Can an idea have value without programming? [MMORPG]

[junfanbl]

@BoredEngineer

On of the issues with pure ideas is that normally they don’t stand ground when execution starts. You can spend years on planning/designing but unless you have significant experience in development/design behind your back, you won’t be able to predict all possible issues with your idea and design to solve them. Meaning that even if you have money to finance whole enterprise and you can find talented people to work on it, your idea just might be not practical or actually fun when it all is assembled together. This is why it takes years to make a good game. Part of that time is making a content, which might be thrown away or rebuild as you have to change mechanics of the game when certain things just don’t work. The other part is watching how your game works and analyzing what is good / not good in its design or execution.
If you want to ever get into industry professionally, don’t start with a MMO, start with something like BomberMan, It might look simple but it’s not. With easier to use engine, like GameMaker you could get a taste for what it takes to make even a simple game fun. I’m not saying this because “making good games is hard” but because before designing an “economy for MMO” you have to learn what “designing” actually means.

My gosh…I can’t imagine spending hours of work and money on your game only to find out that your idea sucked and your game is in-fact not fun. That would be a nightmare. I guess that’s why you should prototype your ideas as early as possible. Take them one at a time, and test them before implementing them completely in detail.

Did anybody ever play that game Jaws? That game I think is an example of what seemed like a good idea, but in execution did not quite work out. It was kind of fun for the first 30 minutes of game play. After that, it was awful. I wanted my money back.