Making a killer MMORPG 3

Okay, let's talk about Practical Plans on our MMORPG. If you've got a team, or just want to think this through in your head, there should be a few topics on your mind, most relating to post-game-development and how you want things to turn out. I'll give a breif overview.

FIRST TOPIC: "When the game is done, how do I want it run?"

In the case of a MMORPG, this is CRUCIAL. You need to know exactly how you want things to work before you do anything. Creating an MMORPG, distributing it, and then "Discovering" that you forgot an Admin system is inexcusable. You need to know what you plan to do, when you plan to do it. Common thought processes involve:

- "I'm going to hard-code a system to prevent hacking" (STEAM)
- "I'm going to have staff on the game server monitor everything" (Games like Everquest)
- "I'm just going to install a word filter. Anything else? Have at" (Most MUDs)
- "I'm going to install a complex server log system to monitor every single chat string, every single movement, and everything else that I can think of" (Who the hell would do this?)

Either way, this is a difficult task. You can't just magic up code to prevent hacking, it takes reasearch and time. As well, you can't just magic up good staff. The bigger your game, the more staff you'll need. Some games like to pull from the player database to hire staff, which causes major problems. However, in this case, I'd simply reccomend hiring people BEFORE the game is released.


SECOND TOPIC "Will I release the engine or opensource?"

The best way to allow your game to grow is to allow people to modify your game. Think of the game Second Life with the land ownership system and you get the idea. However, releasing a game opensource risks your code being stolen (or a hacking program being created), and releasing the engine is difficult.

Only release the opensource if you don't like it. Games are not opensource, ever, for a reason. Hackers will sit there examining it excruciatingly looking for a mistaken ";" to hack your server to bits.

Only release the engine if you have some sort of lisencing system set up. In the case of a MMORPG, give them the server program, but force them to be on your network! That way, you can control what they put on, but they can put on their own version of their server. That, or give them a little mini-server of their own hosted by you. Either way, it allows for innovation along with control.

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