joined (our map maker) made some sort of leap of faith, he wasn't sure whether or not the project will succeed. The others that joined later on first actually played the game (the game was playable at that time) so they could see that our population is slowly increasing. But even now, that we have a record of 446 players online at the same time, is hard to find really good team members. While there are many programmers out there, the most good programmers are already in some team or another. Plus, there are only certain skills we are interested in, for example advanced OpenGL knowledge. The only way to further improve the game, client side, is to add various eye candies other games have and we don't, plus various optimisations to the engine, to make it faster on slower computers. Q. Do you have any tips for those starting up there own games? A. I have a tip for those starting their own MMORPG: Unless you are really experienced, and have an artist, you should start writing a MUD server first. Mud servers require considerably less work than an MMORPG, and no art at all (well, except maybe for some ASCII art). Only after you finish this MUD server think about starting making an MMORPG. And if you are not a programmer, don't even think of starting working at an MMORPG until you at least STUDY some programming books and become familiar with a programming language, such as C/C++. This is because otherwise no one will take you seriously (there are, after all, many people with great ideas; the hard thing is implementing them). -------- Interview by Nigel 'Boolean' Mcconnochie. Thanks again to Radu Privantu for participating. You can check out his website at Eternal Lands [Edited by - boolean on February 19, 2005 5:35:41 AM]
Q. How did you get started in programming? A. By the time I was 12 or 13, I had my first personal computer, which happened to be a Spectrum ZX48 compatible computer. It had an integrated Basic interpreter, and Z80 ASM was possible with a small but effective assembler. After playing a lot of games, I decided, like any 13 years old kid, that I want to make my own games. So I started to learn Basic, and got a few Basic books. Then I learned some Z80 ASM, at the age of 14, but didn't do much with it. When I got my first PC I was 15, and I started learning X86 ASM. At that time I didn't really make anything game like, but, instead, I focused on researching computer viruses, and how they work. My first assembler for PC was debug.exe (which is quite frustrating ), then Tasm. Years later I learned PHP, and, eventually, C. Q. What was your first game project? A. My first game project was some sort of "kill the zombies and bad guys" hack and slash game. I was 13 at that time, and I didn't have any programming skills needed to make such a game, but at least I wrote down the concept, and some maps :) The first real game I actually worked at was when I turned 19, for a Romanian game company. I worked there for about 7 month, but eventually quit, for some personal reasons. Last time I checked, the game was almost ready, but wasn't shipped. I heard they were looking for some publishers. I would like to mention that none of my code is in that game, they changed the engine a few times after I left. Q. What experience did you have once you stared EL? A. I knew C pretty well (but not much as I do now, of course), then I also knew some OpenGL (about 1/3 of what I know now, which isn't much at all), and had some experience with networking and such from an earlier failed attempt to make an MMORPG in assembly, and a successful attempt to make a very minimal web server in assembly. But due to my previous projects I knew which mistakes to avoid, and my programming skill was considerably better than before. Q. What problem did you underestimate most when starting EL? A. That's an easy question: Getting people to play the game :) I was assuming that once the game is in early pre-alpha, when all you can do is walk around, people will crowd the game. Which didn't exactly happen :) Q. What do you think helped get you past this problem? Was it something you actively did on your part, or did it just sort itself out. A. It was both, actually. What we did was to continuously improve the game, so that other players will like it. Then we started to advertise a little. Usually, the more players you have in the game, the more players will come. It's some sort of psychological effect, you don't want to play an MMORPG that is empty :) If you come and see no one, or just very few players, then you might think the game sucks. However, if you see a few hundred players on, you think that there must be something about this game if so many people are playing it. Q. Take us through a typical day when EL was in its infancy A. Wake up, take a look to see if everything is fine (ie. the server didn't crash), take a look at how many players are in the game, curse because there were usually under 5 players on, start implementing new things, do some brainstorming, fix bugs, stuff like that. At that time, however, I had enough time to program, and I wasn't bothered by people forgetting their passwords, mods fighting each other, users complaining they were mistreated by mods, users complaining they were scammed/hacked, and so on. Q. What was the biggest challenge that you faced when making EL? A. Keep working while everything seemed to point out that we'll fail. Everything else went relatively smoothly, it was like a higher power was helping us and gave us whatever we needed, when we needed it most. Q. How hard was it to find people to work on EL with you when it was still very small? A. As I said above, the Universe (or God, whatever you want to call it) seemed to smile on us, so we didn't really have a problem with getting help, even after we just started. For example, the head of the map makers joined us about 1 or 2 months after we started. In December, 10 months after we started, we got 2 programmers that joined our team, once the client was released as Open Source. Since then, other programmers joined in the fun. Q. Obviously they knew that EL had a legitimate chance of being completed. What do you think it was that showed them that the project was for real? A. They knew that the project was for real because we did have enough programming done to allow movement on maps, and we also had some art done. The first person that joined (our map maker) made some sort of leap of faith, he wasn't sure whether or not the project will succeed. The others that joined later on first actually played the game (the game was playable at that time) so they could see that our population is slowly increasing. But even now, that we have a record of 446 players online at the same time, is hard to find really good team members. While there are many programmers out there, the most good programmers are already in some team or another. Plus, there are only certain skills we are interested in, for example advanced OpenGL knowledge. The only way to further improve the game, client side, is to add various eye candies other games have and we don't, plus various optimisations to the engine, to make it faster on slower computers. Q. Do you have any tips for those starting up there own games? A. I have a tip for those starting their own MMORPG: Unless you are really experienced, and have an artist, you should start writing a MUD server first. Mud servers require considerably less work than an MMORPG, and no art at all (well, except maybe for some ASCII art). Only after you finish this MUD server think about starting making an MMORPG. And if you are not a programmer, don't even think of starting working at an MMORPG until you at least STUDY some programming books and become familiar with a programming language, such as C/C++. This is because otherwise no one will take you seriously (there are, after all, many people with great ideas; the hard thing is implementing them). -------- Interview by Nigel 'Boolean' Mcconnochie. Thanks again to Radu Privantu for participating. You can check out his website at Eternal Lands [Edited by - boolean on February 19, 2005 5:35:41 AM]
