MMO Game for $10k

https://www.getafreelancer.com/projects/C-C-Java/Massively-multiplayer-game-engine.html

LMAO!!!!!!
Can't wait to play it heh!

I guess I don't get it?

I thought it was something to do with that space game, Freelancer, until I clicked the link. And then I didn't get it either. :)

What's to get? It's some guy who thinks he can build a complete MMORPG, including a from-scratch engine and all the artwork for $10,000. Given that there are kids of eleven who think they can do it on a budget of $100, I don't find it particularly shocking, but that's the deal. I suppose you could buy RealmCrafter and try to sell it to him for $8k.

It's Dark Half's post that I don't get, not the site he's linked to. I don't get what's so funny.

That he thinks he can do it for ten grand?

Oh - I'm meant to laugh at him because he is trying to achieve something, even though it probably can't be done? I've got it now.

I really liked this reply

'Hi dear! Please see my PMB. Regards.'

When my future overworked, sleep deprived slaves to be, call me 'dear', something isn't quite right.

I really liked this reply

'Hi dear! Please see my PMB. Regards.'

When my future overworked, sleep deprived slaves to be, call me 'dear', something isn't quite right!

There's no "probably" about it, Mousey. I feel quite sorry for the guy - he's going to get ripped off by some unscrupulous scammer if he isn't careful.

So what would be a more realistic cost?

Well as the time writing a comprehensive commercial quality game is often measured in years, what would you be willing to work for? Personally I wouldn't consider developing any kind of comprehensive MMO with a 5 figure budget.

Ultimately it depends on the specific of the project, I only scanned through the design doc and not sufficiently to get a grasp on the concept as it lacked a summary, but assuming a simple 3D client based MMO with "acceptable" rather than AA quality, I guess we're looking at a year for game engine and server backbones? So about £50k for the engine, plus server costs, then there's the art and media.

The subject in question has allotted $8k for engine and $2K for media, i'd hazard it needs to be $100k for engine, and around $500k for media.

But I guess he wants AA quality, so add a few naughts.

There we go, now everyone got it!


Me? Nope!

The point of humor is that anyone who has worked on a commercial quality game (commercial here meaning anything that sold over $1000 in units) knows that:

A. An MMO of any kind requires a ton of Media
-Sure you can get by with very little, but the whole point behind massive multilayer is to give every player their own 'identity' and allow them individuality.
-Hell, any other game would require a decent amount of media to be semi interesting (FPS, Strategy, etc). Granted, there are few that dont, but still.....

B. An MMO requires a proven engine
-Designing one for 8k, which, to be perfectly honest, I have done many indie contracts for 4-6k for my part alone, seems a bit outlandish.
-8k, regardless of how we measure it, is 350 man hours at 25 an hour. That puts one guy full time for 8.75 weeks to finish this engine. 8 weeks???? Yeah, some of us are fast, but 8 weeks for a full blown MMO? Hold on, let me grab my pipe and load it up so I can see the 'big' picture here cause I must be missing something.

C. Anyone willing to undercut an unbelievable price with another unbelievable price is usually full of bull-dookey!
-Usually those indian companies get you on with the good price, and leave the project needing more of this or that thus asking for further funding. Sure, you can claim "no they dont", but I assure you, they do. The company I work for does tons of business with TaTa and Infosys (two huge indian development houses) and a few others and they all (ALL) fall short on the contract however get themselves so embedded in it that you have to continue paying them more because it would be more expensive to fire them and get someone else.

The bottom line is that an MMO is a huge undertaking. Anyone and I mean anyone who has done anything outside of bedroom coding and has more than mere pipedreams in a design doc know this. 10k for a MMO, and funded by (what I would only assume to be) multiple investors is just asking for trouble. I'm guessing the guy is asking a little from here and a little from there (1k from you, 2k from him, and so on). When the hammer falls someone is in for a royal screwing there. Be it a programmer that didnt ask for his half down, the artist to gave one to many concepts away without asking for good faith money, or the project manager that thought this was a do-able feat.

In World of Warcraft I always enjoyed to see another character wearing the same high level PVP stuff. I would stand next to them and do a funny dance and say "look, identical hand twins". Sometimes they just walked away without saying anything. :(

Fair enough Dark Half, and good post. I still don't find it funny, but I understand where you're coming from.

Heh, in World of Warcraft I was the guy who had an idle account because I had better things to do than sit around playing world of warcraft ;-P

Well I think anyone (anymore) that's considering making a MMO without being apart of some huge game corporation is a little disillusioned. Ever since the success of WOW and other big name MMO's, no one would bother to look at an indie one over a big name one.

But in saying that, I must also admit I cannot deny the allure of it all. We all want to make MMO's, and it seems to be the siren song of many programmers.

So congratulations to those here (Zetto and Wings) that have made decent looking MMO beginnings. I just hope that they are a success to prove that a good MMO can be made by a small team.

I've never seen the attraction of an MMOwhatever...

I think when people say MMO now days people think of WOW, but there are still some really good small MMO's run by small companies, that constantly run at around 100-200 online players at any time.

RuneScape has the second highest subscription (after WoW) and is a relatively small company.

http://www.maidmarian.com/ is run by 1 guy.

Graal Online, runs at least 2 MMO's and is a small team also.

You can be successful as a small company making MMO's but you just have to know your own scope and not try and make WoW.

As for the post, when I joined the company I work for they were using Indian developers to develop websites, and they did exactly what Dark Half said, promised the world at a small price, then it didn't work and they kept you paying more.

I would be impressed with the MMO the guy wants to make if it came from a large company, I think he basically wants Battlefield2 as an MMO, all in real-time. Infact his document is so sparse with information I don't know if its even top down, third person or FPS....doomed to fail.

He never mentioned graphics in his document, so you probably could get away by porting a MUD to a warfare game :P

Aye and have you ever looked at the code? The concept of published and agreed standards is lost.

HAHAHAHA Amen to that!!!! I still have to clean up after Infosys in their MIIS code and..... omg.... it's like a 2 year old banged his hands on the keyboard.

Offcorse he can..

if one cold built a car for 200$ at 1925 then once cold make a game also for 100.000 :D

question how whold the game look like..

and in 1925 a loaf of bread was what less than 1p?
(i know your being silly but ...)

edit:
just re read that, thought it was a bit odd at first but it must have been my eyes, yes years ago you could knock out a game for $10k

Good post boomboom, I completely agree.

And I didn't know Runescape was the second highest subscription next to WoW... I always use it as an example of a successful MMO that has many many flaws, but never realized it was that successful.

Oh and its funny someone mentioned a MUD here as I was just doing research on them... but I'm not really quite sure of what it is. I realize its a Multi User Dungeon and they're usually text based, but usually they are not associated with MMORPG's, and were popular through the seventies and 80's.

Would a text adventure game that basically has chat/trade but not necissarily player versus player combat or a shared atmosphere (killing a monster on your screen does not result it the death of the monster on theirs) count as a MUD? Or am I just way off based?

Here you go Sauer:

http://www.mmocrunch.com/2007/10/28/mmorpg-subscription-numbers/ (This was from last year, but I have seen something more recent that is pretty much the same)

yes, and third is Second Life, which is like the Geocities of MMO's

Perhaps you should get a more recent graph?!?

http://mmogdata.voig.com/voig/ContentList/MMOGDATA/Charts/7.ViewChart?aLanguage=en-us&a5Years=Y

The first is Secondlife

Accounts are free and never deleted on second life (the fleece you once in game), so the figure likely does not show user depletion.

Certainly the 'currently online' number suggests to me that the active player base is smaller than WoW.

If I had the money to spare, I would pay the guy 10-Grand not to make another MMO

I'm a bit confused by those 2 graphs. If you compare what numbers they give for the same dates there's quite a difference.

On the old graph Second Life has 4 million subscriptions in June 2005. On the more recent graph it reached 4 million only in 2007.

If that trend continues, I guess they will get to 4 million subscriptions in 2009.

Perhaps my humor is a bit too subtle this week. That's pretty much what I was trying to point out (the inaccuracy of that site's graphs). Perhaps I'll try my hand again next week at the good ole sarcasm :-)