How Do I Make An MMO?
Friend and fellow veteran mainstream & indie game developer John O. forwarded me an email he sent to a young aspiring game developer who asked him for a step-by-step process to create an MMO. I doubt the young man who asked the question realized that it was something akin to asking for a step-by-step process to building a space shuttle.

But John answered his question as best as he could, because he's just that much of a nice guy. And he shared his answer with me as something I might address here on the blog, because I'm lazy and love to borrow (with permission!) someone else's content. Although in this case, I'm gonna paraphrase most of his answers.

Step 1: Identify Your Rationale
Why do you want to create an MMO? Are you looking for fame & glory? Do you think you could do better by yourself than Blizzard and their hundreds of employees and budget of hundreds of millions? Are you interested in making tons of money? Are you just wanting to learn? Do you see some virgin territory within the genre that you'd like to explore? The last two answers are pretty good. The others - not so much. But the important thing is that you identify your reasons and choose a path that satisfies that rationale.

Oh, and if it's tons of money you are after... go into some other field, not games.

Step 2: Educate Yourself
Okay. Bottom line - if you have to ask how to make it, you aren't ready to make it. If you are looking at going into mainstream game development, you are going to need to specialize. If you are going the indie route - well, you've got even more to learn. If you want to be a programmer, you'll want to study up on math, geometry, physics, and of course programming languages. I don't care what language you start with. I started with BASIC, which is obsolete today. Python, C, C++, C#, Java, LISP, whatever... start with a language you have access to, where you can find lots of educational and game-development resources for (I'm partial to Python and C++ myself), and learn.

Study up on storytelling. Study literature and fine arts. Those will help you with design. And art, if you also take that route. And if you really do want to go the indie route, you should study up on marketing and business management, too.

Study up on the game industry. And play games! Play the games you don't like. Study the successful ones. Study the unsuccessful ones. Learn to identify the difference. And do not just look at mainstream games. Play those games your mother and your kid sister like.

Step 3: Keep Track of Your Ideas
John writes, "Keep notes on game ideas and designs. Organize them. Include maps, statistics, artificial intelligence, algorithms, look and feel, quantities and quality levels. This stack of notes will be what you draw from for future projects."

I say there are three things going on here:

Number one - almost all of your ideas will be lame. Probably. Deal.

Number two - Write them all down and keep track of them anyway. That's a killer habit to get into. The more you track your ideas, the better they will flow - both in terms of quantity and quality.

Number three - learning to organize those plans and determine all the little bits and pieces that are needed to support the design are critical skills. Skills I too often lack, and that bites me in the butt. Often.

Step 4: Start Small
Write games. Don't start trying to write World of Warcraft from scratch. It'll only end in tears and frustration. While it may be far from your dream game, take your baby steps. Old-fashioned arcade-style games are a great start.

Learn to mod bigger games. Neverwinter Nights is a great place to start, IMO, because it incorporates a lot of elements that are also present in Massively Multiplayer Online RPGs. I also highly recommend you try to build a small world on some kind of MUD / MUSH / MU* codebase. That's a lot of where the MMORPGs came from. The folks who were working on those things a decade or two ago have in many cases forgotten a heck of a lot more about creating multiplayer worlds than many professionals making MMOs have ever learned.

John also recommends joining another game development team, perhaps on an open source game.

Step 5: Go To College
John writes: "Go to college. By the time you’re 18-19 you should have a good idea whether you really enjoy coding (computer science), electronics hardware (computer engineering), or would rather concentrate on team management (business) or model design (art). Getting an undergraduate degree will give you a safe backup plan. That way you can either land a job doing games, or get a job doing whatever your degree qualifies you for, and then work on games on your own time."

I may not agree 100% with this one, but lacking some compelling reason to do otherwise (like being a successful game or business tycoon at age 17), I'd say follow this advice. You really want a broad education when you go out in the world - in the games business or otherwise. And while it may sound impossible to imagine right now, there may come a time when you really want to something other than games in your life, and you don't want to be unqualified to do anything else.

Step 6: Start With a Kit or an Engine
Okay, once you are finally ready to make a "real" MMO, I'm going to say here - don't start from scratch. There are lots of engines and code-bases out there that will give you a leg up. Now, the downside is that Betty Crocker's EZ MMO Mix is going to result in a pretty generic MMO when you are done compiling that doesn't come close to matching your vision. That's okay. Remember back in step 4 when you were learning to mod games? This is where that skill comes in, but on a larger scale.

This is my own addition to John's list. While it's cool to have the skills to create a game from scratch, including the engine, you have to decide for yourself where your passion is. Remember step 1? Do you want to make a game, or create technology? There is no wrong answer here, but if you create your own technology, be prepared to never have time to move on to the game.

Step 7: Ignore the Steps
The order presented here doesn't really mean that they should be followed in any sequential order. You can do all of these at the same time, actually. There are a lot of indies who are doing it all while still going to college (though I don't want to imagine what their GPA looks like...) Yeah, it's going to be rough when you start out. Just remember that just about everyone who was ever awesome at something didn't emerge from their mother's womb as an expert in their chosen field. They had to struggle and learn and grow, just like you.
Good luck!

Labels: productivity, programming

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