Hi @snakeeyes11,
Just say NO to MMORPGs, and YES to Scalable Multiplayer Online RPGs (SMORPG). If you can design a high performance experience for 64 concurrent Players, with intent to scale concurrent player count, your MMORPG will come to fruition organically. I refuse to say MMORPGs cannot be done due to costing this and that, because your definition of MMORPG may be different than mine. Your concurrent player target count, may be different than mine. Your implementation of Networking may be different than mine.
Your greatest challenge is Content, Content, Content, and you’re not recruiting enough content creators such 3D Modelers, Animators, VFX, Sound Producer, to meet the supply and demand of a live service game such as a MMORPG. This is an area I conducted extensive research into because like many I had MMORPG Dreams, and planned to take on the endeavor single handedly with my programming skills.
To solve my ‘Content Problem’ I selected 4 methods:
- **Use Highly Modular 3D Entities **{characters, creatures, weapons, vehicles, architecture, landscape, props} which could generate massive variations using interchangeable mesh parts, animations, and parameterized materials.
- Procedural Content Generation to algorithmically assemble Modular 3D Entities, Dungeons/Landscape, Musical composition, and Quest Generation.
- **Purchase High Quality Modular Content **and easy-to-customize content from the Marketplace.
- Pick up a 3D Content Creation Skills. At minimum, develop enough skill to Mod existing 3D Content.
Why Highly Modular 3D Entities? Because, not only did I want to prefab many variations of entities, but I also desired to provide my Players a means of customization. In fact, Customization is a managed form of Player Generated Content. Why not provide the Player’s tools to create Entities, Quests, Rules, Music? You don’t need an Army of Game Devs, when you have a Community of Players who can create Content in your game using your tools.
Procedural Generation gets a bad rap, due to its potential to generate repetitive content. Well, I had two solutions to mitigate this problem, #1) More granularity and variation of modular parts 2) Manual Post Edit of Proc Generated Content. I dont have a problem doing some of it, I just know I cannot do all of it.
In my opinion, paying £200 - £300 each month for a single Artist to generate the amount of Content required is simply unfair. Use that budget to acquire assets from the Marketplace. When you purchase products you effectively establish a relationship in which Vendors can support you, through supporting their products. There are many Professional Vendors in the Marketplace which are open to recommendations and will assist implementation and some go out of their way to create Free Add-ons and Tutorial. I consider every vendor I do business with a Virtual Game Development Partner.
I’ve always been code-centric in my pursuit of game dev, but I had an epiphany when working with UDK…I need to learn 3D modeling/texture/animation if Im to ever see any game idea come to life. So I grabbed Blender and started forcing myself to learn it. I had to remove the barrier in my head, that im just a programmer, and start thinking I will be a 3D modeler. After all the self-motivation speeches, I still can only crank out primitives, but I can cut, slice, and dice existing models to get the desired result. I have no shame in reverse engineering.
Anyways I can ramble all day about MMORPGs, because I also wanted to develop one in UE4 at one point in time. Even though I’m not developing a MMORPG today, I’m designing my network subsystems with intent to scale concurrent player count for our 4 Player Co-Op FTPS Game Product.
I wish you the best on this massive endeavor.
Sincerely,
Frankie ‘TechLord’ Taylor
HeadlessStudios.com