Interview with a one man MMO maker

Good interview giving the inside story of one guy who made the dead frontier mmo. Gives alot of hints and tips for anyone else trying. I think the really interesting part is that he'd made several single player versions of dead frontier (being paid for some, which is significant to development), which helped him nail down the game he wanted to make before he made it massive.

I think that's the key. Make a game that you would enjoy in a single player format and it WILL make a great mmo game!

And apparently the interview was held by the maker of Golemizer, which is also a one man MMO!

It's a really good feeling that individuals can decide their own fate on these things!

Yay, nailed some basics in the browser game php code!

I finished my commenting and coding of some php code changes to the indie resources tutorial that do the following...

A. Monsters to not delete from the database upon death
B. Monsters not to have their HP changed in the database and
C. To not pass on the monster type through the address line
D. Record where the player is in a fight, so even if they close the browser, when they come back they'll come back to the fight just where they left off!

I've posted it over at indie resources. I'm pretty pumped it worked out (and now I've said that I'm dreading some unforseen bug coming up...I did test it a few dozen times though...)

One small step for (a) man in browser MMO programming

With the tutorial from indie resources I managed to change the code so when you kill a monster it doesn't delete the creature from the database and it doesn't reduce it's hitpoint score from damage. Instead I added an integer to the player database to store a temporary hitpoint count for the monster, and managed to access it.

I feel quite proud that it did NOT explode or catch on fire or any other dire, unassailable error came up!

Roll to dodge writers block

I made up that draft of a browser mmorpg (written in game maker), but

A: It's not that attractive to look at and far more importantly

B: Trying to impliment it into what I know of browser coding right now would exceed the VITAL effort to reward ratio.


Basically the effort to reward ratio is where alot of burn out or writers block comes in. It basically means trying to put in more effort than you have a certain feeling you will be rewareded for it. Maybe you think all the coding will turn out awesome - but at a certain point during it you feel the effort building up and you haven't had any actual fun out of it yet. That makes the coding a chore or even downright repulsive and it burns you out.

I like my draft, but I'm going to instead take a simple random element and see if I can get that to show up in the code from the tutorial I followed. Then I'll see if I can get that random element to go to the database. Then I'm going to work in a cash in your chips won so far or keep gambling them for the chance of winning ten times as many chips, mechanism.

I could post the draft - it's ugly to look at, but fun to play (kind of when you bake a cake that looks ugly but is yummy to eat). Comment if you want to see it! But I doubt anyone will commnet... :( ...so I'll not doubt continue with my plan not to post it.

Single player draft for a massively multiplayer game

I'm going to draft out the core combat for the browser mmo I want to make, in a single player gamemaker game. Because that way I know I can code it and see a working (single) player version, instead of trying to get one working in what I know of browser code (which isn't even the right word for it) and all the pitfalls and dead ends that'll involve.

One element I'm going to have is injecting a real sense and even possibility of instant defeat as the monster will have it's fighting approach described under it's name. You also have two attack options - regular and evasive. Normally evasive gives you a large penalty to hit. BUT on certain monster attack descriptions, the monster has a damage output potential that's going to have around a 75% chance of defeating a full health character (let alone a wounded one). If you hit evasion attack at these times, you still have the penalty to attack but you avoid the big damage attack entirely (no dice roll!)! You just have to keep watch while battling instead of clicking attack over and over and over.

Also I kept writing 'killed' instead of 'defeated' when drafting this. I'm not sure if I want perma death or not. I'll write about that gaming hot topic shortly!

Bog off, hope

I've been looking at the browser mmo tutorial over at indie-resource.com.

It nails some basics quite nicely, but then it's drifting into traditional design. ie, you have potions, you have spells...stuff weve all seen a million times before and even if I hadn't, drinking a potion or casting magic missile isn't terribly exciting in itself. I suppose I need it justaposed onto some sort of issue...I was about to link to this cheesy movie about a cyborg (and how for me it turned cool when he got betrayed, etc), but youtube pulled it (the movie was called 'Eliminators', from the 80's).

Anyway, so in terms of learning I'm at this tricky point where I don't want to learn to do the traditional design yet again - I've learnt that so many times already in other formats. But I'm still not so hot on things that I can deviate and yet still learn from the videos. Also I haven't ploted out what I want to do with a browser game AND I'm trying to gain some ground in the real world in terms of advertising (I happen to like project wonderful atleast for the moment).

I'm just really tired of running off faith 'things will work out'. You can run off that for years and I think I already have - when does 'things will work out' end? Ie the point where you accept that no, they did not work out? And the answer is that the idea that 'things will work out' can keep going until your dying day. I don't think 'things will work out' is right, to be honest. So I don't want to go there - but in terms of right here, right now returns for doing things, I'm not really seeing many options (except at the abusively low 'five cents for two hours of work' level).