Monthly Archives: October 2009

The 3 Requirements For MMO Game Creation (K27)

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There’s a big gap between the following things:

  • “I have an idea about this cool MMO where use of fire is the central element of the game”
  • “I’ve now finished an MMO that runs smoothly on computers and has massive amount of locations to go, raids to kill, hundreds of thousands of paying players, excellent and well balanced economy, tons of new content every few months, and hundreds of other ongoing features that make this game worth playing, buying and developing”

The gap is just huge. Having “idea of MMO” and having “completed MMO game” is two totally different things.

Many wannabe developers go into “MMO creation” as their first project (I base this fact on my own experience since I was developing this “cool MMO where you could pick up a torch” around year 2001), and it’s kind of okay to mess up with picking-up-cool-looking-torch-with-flames game, but thinking that it’s going to be “MMOG” (massively multiplayer online game) is way too much. The “G” (game) alone is more than enough to tackle. Or a mockup demo. That’s totally cool to aim for such a small thing and practice.. but MMO, heck no.

There’s about 3 requirements needed for creating your own massively multiplayer online game. Here they are:

  • You must have played MMO games for minimum of 100 hours (preferrably 1000) to get some understanding where you are diving into. Then, consult this guy who actually knows where you are diving into.
  • You absolutely must have read book Designing Virtual Worlds, because it tells you things you don’t pick up by playing. (It’s good to read even if you aren’t making an MMOG, but essential if you plan to make one)
  • You absolutely must be 27 years old or older, since MMO creation is not allowed for younger. After you’ve got to 27 years age, you are either (1) old enough not to have such a stupid hopes* any more or possibly (2) a budget to actually create one.

* Doesn’t apply for filthy rich people.

Is It Worth To Make Your Game Moddable? (Do You Even Bother?)

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In my not so humble opinion, modding in general is a pretty sweet thing. Modding Half-life (or Half-life 2) for example has brought tons of awesome stuff in the market. I’m sure there’s tons of indie games (freeware, shareware, and otherware) that provide modding support, and it makes things fun for some players.

Finnish game Notrium is very moddable and has a community that has created numerous little mods for the game. Cliff Harris from Positech makes games that are moddable to some extent.

I don’t have numbers (and haven’t really checked anywhere), but my gut feeling says to me that modding can be a good thing (but you can leave without it too). It can provide tools for creativity. If you think of Little Big Planet – that’s one type of “moddable” game where you can build all kind of stuff. Even Civilization III (the best turn-based game ever in the history of Planet Earth) could be “modded” (I remember going through the English language file and translating everything into Finnish). It’s fun for creative players (and everybody is somewhat creative, right?)

I have a clear opinion for my own game: it’s planned to be moddable from start (since I needed a quick way to adjust weapon values, change zombie hitpoints and create levels) – there’s some scripting possibility – but I’m not releasing the thing public in the beginning (since it’s adds bit more work, so I’ll simply “do it later” if at all).

Anyway.

What’s your take on this? Is your game moddable? Any plans to make your game moddable?

And the last question is: is it worth it?