The second manifesto

[Relaxation]

There is a saying: "Nothing is certain but death and taxes."This is not true.

Nothing is certain but death, taxes and that TQ sucks. That is true.

But at its core, CO is a great game. The question is, how hard is it to clone?

I'm not talking about CO private server. I'm talking about a whole new game. A 2 1/2D isometric real-time pvp-game?

The graphics don't have to be great. No need for great quests, content, features.

Just good, fun, watertight PvP excitement with things added on top- simple code for levelling and experience, damage equation modified by equipment quality. A few mobs here and there to level.

So experts, how hard is something like this to execute?

What are the general categories of work?

1) Client-server networking
2) Graphics, animation & content development
3) Mechanics coding
4) Advertising & marketing

No lie, MMO development is very difficult and very risky. But let's walk through this exercise anyway.

How would you craft the design document?

[Spirited42]

wtf?

[Syst3m_W1z4rd]

I can tell you as much you would need to spent some money. You would need a quiet big team, where everyone has different jobs and things to do. You would need to have some kind of strucutre in everything that have to be done or is done, so peoples can follow up on the work, if somebody is sick. Making a MMO is not just something you do and it requires years to finish it, if you're not a lot persons. Making modesl maybe not be hard, making the server / client connection might not be hard either, but making everything have an action will be the hard part. The client will be the hardest part, because that's where everything is happening and it have to send data to the server all the time, but it also have to receive data all the time. Also if you want to make it in C#, that would not be the best thing. I would say C++ for this one, because the 10% extra runtime is needed, when you're going to develope a serious game. It doesn't matter much in fact for Private Servers, but in the long run it will matter and real games will have quiet a lot more players than Private Servers, so it needs to be coded proper. It's not an easy task, but neither is it an impossible task.

Goodluck.

[pro4never]

I messed around with the concept of slowly working on a custom mmo last summer. The fact of the matter is that you will need a large amount of people working together without fighting or screwing eachother over for at LEAST a year to get anything anywhere near playable... after that year you can worry about adding content and such.


Media assets: This is where 90 percent of your initial effort should go.

This includes concept art, 3d models, textures, sounds, etc.

The reason for this is that your game may just be getting to the point where the basics are done but it could still die... having these resources means the game can actually have something able to be marketed to investors to keep the project going (if all you have is a client/server program with blocks as graphics it will be... far more difficult to get interest from others)


So while your media creation team (yes, team. It's not something one person can hope to accomplish really) is working away you should have a client development team working on the STRUCTURE for your client program...

This includes things such as your graphics processing pipeline, network communication code and writing up ways to HANDLE content as you add it (basically building from the ground up preferably in a modular way so that specific sections of code can be written by 1-2 people and then combined)

While those two teams are working you need a third and very important team working on the actual design of the game (not coding related) They should be working hand in hand with the media creation team basically brainstorming all the ideas, balance and concepts behind the game itself. The reason to work with the media creation team is obviously so that all the artwork, models, textures, etcetcetc will fit with the game.

Eg: Conquer is a chinese themed mmo... what happens if the media creation team is working away with that sort of thought and your design team all of a sudden decides "lets make this one western themed!". That's a fairly blunt example but game concepts change and evolve over time and it's important working on such a large project that everyone would be on the same page.



That being said... independent mmo projects tend to fail before they even get out of the planning stage... and there are a TON more hurdles to get past after that.

C++ is obviously the way to go if you want to continue the project on forever but XNA in C# would be a great way to rapidly prototype your concept (so throw together something simple to use to attract investment, team members or even to just sell the game concept to a larger game company)

[Syst3m_W1z4rd]

@p4n
I would not recommend XNA for a mmo.
Mac users, Google Chrome users and Linux users won't be able to play without installing things.

[pro4never]

Originally Posted by Syst3m_W1z4rd

@p4n
I would not recommend XNA for a mmo.
Mac users, Google Chrome users and Linux users won't be able to play without installing things.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting making the full game in XNA, I'm recommending it for prototyping.

Basically would let you throw together a workable prototype to prove the concept using the media assets your team has created. Then once you get more professional interest and funding you can worry about creating a larger scale version of it using C++.

That being said... who cares about mac and linux? Windows is where 99 pct of the gaming market is at.

With XNA you basically bypass say 50 percent of the work required to create a prototype when it comes to displaying and your graphics pipeline. It's not perfect but it's a perfectly viable option. You could throw together a workable prototype within a couple months using xna vs lets say.... a year using C++... seems valid to me.


Examples that I could find quickly on youtube...


Random 10 week project some guys did in their course.

2.5D isometric rpg game engine.

Action rpg made in XNA

Terrain engine in XNA

Etc... I'm not saying it's the ultimate solution... just saying that I strongly doubt any independent project is going to get very far without using some sort of pre-existing library unless we're talking about a large, decently funded team (at which point it's hard to really consider it an independent project)


<edit>

god damnit... thanks to this thread I've spent the last hour looking up random XNA videos on youtube and now really wanna make a game engine with it.... Must... resist....

[Relaxation]

Liking the responses so far. No way it's gonna be an easy one-man job.

I was thinking about the cost effectiveness of outsourcing menial tasks like graphics, animation and coding. Having two teams- one in Bangalore and one in the US, for example, might be cost-effective.

Obviously the top priorities to keeping people engaged is PvP and socialization. CO's PvP is very visceral. Reflexes and split-second movements make it engrossing.

If we can recreate this feeling for the PvP, as well as cater to socialization people might stay and invite their friends. Social features => more people.

This was true for CO 5-6 years ago. The question is, can we tap into such a market today? People might have different graphical expectations. Then again, , maybe not.