quote:Original post by bpopp
Excuse my ignorance.. "because I have seen how disadvantageous, harmful, unhelpful, useless it really is". Surely you were able to infer my meaning despite my poor choice of words?

i wasn''t exactly sure what you meant, being that i know the meanings of all the words and phrases used.

quote:Frankly I didn''t know you and I were engaged in a f''n scrabble tournament here.

well, geez, sorry if i offended... upon re-reading, i see that i might have come across as rude. i was just asking, in my own way, for you to clarify.

quote:It irks me when people don''t capitalize their sentences but you don''t see me critiquing your gramatical snafus in a transparent attempt to discredit _you_ intellectually.

i wasn''t attempting anything, no need to get so defensive.

quote:So let''s see your MORPG engine krez.

i don''t have one, as i am not yet qualified to stand a chance of completing one at this point. but thanks for asking, tough guy.

quote:I''m curious how much smarter you are than me (gobs I would presume from the sound of your posts).

i never made such a claim, jackass. however, i do not use words or phrases that i do not understand, which some would consider a sign of intelligence. nor would i get defensive and then rude if somebody questioned my meaning when i (theoretically) butchered my native tongue, which some might consider a sign of the lack thereof.

The difference between you and me Krez, is that I had the balls to start such a big project.

I started 3 years ago and I''m about to finish it. Please don''t say it''s impossible to make a MMORPG without any experience. The best way to learn experience is to make one.

Cahaan: so i suppose you knew absolutely nothing about programming or game design, and you generated an MMORPG from scratch as your first game? if so, congratulations, you must be a very special boy. if not, then we are not talking about the same thing at all.

As entertaining as it''s been, I didn''t mean to start a p''ing contest with this thread. I was just messing with you Klez. No hard feelings.

To get back on subject, I think a lot of the newbie bashing is just ego. It feels good to ridicule people that you feel you are somehow superior to. My dad has recently gotten the technology bug (he''s still very much a neophyte) and was telling me how hard it is for him to find help when he talks to technical people. You see it in other professions, too (doctors, for example).

A lot of it is probably insecurity, too. An insecure person might feel threatened by these young kids coming on the scene with all their grand ideas. I''ll be honest, it blew my mind when I found out Trent Pollack was only like 18 when he wrote Focus on Terrain Programming. He''s 10 years younger than me. Instead of getting p''ed off, though, and taking out my frustrations on the "script kiddies" in the scene, I am just working that much harder. Maybe that sounds like positive affirmation mumbo jumbo, but so be it. It doesn''t take a clinical psychologist to reason that being positive is going to be more productive than being negative.

superdeveloper: Yes. Exactly. At a macro level, my prototype is currently butt-ugly and the design is attrocious (global variables for everyone!), but my understanding of each module is pretty solid. Later, I''ll take these individual modules and rewrite them into a real engine.

bpopp (bpopp.net)

Yes it is possible for a single person to create an MMORPG. I did it in 10 days from design to release. See Gang Wars at my site. That''s about what a beginner could put together in 6 months. I''ve been working on another one for about a year and is nearly completed.

No, it''s not possible for a beginner to do it as a first game project. It should not be attempted. It''s way too much to take on. It''s better to set small goals and build to avoid being discouraged while you learn all the concepts needed to make an MMO.

It''s necessary (at least a very smart idea) to create an RPG or a FPS or an RTS or whatever before appending MMO to it. MMO is actually the MINOR part of MMORPG. If you can''t make an RPG there''s no point in trying to make it MMO.

No amount of feel good hippy speech is going to change facts. Trent has skills. Making a terrain engine is one small part of making any game. Being able to make a god like terrain engine doesn''t make on knowledgable of the dozens of other major concepts needed to make a game much less an MMO. Maybe he knows those things as well but that can''t be assumed.

Ben

>>As said there is no way you can create a massive online multiplayer game alone.

I agree to some extent. My goal in this is not to compete with commercial MMORPGs. That _WOULD_ be impractical for a single person. My plan is to get a solid engine running on one server with a design that supports load-balancing. I''m going to store data in a MySQL database and provide interfaces for designers to modify content dynamically using a web interface (my focus prior to games was PHP/MySQL web development). Players will likewise be able to modify/query their characters/virtual stores dynamically via the web. I''m also going to try and make as many of the quests/features dynamic.

An example of this dynamic aspect is a bounty system I am toying with. Player characters will be able to put out bounties (a description of the offense and an amount of gold they are willing to pay for justice) on other characters that break the acceptable rules of conduct. Once a character gets a high enough bounty from enough people, a judge (a high level character who has somehow been deemed worthy of the position) can issue the bounty which makes the offender a marked man (or woman). Anyone who accepts the bounty can then kill that character on site (or be killed). If the bounty is enforced, the hunter takes a souvenir (would an ear be too cliche?) and returns it to an NPC offical to collect their bounty. Ahh.. but I digress.

In the unlikely event that my game takes off, and I find myself needing more bandwidth, I''ll ask around for server space. I recently read on Planeshift.it (a free open-source MMORPG that is really showing promise) that they have had many people offering to provide servers/bandwidth.

bpopp (bpopp.net)

I believe that one person can in fact create a MMORPG or anything they want, if given enough time and if they are determined. But I would not take on such a large challange. Someone developing a MMORPG *WILL* be competing with the AAA MMORPG titles, because there are only so many potential subscribers, and most of them will probably be gobbled up by whichever big name online game they see first. I shake my head each time I read a post about making a MMORPG. I don''t like these games! I like one or 2 player games, I hate playing with jim bob in alabama with his cheaty invincibility code (for example) that ruins the experience for everyone. There are too many problems that come from the "MMO" part. IMHO it isn''t even worth it to play one let alone create one.. Look at what happened when Square announced their new Final Fantasy would be "online only" people got pissed because it was traditionally a single player game, and they liked that. Multiplayer might be ok, but it is not as popular or loved by the masses as you might think..