16 replies to this topic

[LeloDude]

Is it possible? Coding an mmorpg with Visual Basic?

[Sooker]

The language doesn´t matter if you master your language.
But if you just start programming, you shouldn´t set your goals to high.

Here are some tips:
http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2011/08/04/I-want-to-be-a-game-developer.aspx

[Zouflain]

"MMORPG" is such a poorly defined term that it's hard to answer with any great precision. If you gave more details about what you mean by "MMORPG" (average anticipated users, the nature of the server/client communication structure, the nature of the client, the volume of data being processed, storage mechanisms, ect) it might be possible to answer with more. Sooker's right - don't start too ambitious and language is less important than mastery of the language, but your choice of language can really effect performance. The language you chose should support multi-threading (or even better, multiprocessing), should have libraries that interface with SQL or your favorite database format in addition to networking, and should be compiled or have a very efficient Virtual Machine (Java is perfectly fine, for instance) just for performance's sake.

I don't think visual basic meets these criteria by itself, but even if it doesn't you can still use it. It just might be more difficult (writing your own SQL library or extending it with your own Socket code might be troublesome) and you may have bottlenecks that could be avoided with lower level code. I personally feel that C# or XNA, C++, and Java are the powerhouses for game development on the scale of an MMO, especially if you want it to function in 3D. Extending these with Lua, python or one of many other scripting languages is how most modern AAA MMO's do it. I'm not sure, but I don't think you can embed VB can you?

[SimonForsman]

As sooker said, the language is pretty irrelevant, yes you can make <insert X here> in <insert language Y here> , with a few exceptions:

The main ones are:

1) Language X might not be availably for Platform Z. (This is usually not an issue on the PC but can be a big one for mobiles and consoles)
2) The compiler / VM / Runtime for Language X on Platform Z might not perform well enough for you (Again, much more of an issue when you are targeting devices with 7-8 year old hardware (such as the ps3 or xbox360).

MMOs are difficult for 3 main reasons:

1) Online Multiplayer is difficult.
2) Online Multiplayer for thousands of concurrent players(The first M in MMO means the game supports multiplayer at a massive scale(massive compared to normal online games)) in a single game world is even harder. (if you write your game the naive way doubling the playercount will quadruple the bandwidth usage on the server which will make things pretty impossible. (it is almost impossible to get this to scale linearly, but for a MMO you have to get very close to that)
3) Thousands of players need a fairly large world to play in and making such a world takes a lot of time.

Edited by SimonForsman, 02 October 2012 - 12:05 AM.

[Kaptein]

i know im going to take some heat for this, but when it comes down to MMORPGs, if you have to ask, the answer is NO.
mmorpg is that thing where you have to know everything _already_, and you need years of hard work to complete your mmorpg
this can be remedied by teaming up with other people, setting clearly defined goals, and well.. now im answering a question you didn't ask

you can create an MMORPG with anything.. there are many web-based MMORPG's out there too
so yes, just make sure you start with ping-pong game, then after 10 years, you can make your own MMORPG

[InvisibleMan]

It's definitely possible; my first MMORPG was coded in Visual Basic 6.0. The problem is, certain bugs with the language and just the language itself didn't scale very well. That may be fixed in VB.NET though. I definitely prefer C++, and while I don't have much experience with the language, I would probably also recommend C#.

If you are going to make an MMORPG, regardless of the language, I wish you the best of luck It can be very fun.

[smr]

I'm assuming you mean VB6. And yes, you could. I know of one that had already been written and seemed pretty well done: VbGORE.

[Radikalizm]

I find that the term MMO is confused a lot with regular online multiplayer games these days, it seems like a lot of people do not realize that that first M makes a very very crucial difference between a regular multiplayer online game and an MMO (I even hear people talking about creating a 'small' MMO, which is just a complete contradiction)

Writing a multiplayer online game is definitely possible with visual basic, although there are tools which will be better suited for the job in my humble opinion.
Designing a massive multiplayer online game will require considerations far beyond which programming language to use. The word 'massive' implies that there will be a very large amount of users playing your game together at once, so this will not only need a very well-designed networking architecture which can support such traffic, but also the servers and a connection capable of smoothly hosting all those players + the server-side aspect of your game (don't forget that maintaining those servers and keeping your high-speed connection costs a lot of money). Massive also implies that there will be a huge amount of content available to that large player base, and I find it very very hard to believe that one person would actually be able to pull something like that off.

[slmgc]

Duh... yet another MMO thread. Just make some breakout or tetris game from scratch. Make an installer of it for different platforms and see how much hard work it takes to make such a simple game. After that: forget about MMO.

[slmgc]

and I find it very very hard to believe that one person would actually be able to pull something like that off.

As an example of MORPG made by one developer and his wife: http://www.eternal-lands.com/
You can easily google for Eternal Land's postmortem from Radu Privantu.

[Radikalizm]

and I find it very very hard to believe that one person would actually be able to pull something like that off.

As an example of MORPG made by one developer and his wife: http://www.eternal-lands.com/
You can easily google for Eternal Land's postmortem from Radu Privantu.

FYI, I was talking about an MMO, not an MO ;) I know there are MO's made by single developers.

When I say MMO I mean games like WoW, Guild Wars, EVE, etc. Basically games which are actually 'Massive'

[SimonForsman]

and I find it very very hard to believe that one person would actually be able to pull something like that off.

As an example of MORPG made by one developer and his wife: http://www.eternal-lands.com/
You can easily google for Eternal Land's postmortem from Radu Privantu.

FYI, I was talking about an MMO, not an MO ;) I know there are MO's made by single developers.

When I say MMO I mean games like WoW, Guild Wars, EVE, etc. Basically games which are actually 'Massive'

I wouldn't put guildwars in the MMO category tbh, its so heavily instanced that it is essentially a normal multiplayer game for all practical purposes. (there can be lots of players in the towns but thats really just a fancy lobby for what is essentially a normal MORPG (highest number of players in a game in guildwars is 16 or 24(alliance battles involve 24 players but seem to be played as a series of 4vs4 games) which is hardly massive by any standard))

Edited by SimonForsman, 02 October 2012 - 12:21 PM.

[Radikalizm]

I wouldn't put guildwars in the MMO category tbh, its so heavily instanced that it is essentially a normal multiplayer game for all practical purposes. (there can be lots of players in the towns but thats really just a fancy lobby for what is essentially a normal MORPG (highest number of players in a game in guildwars is 16 or 24(alliance battles involve 24 players but seem to be played as a series of 4vs4 games) which is hardly massive by any standard))

Yes, I actually was in doubt of whether Guild Wars qualified myself, but I think it does qualify as massive when looking at it from a content perspective

[6677]

Never specified if he was using VB6 or VB.net....

Assuming VB.net then its possible with XNA. VB6 and below I have no idea what libraries are available but I assume something more than capable of an MMO exists.

[SimonForsman]

I wouldn't put guildwars in the MMO category tbh, its so heavily instanced that it is essentially a normal multiplayer game for all practical purposes. (there can be lots of players in the towns but thats really just a fancy lobby for what is essentially a normal MORPG (highest number of players in a game in guildwars is 16 or 24(alliance battles involve 24 players but seem to be played as a series of 4vs4 games) which is hardly massive by any standard))

Yes, I actually was in doubt of whether Guild Wars qualified myself, but I think it does qualify as massive when looking at it from a content perspective

The first M traditionally refers to the scale of the multiplayer itself(Massivly Multiplayer) not the size of the game world (MMOs tend to be large content wise in order to get players to spread out since large crowds will inevitably chew up insane amounts of bandwidth), it is possible to make a MMO with a small game world if you restrict direct player->player interactions (Which is what most web based MMOs do). (Allthough some webbased "MMOs" restrict player->player interactions to such a point that one can debate weather it is a multiplayer game or a singleplayer game with some social features tacked on).

As for the VB6 vs VB.Net debate, it really doesn't matter in the end, VB6 is an awful language and i'd personally stay away from it but any language that can open a socket and display graphics can be used for a MMO client. (For the server you just have to be able to open a socket (Other features can make your life alot easier though))

Edited by SimonForsman, 02 October 2012 - 02:41 PM.

[Brahian]

The answer is yes

For 4 years Development this MMORPG on VB 6.0

Alone by my selft, 6-8 months to finish

http://www.facebook.com/DARKWAROnline


16 years Development on visual Basic 6.0

The server suport up to 4000 users

31 - 10 -2013 MMORPG Lanch

Edited by Brahian, 11 November 2012 - 07:58 PM.

[larspensjo]

A MMORPG constsists of at least two applications: a client and a server. You didn't specify which part in your question. And then there are eventually a couple of other applications that will be needed, like a web site, etc.

As many say, starting with an MMORPG as a first project is very hard. But I would not discourage it, because you will almost certainly learn a lot.

But prepare for the possibility that the project, as a whole, is not successful. If so, you want to maximize your return from it. That is, what new knowledge will benefit you the most? Programming a MMORPG requires experience from almost every possible computer science.