An interest for Unity Engine

On 4/12/2018 at 10:52 PM, darynflannery said:

And I am even considering to subscribe to their package buy, for 1 year.

What package? The one from Pluralsight currently being offered through Unity's ad banner? I'd guess it probably isn't worth it. Everything you need for learning Unity is already available through online resources if you're willing to do the work of studying it out. You won't have as much hand-holding but thousands of developers have done it.

I don't know of a package like that for learning to develop on Unix systems. That also can be learned fairly easily from online sources for free.

On 4/12/2018 at 10:52 PM, darynflannery said:

The main reason why my eye is on Unity, is because someday, I would like to firstly produce a 'shooter survival' game (indi); as well much later on, perhaps an MMO (indi). And I hear Unity is good for both. Also, it cuts some corners and work. My best friend and I are wanting to go into studio together, in about 3 years; and make our own indi-game(s), alongside a couple more team-mates (friends). We have an investor in Montreal. I am new, but ambitious.

Go look at the game credits for the games. Mainstream shooter games require several hundred work years to complete. Actual MMOs have budgets that are easier to measure in billions rather than millions.

If you think smaller (dramatically smaller) there are things you can build.

The commercial shooters take several hundred work-years to complete, but working nights and weekends gives about a half work-year per person per calendar year. You'll need to scale your game plans back accordingly. People can invest hundreds of hours to build a simple shooter using existing tools. There are tutorials online and asset packs if you would rather start with those to save you even more time.

A true MMO (actually massively multiplayer with many thousand concurrent players and data centers around the globe) is not an option unless you have access to over a hundred million dollars. However, a simple online game is relatively easy to make by leveraging existing tools and tech. The major engines have some multiplayer functionality built in. I've seen quick prototypes built using those tools created within a day or two of work, but it was done by experienced developers who know how to use them.

It is extremely common for beginners to want to make those things. Many people take those desires and eventually get jobs where they work with large teams to create those products. So don't give up, just realize it is improbable to make them on your own.

On 4/12/2018 at 10:52 PM, darynflannery said:

My best friend and I are wanting to go into studio together, in about 3 years; and make our own indi-game(s), alongside a couple more team-mates (friends). We have an investor in Montreal. I am new, but ambitious.

That is possible, and actually more likely than building the other projects on your own. Still unlikely, but possible.

If you finish your degree, and if you go get a few years of industry experience, and if your friends are also suitably educated and experienced, and if you can find investors willing to fund you and back the project, and if you have a solid business plan that includes how you intend to make money as a business and ensures you do all the actions required to actually turn a profit... if all those things work out (there are a lot of if's) then it is possible.

Most of those studios that become successful don't start out making their magnum opus. They typically start by doing contract work for larger companies, and slowly but surely develop enough money and resources that they can branch out to their own small products with their profits.

Trying to stay close to your question: Stay in school and make sure you get the degree. Download Unity and in your spare time follow some tutorials and demos. Make some simple games with your friends. You'll learn a lot in the process even if you don't make the next blockbuster game.

Thanks guys.

Yes, my small team plans on starting with small games.

Also, some MMO's are actually built small too. There are some mmo's that are server limit more locally, so say; strictly their own country.

As well, said small mmo's tend to also limit subscription access, first come first serve. Additionally, these small mmo's can be in 2d, and not 3d. There are dozens of ways for an indi-company to create small and manageable games. Of course not a block buster (unless you are the rare EVE: Online (when they started out as a small indi company and made a killer game! With limited resources). As well, the mmo that I have in mind would also be much more "niche", and barely mainstream. Mainstream games tend to be built a certain grade, with certain higher end requisites expected by the mainstream audience. The games that my friend and I wish to build, will not be mainstream.

We are also not looking to get rich, on game #1, or even game #2. We just want to make a modest amount of money, but more importantly have fun making a game, and build something unique and different for a niche audience.

I think a small-scale mmo is very possible, after a couple normal games and saved financing. Also, I am fairly confident in some ways, where be it marketing and business. Because I've diplomas in accounting, business management, as well web-design. So I am hoping some of that can cut a few corners for me (rather hire too many other people, or anyone else, to do said work for me).

For my first game, project to market. I am hoping for a 4-5 person Team (help). And if that game does fairly ok; then I am hoping to find an additional person or two, to join team as well. For game #2. And both those games will not be mmo's of course.

So that is more-so my gear mind set, My running plan at this time. My theory.

20 hours ago, darynflannery said:

And I am even considering to subscribe to their package buy, for 1 year. Where they basically teach me how to develop in Unix, from scratch. This in extra, on top of all the free material available for 'teaching one self' provided.

Unity is the best engine at the moment for new developers. It's a good choice to start with.

However as far as learning materials go there is a huge amount of top quality free resources for Unity. It would be smarter to save that money for your own game projects.

If you want to speedup your learning then buying general game development books is better. Instead of Unity specific tutorials. As a developer you will find yourself using more than one engine in a lifetime.

1 hour ago, darynflannery said:

Also, some MMO's are actually built small too. There are some mmo's that are server limit more locally, so say; strictly their own country.

That is a MO Multiplayer Online not a MMO Massive Multiplayer online game; it's often agreed massive means at least 1 million active players and a large constand world.

1 hour ago, darynflannery said:

I think a small-scale mmo is very possible

"I think a small-scale Massive Multiplayer Online game is very possible" See why the misunderstanding frustrates developers?

I completely understand what you mean. Players often use MMO as a term for games that have a world in it, instead of just a lobby system and a battle area. However developers use MMO when they talk about multiplayer games that have Massive amounts of players and sometimes Massive worlds.

So for developers the idea of a indie MMO is a paradox, because if it's run by a indie team then clearly the game isn't too Massive and isn't a MMO but a MO.

Hope this helps

1 hour ago, darynflannery said:

The games that my friend and I wish to build, will not be mainstream.

Unity makes this easy, they offer Multiplayer for very low prices, it is already build for the Unity engine and very easy to use: https://unity3d.com/unity/features/multiplayer

Personally I hate a lot of things about Unity, but still I keep using it because of things like there services. How can a engine be so awful and yet so easy to use at the same time?

Yes, Scouting Ninja. Thanks for that.

MMO = 1 million or over players. That makes sense.

MO = typical multiplayer online.

I guess the question is "how massive, is massive?" One persons massive might be 1,000 players, while another 1,000,000 to anothers 10,000,000. But I do wonder where that common understanding is, about the number thresh-hold of what in fact designates 'massive'. I think I have also heard 1mil, being that standard mark also. Hm.

Although, here is what confuses me. On STEAM; there are a few *indi* mmo's/ mo's. Smaller worlds, less players; yet Steam defines these games as "MMO" or "MMORPG" next to the 'sort and genre' of said games. They don't define them as MO. And I would say these described games are around a capacity of 10,000 players subscribed, and only maybe 500 players on at any one given moment of the day. So, pretty light on the server(s) yes.

In my mind, I have always thought MO to be within the scope of 2-80 players in a world (or battle arena) at one time. And more than that.... I get confused. Is say 100+ players in a world at one time still an MO? Or more so an MMO? Maybe we should have a new definition and call it APMO for "'A Plenty' multi-player online" (laughs). I half joke of course. But something like that, while be is lesser than 'massive'.

For now, I remain confused for terminology; but by new default, I might swing to using MO for indi-level mmo's.

And about Unity. Alright I might go with the free tutorials, rather the cost courses offered. I will try out the free for a while, and see how I like them. I think I would like Unity to be the first Engine that I familiarize myself with, only because it seems developer "user friendly"; especially for fresher/greener programmers like myself.

I have heard that Unity limits the creative aspects of what game designers would 'like' to do. And that is what they find most annoying. Even though the engine itself is pretty handy in other ways, to shorten work and cut some decent corners.

Hm.

1 hour ago, darynflannery said:

On STEAM; there are a few *indi* mmo's/ mo's.

This is the genre problem. Players see one game that plays similar to a MMORPG like a World Of Warcraft clone, they think: "WOW is a MMORPG so any game like WOW must be a MMORPG." It's why modern day "Roguelikes" don't have only one or two similarities to the original Rouge.

The thing is for developers MMORPG isn't a genre it is a classification. As a example consider this questions:

1)"How to do matchmaking in a Online Multiplayer game?" VS 2)"How to do matchmaking in a Massive Multiplayer game?"

1: See the first question people helping will consider common problems of multiplayer games. Like there not being enough players to start a match, should the dev have a timer, or Bots maybe the game uses a smaller map?

2: The second question is a massive multiplayer game, so the problem is there is too much players. No need for bots or fancy tricks, here the concern is keeping the matches fair. With thousands of active players, keeping track of the player rank and comparing it to every other player is too slow; instead the data has to be broken into more manageable groups.

As you can see the two games have opposite problems. If you define your game wrong you will get the wrong answers and be lead down the wrong path.

For developers the word "Massive" means overwhelmingly large.

Indeed. Indeed.

There are an amazing amount of resources for indie devs these days, mostly because there are so many!
For instance, both of these services are being targeted at Indie Devs as well as medium companies:

SpatialOS - a Unity/Unreal MO Plugin that allows easy level streaming. They pretty much handle your servers, so you don't need to invest thousands to buy/rent your own servers. Plus, they have a free dev kit, so even if you don't use it it could be fun to experiment with online play: https://improbable.io/games

SpawnPoint - Backend Services - There are probably a lot of others, but a stable MO needs a lot of components. If you can save up some cash, you could probably outsource a LOT of the backend stuff to a company like this one: http://spawnpoint.com

There are even companies who specifically deal with update services.

DISCLAIMER: Do your research, I have never used either of these companies. I don't know how they compare to their competition.

On 4/13/2018 at 8:24 PM, darynflannery said:

MMO = 1 million or over players. That makes sense.

MO = typical multiplayer online.

I guess the question is "how massive, is massive?" One persons massive might be 1,000 players, while another 1,000,000 to anothers 10,000,000. But I do wonder where that common understanding is, about the number thresh-hold of what in fact designates 'massive'. I think I have also heard 1mil, being that standard mark also. Hm.

Although, here is what confuses me. On STEAM; there are a few *indi* mmo's/ mo's. Smaller worlds, less players; yet Steam defines these games as "MMO" or "MMORPG" next to the 'sort and genre' of said games. They don't define them as MO. And I would say these described games are around a capacity of 10,000 players subscribed, and only maybe 500 players on at any one given moment of the day. So, pretty light on the server(s) yes.

In my mind, I have always thought MO to be within the scope of 2-80 players in a world (or battle arena) at one time. And more than that.... I get confused. Is say 100+ players in a world at one time still an MO? Or more so an MMO? Maybe we should have a new definition and call it APMO for "'A Plenty' multi-player online" (laughs). I half joke of course. But something like that, while be is lesser than 'massive'.

For now, I remain confused for terminology; but by new default, I might swing to using MO for indi-level mmo's.

The term was created to refer to games where the infrastructure required a massive transformation.

The term has become seriously abused by people who don't know any better. If you ever hear of a small project being called an "MMO", it is like seeing a crop duster and calling it a fighter jet, or a two story building and calling it a skyscraper.

Online games can trivially handle ten or twenty players. The first good one came up in 1978 (just called MUD for Multi-User Dungeon). Variation after variation of network games grew up after that. Games up through the mid 1990s were limited by network capacity. Playing by modem made things difficult, but the engineering was amazing. Games like the original Warcraft or Command and Conquer pushed the hardware of its days, especially when you consider it was designed for less than 300 bytes per second. That is about one megabyte per hour. Many games these days push more data than every minute.

Games grew and network capacity grew. Games servers could handle hundreds of concurrent players. Many games grew to support thousands of concurrent players. But there is a limit to what the servers can handle.

At some point, varying by game but generally in the 1000-5000 concurrent player range, there is a cap for what can be done. It is extremely difficult and costly to cross that limit. Instead of being something that can be easily handled with a few computers, it is something requiring an enormous amount of infrastructure. It is no longer just a collection of servers, it becomes a globally distributed grid of complex network architecture requiring an army of IT folk and millions of dollars to maintain.

That threshold is when you get the extra M. Crossing that boundary is expensive and is among humanity's modern marvels. It is the first time in human history so many people have simultaneously collaborated in a single entertainment world, and very few companies have pulled it off. A million bucks won't keep the lights on around the globe for a single week.

On 4/13/2018 at 8:24 PM, darynflannery said:

And about Unity. Alright I might go with the free tutorials, rather the cost courses offered. I will try out the free for a while, and see how I like them. I think I would like Unity to be the first Engine that I familiarize myself with, only because it seems developer "user friendly"; especially for fresher/greener programmers like myself.

Unity and Unreal are both free. Try them out, see what you like and what you dislike.

On 4/13/2018 at 8:24 PM, darynflannery said:

I have heard that Unity limits the creative aspects of what game designers would 'like' to do. And that is what they find most annoying. Even though the engine itself is pretty handy in other ways, to shorten work and cut some decent corners.

Every game engine puts limits out there. Working with a race car engine puts limits on what you can do, like not working on a motorcycle or not working on an airplane. If you want to build a motorcycle start with a motorcycle engine. If you want to build an airplane start with an airplane engine. There are designers who want a motorcycle with the power of a race car that can pop out wings and fly like an airplane, and they feel limited that engineers can't build it.

As far as the code goes, software is software and you can do anything that you can make the computer do. I've worked on Unity projects that are abysmal, they look like someone's college freshman project. I've also worked on Unity projects that were beautiful masterpieces, the developers were constantly revisiting the code to keep everything in great shape. The same about Unreal, projects that smelled of open sewage, and projects that could have been displayed in a museum. You can't blame the engine.

Engines will shorten the work you must do because someone else has done much of it. But you still need to use all those libraries, and that is still work that you must do. Can you make all the parts of a modern game by yourself? Can you code up all the basic math, the linear algebra and quaternions, statistics, the discrete math, and all the rest by yourself? Can you personally implement networking systems, NAT punchthrough, UPnP, or maintainconnectivity meshes? Can you personally handle the math of physics systems, continuous collision detection and collision response, and arbitrarily shaped meshes? Fluid and cloth dynamics? Can you personally implement rendering systems, with multiple layers of shaders, with articulated mesh processing, dynamic level of detail processing, with lighting and shadowing, or even for dealing with the fact that eyes don't have a linear response? Can you personally implement audio systems, with algorithms for mixing and computing positional audio, for blending audio levels, for ensuring that audio mixes correctly and dealing with the way audio also doesn't have a linear response? Can you handle all the various types of input your game needs, keyboard and mouse and gamepads and joysticks or whatever other HID is plugged in?

Even if you are using the engines, do you know how to put those parts together? If someone gave you a suitable math library could you implement all the math processing needed by the game? If someone gave you a suitable physics library could you simulate objects moving in a realistic manner? If someone gave you a suitable animation library could you process the motion of the models? If someone gave you a suitable networking library could you get all the communications established between arbitrary computers? Having the engine alone does not grant the knowledge of how to use them effectively.

Game engines have a large body of existing functionality, but if you are going to make a game you still need to work with all the systems and put them together. It is an enormous body of work that few humans understand. Most games are written by teams of programmers, and artists, and animators, and audio engineers, and effects engineers, and tools folk, and many other people whose work comes together in the end. Each person has a general idea of what the others do, but they are a specialist in their tiny subdomain of the project.

I hope that encourages you to learn more, to do more, and to join in with the teams who do great things. But I also hope it dissuades you from the irrational; you won't be making the epic MMO by yourself any more than an unprepared beginning hiker could scale Everest. But given years of practice and dedication, you can be part of a team that makes the epic MMO, or work to join the crowd of experienced mountain climbers that work together to scale the summit.

As a beginner, using a game engine can help you climb the hills. It is a tool that can help you climb mountains that would otherwise overwhelm you. If you invest the time and effort you should be able to craft games, and you as an individual or small team will still be well within their capacity.

Unity has a lot of free tutorials that are more than enough to get you started . For the rest you will find just as good or even better free content online (youtube for ex.) .

"Even if you are using the engines, do you know how to put those parts together? If someone gave you a suitable math library could you implement all the math processing needed by the game? If someone gave you a suitable physics library could you simulate objects moving in a realistic manner? If someone gave you a suitable animation library could you process the motion of the models? If someone gave you a suitable networking library could you get all the communications established between arbitrary computers? Having the engine alone does not grant the knowledge of how to use them effectively." --Frob

Yes, Frob thank you. Informative and interesting your full reply adjoined to this quote above. Regarding this quote; my confidence is currently more around this level, at this time; and probably for the next 3 years to come as I learn more.

My first mmo will certainly not be an epic mmo, that is for sure; nor do i want the head ache of it. It (and the servers) will be on a smaller more manageable scale. Firstly I plan on making a couple survivor shooter/ melee games though MP (or MO). 4-6 player arena games. Maybe something similar to "Left 4 Dead" game.

Thanks for your recent submission response 'Timmmmmm'.

That is certainly interesting, and i will take a look-see those links that you put to me.

3 hours ago, CrazyApplesStudio said:

Unity has a lot of free tutorials that are more than enough to get you started . For the rest you will find just as good or even better free content online (youtube for ex.) .

Yes indeed. and this is something that I am quickly acknowledging lately. Why before I never noticed. I was just nose deep in the text books, strictly. For learning. As well the college, strict.

29 minutes ago, darynflannery said:

Thanks for your recent submission response 'Timmmmmm'.

That is certainly interesting, and i will take a look-see those links that you put to me.

Yes indeed. and this is something that I am quickly acknowledging lately. Why before I never noticed. I was just nose deep in the text books, strictly. For learning. As well the college, strict.

I am mostly referring to the unity learning resources here :https://unity3d.com/learn

As for the multitude of free online tutorials on youtube and other channels , you will have your hands full.