Make an MMORPG?

[nurga]

Hey!

Some of this has been around for quite a long time, particularly the torque mmokit and recently some 3D mmorpg engines have gone open source like ryzom but really there is no complete package out there for general people like you and me who doesn't want to spend alot of money on licensing. Fortunately though torque mmokit is lesser known and over the last few days when i've got seriously involved with this i've found it to be really easy to modify and prototype ideas with.

I have had some great discussions with you all in group over what an mmorpg should be and alot of you really do want to make games and this is a great way to expose yourself to game development if you prefer to learn by modding instead of learning the theory first.

I've looked into making an mmorpg in the past, dabbled with emulators and even looked at the more expensive sdk's you can get out there but really nothing is as complete and as easy to begin making changes straight away or with as much documentation.

Making MMORPGs is a HUGE task and we often take for granted how much time is put into probably one of the largest and most complex software projects and company could ever take on. The guy that wrote the torque mmokit has basically saved you all the work of getting the core systems done like

* chat

* combat

* inventory

* skills/spells/abilities

* terrain

* grouping/guilds/raiding

And really it's just a matter of you creating content (which is a big enough task in itself - 3dsmax, maya, milkshape, lightwave) and tweaking the game engine to your like.

It's made up of several systems that work together to provide what most players would expect in an mmorpg these days and to give you a quick overview the client side 3d is handled by the torque game engine (which is mainly for placing objects on the screen and manipulating them around 3d space) and then the server side is python which informs the clients where those objects on the screen should be and what will happen when a player interacts with them.

The software is completely free and you can get up and running in your first zone in about an hour or so then it's really down to sculpting the terrain, adding npcs and items and then some basic quests which you could easily get going in a day.

The hardest part i've found really is finding others to help you out in adding all the content (which really is a mammoth task) - and i must admit gives you alot more understanding of what happens when companies like soe have to push out an expansion like velious in 6 months (ok well, they do have money but still the amount of work involved)

So anyway! Have fun with it, please post some screenshots of anything you've done here i'm sure everyone would love to see what ideas mmo gamers come up with when they have the power to mod the game themselves - and most of all try something new! Too many clones of other games out there atm and we need some innovation