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Quote: "
Step Seven: Dispelling some myths

You can't make an MMORPG, it takes a big company to build one.
I disagree with that. While producing a game such as World of Warcraft, Ever Quest 2, Asheron's Call 2, Lineage 2, and others is impossible for a small, independent development team, making a decent game is possible, provided that you have the experience, motivation and time. You will need at least 1000 hours of programming to have a simple tech demo going, and perhaps up to 10-15K hours of programming to have an almost complete client/server. But as the team leader you'll have to do much more than just programming. Keeping the team together, solving conflicts, doing public relations (PR), tech support, setting up servers, banning troublemakers, brainstorming, etc. will be your attributions. So you will be swamped with non-programming tasks as well. Then you will most likely need to go to work/school, which shortens the time you can dedicate to your project. We are very lucky that no team member left the team, but if this happens it can really be a problem. Just imagine your artist leaves halfway through the project. And even worse, s/he doesn't give you permission to use his/her art anymore. Of course, this can be solved by having them sign a contract, but it would still tiresome to have to get another artist. Having two different art styles in the same project can be a problem.
Large amounts of money (usually 4-6 digits) is required to maintain an MMORPG server.
Well, this is simply not true. I've seen dedicated servers, with 1000 GB/month for ~100 USD/month (and a 2-300 USD setup fee). Unless your data transfer protocol is very poorly designed, 1000 GB/month should be enough for a server with a 1000 players online (on average). Of course, you will need another server to keep your website and the client download (the client download can get a lot of traffic, once the game becomes popular). Our client is about 22MB, and sometimes we have a 400 GB/month transfer. And we are not even that popular (yet). Another thing is, you won't need a dedicated server to start this project. A DSL/cable server can do it's job pretty well, until you get 20-30 people online at the same time. Then either find a friendly hosting company to host it for free, in exchange for some advertising, or just pay from your own pocket.

Making an MMORPG is very fun.
This is not true. You might think that everyone will appreciate you, that the players will be supportive, that you can make very innovative quests, and, of course, have a lot of players playing your game. Players could be annoying. Even if it is a totally free game, they will find reasons to complain. What's worse is people will often complain about contradictory things. The fighters will not like the fact that it's too hard to gain levels, while the merchants will be very disappointed that the fighters make too much money from loots. If you decrease the monster drops, some people will threaten to quit the game. If you increase it, the same people will not like the fact that now even beginners can make money easily. Letting it as is, isn't good either. There has to be some innovation and improvements. If you decide to change something, for instance adding some new challenges to those who manufacture items, some will say it's too hard. If you don't, they will say it's too easy or plain boring. You might notice that the content players will usually not say anything and be satisfied, while the disrupting people will complain the most.

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Quote: "I.Network Components
Like someone else said, the MM has a bad stigma, so just refer to it as an ORPG, for starters. Then look into extending DBpro's Online components.

eg. Tempest. or look at the work CattleRustler has done. I'll link you to them on edit.

CR's work is truly amazing. Server side, Client side. It's worth what he is selling it for.
Mod2Software

II.Tools & Scripting
The next thing I would look at is controlling your code. You aren't going to get far without some form of scripting. So look into DarkScript or the LUA plugin. You might want to code your own tool-chain to begin testing the Engine's modules. You need to see results fast, and real-time without continous compiling as the project takes shape. So a command line Scripting would be a must have option.


III.Work on The Important Stuff/Problem Areas First
Finally, I wouldn't worry about media rigth away. Just get the project to a point where a bunch of spheres or cubes represent the player. make the world simple. I think the main downfall of ORPG projects, is that everyone starts by creating tons of eye candy media. All that media is useless if you don't have the "real" components down. There is a project in the WIP boards where someone (I'll edit in later) actually took this approach. It was by Inverted - RPG.

The Open Source MMORPG looks like an interesting thread for Info as well, I believe Riidii is heading that up."

Quote: "
If you can barely make an online game where a few users run around fighting each other, do not, yes, do NOT even attempt to write anything AT ALL similar to an RPG."

Quote: "couldn't have put it better myself"

Quote: "
If you can barely make an online game where a few users run around fighting each other, do not, yes, do NOT even attempt to write anything AT ALL similar to an (MM)ORPG."