[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants)

[Morris Cox]

On 3/10/07, Sean Howard <squidi at squidi.net> wrote:
>
> "Morris Cox" <morriscox at gmail.com> wrote:
> > That is what I'm really interested in. I suspect that a company could
> > make a lot of $$$ by building something like that and then selling
> > licenses to it. Releasing it as open source and for free would greatly
> > increase adoption;
>
> Man, I wish that were true, but I really doubt that it would be
> financially successful at all. In general, programs that make games don't
> sell particularly well - most of the time, they are pirated. I'd love to
> see a comparison between how many copies RPG Maker 2000 sold compared to
> how many individuals have actually released games for it (especially since
> it was never released outside of Japan). Stuff like Click n' Play,
> Multimedia Fusion, and even Flash enjoy a huge amateur development
> community, and yet are almost always pirated versions (Flash succeeds on
> professional adoption, not garage developers).

Adam Martin did list a few. Sadly enough, I do see evidence for what
you mean about the piracy. Of course, MMOG development kits/tools
aren't really that easy to find in the first place, not to mention
needing the infrastructure for development, testing and deployment.

> Likewise, open source engines are out there, like the Ryzom one and the
> Java whatchamacallit, but the problem with open source is that it is
> usually very unfriendly to casual experimentation. That's why RedHat makes
> money - it didn't invent Linux. It may it manageable for the end user.
> I've found most open source projects tend to get adopted only by the most
> hardcore techie, and those guys tend to be too competent with what's there
> to really use each feature "incorrectly" - and hardcore techies tend to
> lack a certain creative imagination as well.

Casual experimentation of anything computer/Internet related isn't
likely to be easy. HTML is pretty easy, but you'll need a program (for
validation) if you want to do XHTML Strict. I don't consider anything
to do with programming as being easy since you're not allowed to get
away with errors. You do make an excellent point. Easy to use
interfaces are a pain to make. The scale of a MMOG (let alone any
game) makes it all that much harder (a lot more interactions to
consider).

I do have a "certain creative imagination"; however, don't ask me to
do any graphics. :) (Okay, so my "certain creative imagination" tends
to have quite a geek slant.)

> I'm not saying that it couldn't happen, but it would have to be created
> under a very specific philosophy, much like Wikipedia (which is a terrible
> encyclopedia, but a successful communal project).

That would certainly increase the chances of success as it provides
more of a focus.

> > What would be better is a system that
> > would allow use of multiple languages so long as there was an
> > interface between them. One developer could use C++ while another
> > developer could use Java (or C# or PHP or XML, etc.) and still
> > interoperate.
>
> The newest version of Java has a built-in scripting language system, so
> one guy could use Python, another JavaScript, Ruby, Forth, Perl, and so
> on. It's a novel approach, but I wouldn't dare use every scripting
> language at the same time for one project. Once you know one or two
> languages, you can pick up a new one really quickly (one can start
> programming a new language in about an hour), so adoption is not a
> significant problem. However, a babel problem could slow the project down
> to a crawl.
>
> --
> Sean Howard

Cool that Java has that now. I do wish they would update it so that it
doesn't knock Vista out of Aero (even temporarily). Agreed that trying
to use a lot of languages would be a disaster in the making. The point
I was trying to make is that allowing the use of more than one
language might lower the "barrier to entry" and make it easier for
those who don't know the same programming language to collaborate.
-- 
Morris Cox