MMORPG with Torque

#1 It is and it isn't.

Basically, a lot of the underlying code you would need to take deal with is taken care of for you. Physics, sound, networking, etc. But there's a lot you would need to add to really make it MMORPG compatible. Unless you are well versed in C++ you're going to be overwhelmed.

Don't get me wrong, TGE is an _awesome_ engine, but it's not really ready for a MMORPG out of the box and will need lot's of work to make it that way.

What kind of game are you looking into making?

#2 Well, right now im just trying to see if my ideas for an MMORPG are possible.

What i was thinking was a fantasy RPG with the cliche swords and shields along with a very unique crafting system. What i also want to do is make a job system where it isnt revolved entirly around just killing monsters and leveling, rather collecting and building skills ranging from sword techniques to merchant abilities to blacksmithing.

I have no intention of starting this any time soon, its a small project between me and some gaming friends as we are trying to learn how games are made and attempt to make some. I just want to make sure that if i invest money into Torque that i will be satisfied and not need another million and a half other things to purchase because Torque isnt well suited for RPGs.

#3 Torque was made with a first person shooter in mind. That's not to say that is all it can do, it's just the bearing it has.

There are a number of people who are creating RPG's using Torque. Some are MMORPG like, others are smaller.

The common concept that I have seen is to use multiple dedicated servers running specific missions. This would allow you multiple zones, like in Everquest.

Realmwars is a fantasy FPS using swords, wands and crossbows. So you can get a lot of info from there.

If it's just for you and a couple of friends. Then technicaly the Torque's network model will work for you, but if you want to have lots more people, then it will start having problems without some network enhancement.

Torque has a FPS inventory system. That is, you collide with the item and it is picked up. The items are accessed using the '1','2', etc keys.

You would have to create a RPG inventory system yourself.

There is also no quest management of any type.

Lastly, there is a number of resources here on GG that enhance Torque towards RPGs. But you will have to code/script a chunk of it yourself.

The whole RPG (Attributes, Skills, etc) elements you would have to add yourself.

EDIT: Oh, there is no character persistance in Torque either. BUT, there is a resource that shows you the basics of adding persistance.

#4 This has been discussed sooooooo many times before, if you search the forums for MMORPG you'll find ALOT of good information. That's how we planned our game.

Now. there are a resource for adding a cool inventory. If you modify it a bit you'll end up with a more "RPG'ish" inventory. Very cool.

So, is it possible to make an MMORPG?
Indeed!

Me and my team have a functioning persistant world which saves characters, their positions, life/energy, skills, experience and such onto our servers.

So whhat's keeping us from releasing the game or a beta?
Content! Yes, that's right. A MMORPG needs alot of content, even if it's just a small village.

One of the featured zones is smaller than 1km in size. After 6 months, there still ain't enough content to feed a player. Everyone's that tried the testversion has said the same thing, we need more content.

And that's what I believe is hard. Make your goals small, and build it up from there. Good luck :)

#5 Stefan,

Just out of pure interest, do you have any screenies of the project your working on? or any links? I have not found anything anywhere, just messages that your working on a 'MMORPG Project'. If you can't give out any, I understand. I was just interested to see what fellow coders are doing.

#6 www.innercircledev.net

The screenies doesn't say much about the persistant world system though. I'll post a thread as soon as the trailer is available, as I believe many are wanting to make a MMORPG and want to see an example, and that it CAN be done.

For another example (dunno if it's working, but it seems so) is Samme's Japanese MMORPG, which name escapes me at the moment. (Sorry Samme)

#7 Here's another, and like Stefan said, screens don't say everything there is to say :)

EpicFrontiers
EpicFrontiers
EpicFrontiers
EpicFrontiers
EpicFrontiers

There's also Adellion, which may be the closest to getting launched. It's been in the works for a very long time now, and is being ported to the TGE(not sure what they were using before).

#8 Yeah, like the others said. An MMORPG can be done. Just don't come in expecting something you can use right out of the box. An MMORPG is going to require some pretty hefty rewrites of the underlying code and scripts.

Though I have to say, TGE would certainly save you a ton of time as opposed to trying to dev something yourself from the ground up. Oh, and the price is unbeatable :)

#9 Torque "out-of-the-box" will be able to support 128 players on any map that you create with those settings. (I think) This is still quite a few, and, if you have about 30 maps, that means that 3,840 players COULD be online at the same time. This could only work if you used "rooms" which defeats the purpose of MMO games. Also, 3,840 is still far away from MMO.

All in all, if you want a MMORPG game, you have to change a lot of the code to support this. Also, you have to mod Torque to allow RPG like gameplay. To get this feature installed is difficult, but to get it to be deep enough for millions of players to keep coming back to it seems near impossible.

#10 The 128 player limit is long gone. It's now only limited by server and bandwidth.

#11 This question gets asked a lot and the answer is yes and no.
Sure you could make a zoned world like City of Hereos so you can get around the player limit.

However there is a lot more to an online MMP game then just the game client/server and graphics engine.

Your missing all the rest MMP infrastructure. Login servers, patching servers, session managers, chat server (for across zones),
spawn server manager/process, persistent layer, database, billing system?, guild/clan system, etc, etc. Probably one of the biggest pieces that gets left out and is never done right is the persistance
layer, something like a dbserver that manages communicating with a database, caching some information, flushing dirty objects for updates, etc and making it all scalable.

But I could easily see using torque as a way to accomplish all of that since its such a rocking framework you could probably write a lot of those processes using torque(although it would be better if the released a torque networking library to simplify all of that).

Ive been making MMP game for about a decade now and its amazing how much stuff it takes to get one up and running and keep it running but its worth it. id love to see some indie developers make a decent one and prove to the giants in the industry that you dont need 60 man teams to do it.

#12 I don't mean to hijack this thread..but..
@stephan and ted:

I'm curious as to how you guys are implimenting the clickable huds. Do you have a key bound that changes from mouse movement to mouse pointer?
i'm asking because this is next on my todo list..and im not really sure how i want it to work. I had planned on doing it that way, but if there is a better way i'd like to know..:)

#13 Kevin, I use the click n pick resource, though it took a bit to get it working. I can click on and select NPC's, then kill them(okay, to be fair, lately they've been giving as good as they get), and at the same time click on the HUD. The only problems I have to get past are using mouselook when the right-button is held down, which is current a broken function.