I was wondering the best Language to use for Text-Based game. From what i have read, MMOs are the hardest programs to make because they have to support the different actions that can occur at the same time. How much harder would a text-based game be that was MMO than that of a regular Text-Based Game. If i wanted to make just a Text-Based Rpg, what would be the best language to use as i would want to use it on both MAC and PC. Thank you

MMOs are one of the hardest game types to program, therefore everyone wants to make them! lol

If you've only made text-based games so far then I'd assume your programming skill is not yet well developed. My advice would be to make some more advanced, but non-MMO text-based games and/or some simple graphics games.

Then when you are ready make some kind of simple network/multiplayer game. I suggest your first project is some kind of simple text-based chat just to learn network programming. Then build up from there.

If you set yourself such a high goal, you are more likely to fail and then lose motivation to continue. Instead set yourself smaller, more achievable goals, to work your way up.

The thing is, the graphics aspect of MMOs isn't what is difficult about them. There are three areas of difficulty:

1) programming (primarily, the networking and distributed processing involved in handling the world and all its clients).
2) content (generally a large amount of content is required, and regular infusions of new content for all levels of play, as well as appropriate content balancing)
3) social systems (getting enough actual people to play simultaniously to classify your world as "massive.")

Honestly, (3) is probably the most difficult to overcome. But that's not the issue here anway.

The issue is that being "text-based" eliminates a very trivial portion of (1) and only a slightly-less trivial portion of (2) (I'm not trying to belittle any artists, here, just noting that "content" is much more than art).

Also, since (3) is so hard to obtain, you rarely get enough people to stress-test (1), which means that, assuming your (non-massive) online game gains popularity, you'll probably eventually crash and burn since your networking layer isn't robust enough. And there goes all your clients...

I am vastly oversimplifying here, of course. Online games are hard, persistant world online games are really tough and persistant world online games with enough clients to qualify as "massive" are effectively impossible for the majority of skilled teams out there, let alone greenhorn individuals. Removing the rendering portion of the game doesn't reduce the complexity to a manageable level.

Also, text-based online games are often called "MUDs." That's really a nomenclature thing, though, it's still most likely well beyond your current capabilities.

Just about any language is good for cross-platform text-based applications (provided you stick to native language features or cross platform APIs). Python is an excellent language (though by no means the unqualified "best," as, of course, there is no such thing).

Quote:Original post by Darkmarine
I was wondering the best Language to use for Text-Based game. From what i have read, MMOs are the hardest programs to make because they have to support the different actions that can occur at the same time.

They're the hardest games to make because they require all the knowledge that goes into a normal game, plus added large-scale networking knowledge, database knowledge, and on top of that you have players consuming your content at an exponential rate.

Quote:How much harder would a text-based game be that was MMO than that of a regular Text-Based Game. If i wanted to make just a Text-Based Rpg, what would be the best language to use as i would want to use it on both MAC and PC.

Text-based multiplayer games are where 'MMOs' came from, and are called MUDs. They are significantly easier to write but still require a decent grasp of networking. You typically connect to them with a Telnet client but you could write your own client instead if you preferred.

Python is a good language for networking and for text-based gaming, and your programs will run on both Mac and Windows.