Starting up the MMORPG curve

January 6, 2006 3:13 PM

I have a great MMORPG idea, but have found the learning curve to be formidable. Are there any turnkey php packages for starting a tiny, simple MMORPG game with basic sets of objects and places, using mysql, with the ability to scale it up?

The game is more strategy-based than action-based, so static images and text can work fine. Real-time character interaction is not necessary, nor are standalone graphics front-ends.

posted by rolypolyman to Computers & Internet (17 answers total)

Which, if any program languages do you know? What kind of interface are you going for: inside a web browser, or a stand alone app?
posted by voidcontext at 4:17 PM on January 6, 2006

Oops. sorry. Didn't see that you said PHP. Forget what I said. I know nothing of PHP.
posted by voidcontext at 4:17 PM on January 6, 2006

These aren't turnkey, but might be a start for building your own: Open Source MMORPG
posted by cellphone at 4:18 PM on January 6, 2006

I'm a touch confused. A MMORPG is a giant, immersive world, developed and animated and played like a video game, which runs on the player's local computer and communicates over the Internet to a server that lets the character interact with all of the other players playing the game on their PC. MMORPGs aren't on the Web, so resources about developing them probably won't be of any use to you if you want to write a Web application.

Are you thinking more of a web-based MUD?
posted by mendel at 4:53 PM on January 6, 2006

freshmeat.net/projects/phpmmorpg/
www.garagegames.com (torgue)
www.terathon.com (c4 engine)
www.dimensionex.net/en/

if i remember right, ultima online is a good base to work on (wikipedia)
posted by suni at 5:05 PM on January 6, 2006

Yeah, I don't get how it's a MMORPG without real-time character interaction.

If text-based is good enough, then what mendel said: configuring a MUD (or variant) would be fairly easy.

Or, given your statement that character interaction isn't required, you might look into implementing it as an interactive fiction game in a language like Inform; you could then use, for instance, ZPlet to make it playable in a (Java-capable) web browser.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 5:13 PM on January 6, 2006

Response by poster: Yes, I guess my terminology is screwed up. If MMORPG is defined as definite real-time DirectX, chip-smoking graphics, then I can't go that route unless there's a really easy solution (which I doubt). But I'm willing to tackle the learning curve on a primarily text-based game (that can reference static graphics). My experience is advanced (but not expert) Visual Pascal, dabbling in C++, and some heavy Java 1.2 and Perl a long time ago, mostly forgotten. Novice level on PHP but can learn.
posted by rolypolyman at 5:41 PM on January 6, 2006

If you already know Java, go with that. It handles text stuff just fine too. Java servlets are well-respected ways of writing internet applications.
posted by devilsbrigade at 5:45 PM on January 6, 2006

Response by poster: Also I do want to have character interaction, but not necessarily where you see the other person moving around while the CPU renders and detects collisions. What I want is a couple of notches lower -- just a chat interface and the ability to trade objects and maybe see an avatar.
posted by rolypolyman at 5:50 PM on January 6, 2006

Look at Suni's links.. All I can do is second them. PHPMMORPG is just what you seem to be searching for.

And since when is an MMORPG client-based and graphically intensive? I've never heard that proposed as a definition before, so I'm a bit suspicious of it. Don't let that expectation stop you from developing your game.
posted by Hildago at 7:06 PM on January 6, 2006

You could look into Neverwinter Nights. It's a fantasy RPG but allows you to come up with your own adventure, custom-built setting and monsters, rules tweaks and so forth, and then go online and open the world for others to share.
posted by Rubber Soul at 10:09 PM on January 6, 2006

Kingdom of Loathing is absolutely an MMORPG, and it's just a bunch of web forms. If you haven't played KoL, you should play it. That counts for all of you.

As far as I know there's no really good turnkey solution, but a decent software engineer could write one in a few months probably (KoL basically has 2 employees and a few hundred thousand players who pay enough to live on).
posted by JZig at 10:54 PM on January 6, 2006

Was working on a web-based game much like KoL a while back, but unfortunately I was on the writing/art/concept end, not the programming one, so I can't give you much tips, other than that a young guy with what I'd say were decent PHP skills was ploughing through it at a decent rate, but hadn't gotten to the interplayer interaction bits. We were using KoL as a model throughout (until we both lost interest... what can I say, we were young and in high school.)
posted by luftmensch at 12:47 AM on January 7, 2006

A MMORPG is a giant, immersive world, developed and animated and played like a video game, which runs on the player's local computer

That's not true. There's no definition of MMORPG which states it has to run as a regular game on a client machine. It could be a Web based real-time RPG, somewhat MUD like. AJAX, the whole works..
posted by wackybrit at 7:09 AM on January 7, 2006

Kingdom of Loathing is great, and amongst my friends with taste Urban Dead has been getting good reviews though I have not tried it personally. Cocklefighting also falls into this category.

I've seen graphical MUDs implemented with AJAX and Java as well, but have no links.
posted by Ryvar at 9:47 AM on January 7, 2006

You should probably check out llor.nu. It's an AJAXy interpretation of a board game, but it's online and real-time -- if discontinuous -- so has some of the qualities of an MMORPG.
posted by dhartung at 9:55 AM on January 7, 2006

Saw this the other day. Dunno if it might help or not.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:35 AM on January 8, 2006