To answer your question about if jME is capable of handling a mmorpg, the main developers of jME were hired by NCSoft (http://www.ncsoft.com/) to make (the first I think) AAA mmorpg based on java using jME. AFAIK they are a small group right now working on the game.

About the comparison, I think you can't compare dofus to all the other mmorpgs, there's a big difference in their audience, one targeted at more casual gamers while WOW and the others are aimed at hardcore gamers. That's like comparing Bejeweled to Halo, both sold millions but one is aimed at casual gamers while the other is targeted at hardcore players.

Most of the flash based mmmorpgs use mostly "static" screens, and the movement is constrained to a grid. I agree if you do it in flash use AS3, it's so much faster than AS2 but it has a "few" changes with respect to previous versions. Flash of course can handle partitioning, even 3d (you make your own transformations) if you are asking whether flash can do it or not then I'm afraid you don't have the required experience to tackle such a project in flash.

Quote:To answer your question about if jME is capable of handling a mmorpg, the main developers of jME were hired by NCSoft (http://www.ncsoft.com/) to make (the first I think) AAA mmorpg based on java using jME. AFAIK they are a small group right now working on the game.

blah, i know jme can do mmo. jadestone spirits! i'm asking if it's feasible/worthwhile to plop that into an applet/WS and what the pros/cons of that might be over going flash 2d.

Quote:About the comparison, I think you can't compare dofus to all the other mmorpgs, there's a big difference in their audience, one targeted at more casual gamers while WOW and the others are aimed at hardcore gamers.

that's exactly my point. dofus is casual... although i don't know if runescape is..? either way, the whole reason to go browser-based is that lots of people will try out just about every casual game, and i'll likely get enough hits without requiring too much devotion/skills. There's no point in competing in the hard-core arena, WOW will win no matter what. But if a casual peice of junk like runescape puts DAOC and Lineage2 to shame, then i know exactly which games to compare for for developing a revenue-model

Quote:if you are asking whether flash can do it or not then I'm afraid you don't have the required experience to tackle such a project in flash.

true, i don't have the required flash skills. you'd be surprised how fast people can learn when the want to ;) i'd like to know before diving in, however, if it can do the things with which i'm familiar in java.

Quote:Another reason to use java. In my experience you want the server and the client to use the same language and java is good for that. At the moment I've just been programming the engine and keeping it soft coded and ready for the networking. Put it this way I'm using VB.NET for the server due to the easy GUI and I had to write a full wrapper class so that flash and my server could communicate perfectly. Not to mention I have to basically reprogram a lot of code in VB so the simulations will both be in sync with one another. A real pain!

oh hey, i just thought of something. Silverlight! low browser penetration, but who knows how long that will last... arguably greater functionality and scalability than flash, but more important in yours (and possibly my) case is back-end interoperability. You can do silverlight in c# (and vb.net?) and use all your existing datasource business logic. And, like i mused in a previous post, you'd get uber showcase, which is huge when dealing with casual-style ad-based browser games.
if it weren't for that shiesty browser-penetration...

You seem to think that because runescape looks outdated compared to today's AAA games it didn't require a huge amount of work. I assume you have read Radu Privantu's postmortem about Enternal Lands

http://www.devmaster.net/articles/mmorpg-postmortem/part1.php

If you haven't then go ahead, it takes a huge amount of work to build and most importantly MAINTAIN a mmorpg, there's so much to take care of, that it's probably going to consume most of your time. Things like sever issues, hacking, mods and players are going to be a little nightmare. Also you WILL have to hire other people to do things like graphics, server coding, client coding, quests, you can't do it all, even find the right people to serve as mods.

Also have in mind that another reason runescape is so successful is because it was one of the first browser based mmmorpgs (since 1998), at that time there wasn't any WOW and others. There are so many mmorpgs nowadays that if you make a mmorpg there MUST be a reason for people to play your game, whether it be awesome graphics or very unique gameplay, something "special" if you know what I mean. You can't just whip out a chat room and call it a mmorpg and expect people to play and pay for your game.

There's always the option of semi-mmorpgs like neopets (http://www.neopets.com/) which uses mostly static screens and involves a lot of server side scripting (usually PHP), but it's way easier to develop than making a full scale mmorpg since you don't have to worry about graphics algorithms and such, and what makes neopets unique is graphics, lots of high quality 2d graphics.

Quote:You seem to think that because runescape looks outdated compared to today's AAA games it didn't require a huge amount of work. I assume you have read Radu Privantu's postmortem about Enternal Lands

i don't assume that, i'm sure they have their hands full-- but that's because they have so many users. I'll settle with a couple hundred users for now, and if i ever get bigger i'll have the means to hire! I think the amount of work put into a game is equal to the amount of development time spent-- but the thing is, browser-based mmorpgs, as i've been discovering, have a handicap head-start. aka, one can start big even if they don't go far easier than with most web solutions. and thanks for the link, that's EXACTLY what i'm looking for.

Quote:You can't just whip out a chat room and call it a mmorpg and expect people to play and pay for your game.

it'll be free. ad-based revenue. but if i whipped together a chat room and called it an mmorpg, i'm arguing that i CAN expect people to play it. check out http://www.candlelightstories.com/Pirates/PirateGame.htm, the shmucks are making 7 figures on this piece of junk or so i've read. it may have been difficult to make, may be difficult to maintain... but i'm not sure if it's 7-figure-difficult to maintain.


Doomsayers! all of ya! naw, jk. I appreciate the advice, you guys have been quick to respond. I'll get started with a flash game, let people play it in its infancy and have a poll where they can decide whether I should go 2d/3d. I'll try to blog my development experiences and come back to proclaim y'all correct if a casual mmorpg is too difficult for 1-2 people to manage.

We are not doomsayers, we just want to scare away most beginners trying to make their first MMORPG (which usually happens to be their first game too) [grin] . As I said you can read Enternal Land's postmortem and try to imagine yourself in the developer's position, if you are still not scared off, then good luck with all your endeavors and keep us informed. [smile]

fair enough :) I shall return as soon as i can with either a URL or a white flag.