Blog post by author of LOVE. Interesting Read
Everyone who knows me on here knows I simply do not plug peoples posts, but I read something a moment ago I completely had to share, because he mirrored by thoughts exactly. [im refraining from a direct link because I do not want it to be assumed im trying to pass in google juice or anything]
First the artical:
http://iloapp.quelsolaar.com/blog/news?Home&post=47
This post talks about a kid who wants to develop the "next big MMORPG", and the author (the developer of the INDE MMORPG "LOVE") briefly discusses why he would offer the kid advice rather then simply laughing his way into hystaria. It is true that most MMORPG projects are abandoned, and dreams are crushed, but every once in a while you find someone who really has the drive to get SOMETHING done. No, they will probably never complete the RPG, but they could end up learning enough to have a nice tech demo or game of some sorts on their hands after a few years. Anyways, I just thought it was a nice read and thought I would share :)
Cesar
I don't fully agree with the author. Making decisions is never the hard part; the follow through is. Just because some kid calls him every day for two months straight because he decided he wants to make an MMO doesn't mean much if he can't follow through (and a phone call isn't much effort). The difference between the author, the kid who calls him, and the multi-million/billion companies, is that those companies often don't have the luxury of deciding to do something and then quitting part-way through without severe legal and/or financial consequences. Maybe the author always follows through completely on everything he decides to do no matter how daunting the task becomes, in which case kudos to him, but most people (let alone teenagers) aren't like that. I believe that you do someone a disservice by encouraging them to tackle unrealistic goals that they aren't ready for. Telling someone to set more realistic goals is the best advice there is not only because they can hope to accomplish something and stay motivated, but also because they can gradually learn enough to work their up to that MMO. Let's put it this way, I'm pretty sure that the author didn't start LOVE after picking up "C++ for Dummies"...
Quote:Original post by Zipster
I believe that you do someone a disservice by encouraging them to tackle unrealistic goals that they aren't ready for.
I'm not sure I totally agree with that. I see where you are coming from but here's something to think about:
If you encourage someone to tackle something that is much too large, it really puts the ball back in their court. They can take one of two routes: 1. They can give up, and move on to something else or 2. they can learn from their experience, step back, and plan something more manageable. It leaves it up to them on how much they are willing to do to get what they want. A little harsh perhaps, but it leaves it up to them. If you are continually having them set smaller goals - things that are easily achievable, who's to say that they will really stretch and try to do the unachievable once they've got the skills to do so?
It's like the story about cooking fleas. Supposedly you could put fleas in a pot with a lid and turn the heat on. When they first start jumping they hit their head on the lid of the pot, and quickly learn not to jump so high. As the heat gets higher, the lid is removed, yet the fleas won't jump out of the pot because they've learned to not jump so high or they hit their head.
Learning to stretch is an important part of learning. If we never learned to stretch in this industry, we'd be a lot more boring.
Interesting post.
The biggest reason I discourage people from "making MMOs" these days is because that first "M" means something: "massive." While there's certainly no strict definition for that magnitude, it's more than a handful of people connected simultaneously. I would argue that it should imply a peak concurrency of at least a few hundred users.
Most hobby developers will never make an MMO simply because they'll never get that many people to buy or play their game, and they'll have no idea if their networking infrastructure will scale.
So all they really make are regular old multiplayer games.
What this boils down to is that I tend to discourage people from calling their projects MMOs, because it just incites this furor in people about how they'll fail, and that practically guarantees the discussion gets side-tracked from whatever actual question the developer originally had.
The biggest reason I discourage people from "making MMOs" these days is because that first "M" means something: "massive." While there's certainly no strict definition for that magnitude, it's more than a handful of people connected simultaneously. I would argue that it should imply a peak concurrency of at least a few hundred users.
Most hobby developers will never make an MMO simply because they'll never get that many people to buy or play their game, and they'll have no idea if their networking infrastructure will scale.
So all they really make are regular old multiplayer games.
What this boils down to is that I tend to discourage people from calling their projects MMOs, because it just incites this furor in people about how they'll fail, and that practically guarantees the discussion gets side-tracked from whatever actual question the developer originally had.
Quote:Original post by Moe
If you encourage someone to tackle something that is much too large, it really puts the ball back in their court. They can take one of two routes: 1. They can give up, and move on to something else or 2. they can learn from their experience, step back, and plan something more manageable. It leaves it up to them on how much they are willing to do to get what they want. A little harsh perhaps, but it leaves it up to them.
I don't disagree, I just don't think that all large goals can be tackled head-on (maybe this is how I draw the line between a "stretch" goal and an unrealistic goal). At some point you need to acknowledge that you simply don't have the skill or ability to accomplish something -- that doesn't mean you never will, just that you don't right now -- and that ignoring this fact means almost certain failure. By setting smaller goals and eventually working up to the larger goal, at least you can get something done while developing the skills you need.
Quote:If you are continually having them set smaller goals - things that are easily achievable, who's to say that they will really stretch and try to do the unachievable once they've got the skills to do so?
Perhaps, but I could argue that if they aren't willing to stretch once they have the skills to do so, then they probably wouldn't have been able to tackle that large goal in the first place when they had no skills at all. But at least they've done something rather than nothing, even if it wasn't their original goal.
Quote:Learning to stretch is an important part of learning. If we never learned to stretch in this industry, we'd be a lot more boring.
I completely agree. But even then we stretch within reason and what we believe we are capable of. Progress comes through small iterations, not giant revolutions.
Quote:Original post by jpetrie
Most hobby developers will never make an MMO simply because they'll never get that many people to buy or play their game, and they'll have no idea if their networking infrastructure will scale.
So all they really make are regular old multiplayer games.
More than just a large number of simultaneous players, making a real "MMO" also means persistent state, at least by the definition of "MMO" that most people are familiar with. Persistence and scalability alone are difficult problems to solve, let alone all the regular game development issues. I watched a gameplay video of LOVE and the developer stated that there were a "few hundred" players per sever. Most MMOs need to support a few thousand players per server without breaking a sweat in order to be cost-effective.
Honestly I don't think it matters what you tell the kid. If someone is so off-base that they can't recognize that attempting to build an MMO as a first programming project is a bad idea, they are not going to succeed no matter what advice you give them.
The only saving grace would be if they decide to build an MMO as a first project, and then a few steps into the process, realize they were being a dumbass and decide to revamp their strategy.
Yes one 14 year old kid in a million will prove me wrong by actually completing an MMORPG, but the other 999,999 will get a few lines of code in and give up.
The people that need the most of our time are the ones who come in asking where to start, what books are good for new programmers/game developers, advantages/disadvantages of tools, etc.
I do not believe that having a target and being passionate is a substitute for having a brain. It's one thing to say, "I am going to make an MMO" or "I am going to start a billion dollar company", it's another thing to say that without having read a single programming tutorial, or without ever starting ANY company. It's not even that it's a bad decision or idea, it's that it makes it abundantly clear to everyone else that you don't have the forethought to see past the first iteration. Someone like this won't "learn a lesson", they are in their own little world of future expectations, and are not going to leave it with any amount of external pressure.
The only saving grace would be if they decide to build an MMO as a first project, and then a few steps into the process, realize they were being a dumbass and decide to revamp their strategy.
Yes one 14 year old kid in a million will prove me wrong by actually completing an MMORPG, but the other 999,999 will get a few lines of code in and give up.
The people that need the most of our time are the ones who come in asking where to start, what books are good for new programmers/game developers, advantages/disadvantages of tools, etc.
I do not believe that having a target and being passionate is a substitute for having a brain. It's one thing to say, "I am going to make an MMO" or "I am going to start a billion dollar company", it's another thing to say that without having read a single programming tutorial, or without ever starting ANY company. It's not even that it's a bad decision or idea, it's that it makes it abundantly clear to everyone else that you don't have the forethought to see past the first iteration. Someone like this won't "learn a lesson", they are in their own little world of future expectations, and are not going to leave it with any amount of external pressure.
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