I love my MMO strategy games, but I always find a ton of things I dislike about them.
So for me making my own MMO would be awesome, I'm definitely not ready yet, but just curious as to what it would take.


im not wanting to make a huge game like World of Warcraft, just something small and static text based.

There is one game I adore to pieces called Wild City, which has inspired and developed my love for MMOs and RPGS

In this game, you build up a characters stats to become powerful, you can fight with other players, join families (alliances) go to war with other families, become rich, the aim of the game is to become the most powerful player in game.

I'd love to make a game with some similar core basics and obviously my own twists and design.

So the game would be 2d, good looking images but not too many dynamic items, most things would be static, they don't change or move etc. Everything is calculated with numbers, from the stats, to odds in winning a fight.
So if someone with 50 strength went against someone with 30 strength the odds would be for the player with 50 for example

How hard would it be to make a game like this For mobile? Iam very passionate to making my own. Thanks.

Edit: forgot to mention, I do have some experience designing and programming games, only small silly things though

Hey Property, dont let anyone here shoot you down! All the guys here telling you "its impossible, dont even start" either dont have the balls for it or misunderstand your question.

Theres nothing wrong with making an "MMO" in the first place: Once you set up a server and dont need much real-time calculations (like bullet collision or something), it doesnt make too much of a difference if 2 or 200 people connect to that server.

But first things first, what you probably will need (I never did something the like, so this might be a bit vague and you may need to do additional reading):

Client Software: You need to programm a client which runs on every users pc. This Client should probably have some kind of Graphical User Interface (GUI), that means: Buttons, Text-Fields etc. And you probably also want to render some pictures. So here is the first branch: If you want to have a very easy time and dont need any advanced image filters or moving sprites or animations: Learning some Java Basics and diving in the native "SWNG" library* has most of what you are asking for. Just play around with that one: Write your own buttons, learn how to pass text-strings from one function to another and so on. If you want to use advanced Image stuff you probably want to use Hardware-Rendering (means: your graphics card), and for that you could use Java with libraries like Slick2d (it is fun but its not especially "good" in matter of rendering speed), or if you really want fast paced graphics: C++ and a Library like SFML or SDL.

*Libraries are basically code written by others, that can be used as a template. So I could write a library containing a type of "Button", and you could use that library, with some code like "new Button(X-Screen-Coordinate, Y-Screen-Coordinate) to place it on the screen. Rendering Libraries are far more advanced in themselves, but can be learned quite easily. You just need to decide on one for yourself, since each one has its own characteristics and code-syntax.

Alright, whats next? Gamedesign!

Grab a pencil, grab some paper and sketch out, how your game elements interact with one another. Sounds pretty simple but never underestimate your step. Everything of which you think "I have a vague idea about it" is far off from being sufficient. You need to put each and every idea and mechanic of yours in numbers and letters, thats what programming is about, thats all your pc understands. Better do this AFTER you have learned a tiny bit of java, because it will really benefit to know how code is basically dont for your game design.

So whats left? Server soft- and hardware.

MMOs run not only on the client side (meaning: on your pc at home) but are connected to a server. That server runs a serverside program which is connected to each and every client program. This part is a bit tricky: You need to read up some (or many!) tutorials on how networking is done in the programming language and library of your choice. Basically, you set up some kind of "channel" on an adress, which then is used to pass short code messages between both programs. The client and server loop through each of the received message and processes them accordingly. This may be not that easy, because you need to synchronize between different channels, make sure you have some kind of safe identification to avoid cheating and hacking and so on. A lot of code architecturing which you wont really be able to figure out unless you make at least 5 attempts to code it. May take about a month or five, depending on how much time you have to spare.

So for the hardware part: I never really did this myself but basically you need to rent a server, so basically like renting webspace for a website but with the possibility to run your own program on the server and not only some html stuff. If you made it as far as finishing the server-side programming, you are probably knowledgeable enough to read up on how and where to rent a server and make the stuff work out.

So thats "my" approach. You always need to start with the basics of course, but in my opinion: Basics can be learned in a very short time period. Dont listen to anyone telling you that programming is something only masterminds can do. When you got your basics straight, keep pushing forward and get used to a GUI- and Networking library and you are almost there. Some drawing skills may make your game more appealing, but I struggle with that myself :D

Another approach may probably be the use of HTML and java-script. Many browser games even use 3d rendering via Javascript and run in your browser. Networking via html and jscript is obviously very easy, but I myself never did anything in jscript and am not too familiar with html, so you might wanna ask someone with more experience in those fields if you are interested.

So I hope you are still reading here and did not get intimidated by all those pessimist "cant do" jerks who will never land a game. Go get them!