Hi everybody I'm a senior game dev, and as I have some time to kill I'm working on a little online RPG, *cough* MMORPG. Anyway I'm very interested in a very small part of the video game industry, namely the "indie/amateur mmorpg":s. For me, at least in this "research", it boils down to one or a couple of guys (except Suvi who's a girl) and no million bucks funding. Up to date this is what I have found: [Edited] 3D: Eternal Lands by Radu Privantu 2003 Gekkeiju Online by Coolhouse (Suvi) 2003 Minions of Mirth by Prairie games (don't know the name of the guy) 2005 Xenimus by ejthayer(his gamedev.net forum name) 2004 Wurm Online by Rolf Jansson and Markus Persson 2003-2006 Love [www.quelsolaar.com] by Eskil Steenberg 2009? 2D: Haven & Hearth and maybe: A tale in the desert eGenesis/MDO Games (Andrew Tepper?) 2003 Golemizer (2D / semi-realtime) Dawntide Regnum (www.regnumonline.com.ar) Minecraft(alpha version) by Markus Persson 2009 <-seems to be "just" multiplayer at the moment Do you know of any others? Also yeah, an MMORPG for some people is a web game (been there done that) but what I'm looking for is a realtime 3D game with a persistent world (you know what I mean). Do you know any other successful launches? [Edits] Off course Prairie games didn't launch Eternal Lands, they were enough busy with Minions of Mirth. Sorry for that really big typo *shrugs*. [Edited by - Valmond on April 10, 2010 4:33:36 AM]

I think they are generally not made by indies has to do with the fact that they are usually very expensive to develop and upkeep. Both from a time and capital perspective.

I wrote one, its called Xenimus

www.xenimus.com

God dammit, you are added to the list :-)

If you want to share some technical info about the game, like server spec, programming language, maximum connected players and so on, please do!

@way2lazy2care
>I think they are generally not made by indies [...]

That's the reason for my post, they are really difficult to find, but they Do exist!

Well everything is in C++, the server has been able to handle 120 simultaneous players with no lag problems and it has a fairly fast game play speed. The server runs at about 100 thousand cycles per second. I multi thread a few things but keep it to a minimum so I can run multiple copies of the server on the same machine.

Quote:Original post by Valmond
@way2lazy2care
>I think they are generally not made by indies [...]

That's the reason for my post, they are really difficult to find, but they Do exist!

I misunderstood your OP.

I thought you were asking why there are few, not trying to expand your knowledge of the few there are. My bad :)

How are you defining "MMO" ?

It seems like most people forget the first M in "Massively Multiplayer Online".

I would exclude anything with a PSU under 1000.

Multiplayer Online RPG, sure, there are lots of those. But Massive?

Of the four you listed, it looks like only Eternal Lands and Minions of Mirth have had enough simultaneous users to start to approach MMO status, but I still wouldn't give them that first "M".

Thanks ejthayer!

That seems quite cool, what hardware do you use?
(I don't want to dig into the tech too much but when you say 100.000 cycles, do you mean like "messages treated"?)


@way2lazy2care
np;-)

@frob

Well, definitely Eternal Lands, I mean back those days about Anything with a persistent world was "MMO" (they have enough players too, I just wanted to make that point).

and as I'm an old guy, for me anything with a persistent (realtime) world with the possibility for a not predefined number of players to connect counts.
The actual player base is of less interest (to me) as I'm looking for the creations, not the success stories.

Again, you know what I mean.