The Journey [Next-Gen MMORPG Project] Thread

Hey guys, what's up?

First of all, my name is Andy and this is my very first thread on the ModDB community. I just wanted to share with you a project that I've been thinking about a long time ago, but I never took it very seriously.

Before going further, I will introduce my project to you...

*changing artwork*

Title (provisory, probably this won't be the final title of the game): The Journey

Genre: Fantasy MMORPG

Engine: UDK 3/4

Intro: the Orcs of the far away northern lands have raisen up again after being barely extinguished by the human King Thrymr III of the Northern Kingdom. Shaken by the notice of the annihilation of their nothern brothers, the southern human kingdoms, finished their foolish civil war and allied up against the Green Skin menace. Soon, the winds of war will come over the world... (The lore will be way more complex, but I just need to finish writing/thinking it)

Playable races:

- Side A: Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes.
- Side B: Orcs, Goblins, Trolls.

Classes:

Warrior, Paladin, Hunter (Scout), Shaman, Druid, Assassin, Mage, Warlock, Priest. (They will be 2 more classes, but I have to decide their appropiate names and specializations).

PvP & PvE modes

Allright, I have introduced you guys already to my ideas (like I said before, what I have in mind is way more complex and of course, much better) so, now we can proceed to the next step... team recruitment!!

I would love to start with you guys a game studio, however, I'm going to need professionals to start creating this project. So, if you would like to join the team (the only member it's me, hahaha) feel free to contact me at andy.thejourney@gmail.com

They're no requirements to join the team, except speaking English/Spanish or both and also having Skype or microphone so we can discuss ideas in a way more efficient way.

NOTE: The jobs at the team will be FREE, at least till we have some progress and we can create an official website and set a donation PayPal account.

Thank you so much guys for taking your time to read this!! It means a lot to me!!

Cheers, Andy.

Edited by: AndyBox

Cut the "next-gen", "mmorpg", all but 1-2 classes, one race and develop everything to a more established point before recruiting and you're off to a good starting point. Oh and don't use artwork that's not yours.

Edited by: iqew

I agree with iQew.
Im known by now for crushing big ambitious ideas.

Dont try and go from no team directly to "next gen mmorpg" because it wont happen, added your not a coder that can code a basic the game concept or mechanics nor a modeller who can produce some basic assets or a experienced game designer and being an ideas guy means nothing if you cant contribute to the the project to get it off the ground (basic game mechanics or assets)
Without anything to show its not likely that any members worth their salt will join.

Please tell us what experience you have and what you will be contributing towards the project?

And if this is your first game you want to develop and want to seriously go into Game Development PM me and ill be glad to give you some pointers on how to start.

I am afraid to say I agree with IQew and CGO on this one.

Start small, get some basic models and test code running first before you start recruiting a whole team. Or at the very least write a design document defining what needs to be made and ask people to work on them.

Maybe its because I don't have enough information on your project but Next-Gen doesn't really seem appropriate for the ideas you have presented here. Have a quick look at the following video, it does a dam good job of explaining what Is wrong with modern day MMOs:

Un-ruining the MMO (by MrBtongue)
Gamerknight.wordpress.com

Oh dear...this is a bad case of Ooh-shiny. If you're dead set on making an MMO, you need to lop off a large, large amount of whatever you're planing.

Lop off 6 classes (plus the 2 you haven't named yet), 4 races, 90% of your items, locations....basically everything. Then sit down and write a Game Design Document. This is okay as a concept, but it's nowhere near enough to make a game off of. Define what defines your game (art aesthetic, a mechanic, even the emotion(s) it's supposed to foster) and determine the absolute, skeletally bare-minimum you need to convey that. I'm talking bare-bones here. Just barely enough to run and work and convey what you want to convey.

Then, and only then, should even think about getting a team together. You're the designer. The architect. There's no point in getting a construction crew together if you don't even have any blueprints to give them, if you only have the barest idea that the walls should be brick and the carpet blue.

From what you've presented so far, next-gen is not how I would describe this. It's almost World of Warcraft word-for-word. Right down to the humans vs orcs paradigm.

If next-gen is what you want to make, you're going to seriously need to seriously rethink your entire concept. And I personally would start by getting rid of the idea of using classes at all.

Hello Andy welcome to ModDB, please take the advice given, as advice and not a personal attack on you or your project however there are some substantial issues with the idea.

Why are all your classes the same as wow, missing death knights and monks? (your other 2 classes?)

Watch this, and don't follow the crowd, or your time will be wasted.
Moddb.com
Also udk is far from a mmo platform, you can get some nice apps to help network a pvp style game for unity, however you would need to outset money for the code snippets if you didnt want to spend years finding a coder.

I would start small much smaller, you don't need to compete with wow, you need to produce something very different for people to be interested.

Edited by: TKAzA

1. you cannot make a mmo if you don't have 10+ years of experience
2. you cannot make a mmo if you don't have a team of 50+ people with 10+ years of experience
3. you cannot make a mmo if you don't have 100 000$ to spend on server maintenance
4. you cannot make a mmo with the same apparent features of world of warcraft and expect to be successful
5. your concept really does sound like a wow clone

do something simpler. and with original gameplay first because mmorpgs are the most technically hard to make so you won't succeed if you start with this.

Guiboune wrote: 1. you cannot make a mmo if you don't have 10+ years of experience
2. you cannot make a mmo if you don't have a team of 50+ people with 10+ years of experience

You can. It's just not going to be anywhere near WoW or EVE or STO, or any of the 'big' MMOGs. I would suggest him looking at something like Fantasy-mmorpg.com as a model of what his MMO should be, or at least start as.

Guiboune wrote: 3. you cannot make a mmo if you don't have 100 000$ to spend on server maintenance

With the existence of sites like KickStarter, this is less of an issue than it once was.

Guiboune wrote: do something simpler. and with original gameplay first because mmorpgs are the most technically hard to make so you won't succeed if you start with this.

I agree that it's hard, but if he wants to make an MMO, and he's utterly dead-set, then he needs to both reduce the challenge by hacking his scope to pieces and acknowledge and accept that even then, it's not going to be something that he and any team he puts together is going to be able to make in less than a year or two, at best.

Andy, you're looking at a project that is not only going to be technically challenging and tedious, but also something that you're going to need to dedicate large amounts of time and effort to even after launch. Any money you make is going to be server maintenance first and profit last.

Make sure that you're ready to dedicate years of your life, at least 2 to 4, just to development, and years more after launch to maintaining and expanding it.

Take my advice as someone who's going down the same path: Make sure you're ready.

I see where everyone is coming from, I too was one of those who wants to make MMO's. BUT...that would be more possible in the future. Right now, just working on single player games, maybe multiplayer.

Someone wrote: With the existence of sites like KickStarter, this is less of an issue than it once was.

This is only true for non-MMO titles. An MMO would never succeed from a Kickstarter because it requires on-going payment (either from a subscription or itemshop) and a kickstarter is just a one off injection... so it doesn't assure success.

Nothing assures success. However, considering that several high-profile new MMOs have been successfully funded by KickStarter (namely Star Citizen and Elite: Dangerous), requiring large sums of money for any purpose is less of an issue than it once was. It's still an issue, but it's no longer nigh-insurmountable. Especially if the developer(s) in question include the estimated cost of running their servers for, say, 6 months to a year in their asking amount.

While I agree with you TerranAmbassador, the two games you point out capitalized on the names of their creators. For example Elite Dangerous gathered the first 300k with nothing more than a logo and the sentence: "coming from the guy that brought you Elite decades ago". Kickstarter might be (have been?) one more option on the table but it is a pretty tough nut to crack - harder than selling the actual game.

Regarding the OP: You want to create a next-gen (what is that exactly?) mmorpg and as you say: "There are no requirements to join the team, except speaking English/Spanish". Hmmm...

I believe you should re-think your strategy a little bit. Do a search on the countless MMO's that have failed (from strong and experienced companies) and go from there.

Sorry, but to me this sounds like a Rehash of almost every RPG and mmo out there, the one coming to mind is WoW. Try to diversify yourself from the main stream genre, that is how you stand out. I'm not going to blow you out of the water with numbers, but maybe start small with a Torchlight feel, single player but could be made MMO. Get your feet wet before jumping in the shark filled lake, at least than you won't be scared of how cold it is when you finally do go in. Wow thats a good analogy.