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Indie / Amateur MMORPG, where are they?

Started by Valmond Apr 8, 2010 at 1:14 PM 24 replies 6.2k views
Original Post
Valmond
Valmond
Hi everybody I'm a senior game dev, and as I have some time to kill I'm working on a little online RPG, *cough* MMORPG. Anyway I'm very interested in a very small part of the video game industry, namely the "indie/amateur mmorpg":s. For me, at least in this "research", it boils down to one or a couple of guys (except Suvi who's a girl) and no million bucks funding. Up to date this is what I have found: [Edited] 3D: Eternal Lands by Radu Privantu 2003 Gekkeiju Online by Coolhouse (Suvi) 2003 Minions of Mirth by Prairie games (don't know the name of the guy) 2005 Xenimus by ejthayer(his gamedev.net forum name) 2004 Wurm Online by Rolf Jansson and Markus Persson 2003-2006 Love [www.quelsolaar.com] by Eskil Steenberg 2009? 2D: Haven & Hearth and maybe: A tale in the desert eGenesis/MDO Games (Andrew Tepper?) 2003 Golemizer (2D / semi-realtime) Dawntide Regnum (www.regnumonline.com.ar) Minecraft(alpha version) by Markus Persson 2009 <-seems to be "just" multiplayer at the moment Do you know of any others? Also yeah, an MMORPG for some people is a web game (been there done that) but what I'm looking for is a realtime 3D game with a persistent world (you know what I mean). Do you know any other successful launches? [Edits] Off course Prairie games didn't launch Eternal Lands, they were enough busy with Minions of Mirth. Sorry for that really big typo *shrugs*. [Edited by - Valmond on April 10, 2010 4:33:36 AM]
way2lazy2care
way2lazy2care
I think they are generally not made by indies has to do with the fact that they are usually very expensive to develop and upkeep. Both from a time and capital perspective.
ejthayer
ejthayer
I wrote one, its called Xenimus

www.xenimus.com
Valmond
Valmond
God dammit, you are added to the list :-)

If you want to share some technical info about the game, like server spec, programming language, maximum connected players and so on, please do!
Valmond
Valmond
@way2lazy2care
>I think they are generally not made by indies [...]

That's the reason for my post, they are really difficult to find, but they Do exist!
ejthayer
ejthayer
Well everything is in C++, the server has been able to handle 120 simultaneous players with no lag problems and it has a fairly fast game play speed. The server runs at about 100 thousand cycles per second. I multi thread a few things but keep it to a minimum so I can run multiple copies of the server on the same machine.
way2lazy2care
way2lazy2care
Quote:
Original post by Valmond
@way2lazy2care
>I think they are generally not made by indies [...]

That's the reason for my post, they are really difficult to find, but they Do exist!


I misunderstood your OP.

I thought you were asking why there are few, not trying to expand your knowledge of the few there are. My bad :)
frob
frob
How are you defining "MMO" ?

It seems like most people forget the first M in "Massively Multiplayer Online".

I would exclude anything with a PSU under 1000.

Multiplayer Online RPG, sure, there are lots of those. But Massive?

Of the four you listed, it looks like only Eternal Lands and Minions of Mirth have had enough simultaneous users to start to approach MMO status, but I still wouldn't give them that first "M".


Valmond
Valmond
Thanks ejthayer!

That seems quite cool, what hardware do you use?
(I don't want to dig into the tech too much but when you say 100.000 cycles, do you mean like "messages treated"?)


@way2lazy2care
np;-)
Valmond
Valmond
@frob

Well, definitely Eternal Lands, I mean back those days about Anything with a persistent world was "MMO" (they have enough players too, I just wanted to make that point).

and as I'm an old guy, for me anything with a persistent (realtime) world with the possibility for a not predefined number of players to connect counts.
The actual player base is of less interest (to me) as I'm looking for the creations, not the success stories.

Again, you know what I mean.
JamesPenny
JamesPenny
Aww applesauce, I was gonna mention Minecraft.

At the moment it's not MMO but thats the way the community's pushing. With a map potentially 8x the size of the earth, a crafting system, randomly spawned enemies and no hardcoded player limit except server size it seems inevitable to have at least one MMO server. It's not really an rpg though, players don't 'invent' characters for themselves. Neither does it have a leveling system, but that's not part of MMORPG.
hiigara
hiigara
You forgot the very successful Golemizer. Work of a one man team.
JoeCooper
JoeCooper
Well there should be zounds of them considering how many completely serious amateurs show up asking which language they need to learn to write one.
mongrol
mongrol
There's also www.havenandhearth.com
Mr Explody
Mr Explody
Though maybe a little scandelous. You might want to talk to some people who are running emulated/private servers for retail MMO's to get an idea of server loads/specs and upkeep. Some of these private server have in excess of 10,000 simultanious players, and I'd say that's a big M.
Valmond
Valmond
Thanks!

Wurm, Minecraft, Golemizer and Haven & Hearth added!


@JoeCopper: lol!

@Mr Explody
Mmm, well I'm not out here to find a good sysadmin ;)
but those few who actually finalized, up to some
point at least, a massive multiplayer game.
samoth
samoth
And of course there's Ryzom. Very nice (albeit bizarre) design, and some of the best ever ideas in it.

Unluckily, also the probably worst ever management in history. The title already sucked two companies into bankruptcy, and it remains to be seen what becomes of the current owner (so far it seems they have really deep pockets).
Valmond
Valmond
Ryzom isn't really an indie product though, right?

I've met a couple of guys working on the game (that was a loong time ago though :) ) and they were definitely 'hired' by Nevrax (well I guess it was Nevrax, the game has changed hands so often...).

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