Torque Good Engine for WoW Style MMO?

#1

Quote:
Hey, guys! I'm a bit new at this "building a game from scratch" stuff.

You're gonna do a MMO when you're new at this stuff? Good luck.

#2 If your making an MMO using Torque, you'll have alot of work to do. Torque isn't meant for massive worlds..TSE (Torque Shader Engine) might be worth a look though...

Quote:I am 15 and have been a level designer since I was three.

*giggles*

#3 I must say, however, that for a 15 year old, you're fairly articulate. And you don't use leetspeak.
Designing levels since 3 ? Wow.

There's a MMO creation tool for Blitz3D, I cannot remember the newest name for it (It's changed names at least thrice), but my hunch is that it would be a very satisfying tool for you. Probably better than Torque at this point for you because it's much easier to learn and fast, and has excellent render quality.

But to answer your question, Cartography Shop is very inexpensive and you can use it to create buildings and interiors. Then there are several inexpensive world building tools; milkshape is one of them and you can create models and worlds with it and it has good support to export to Torque.

All you need then is a good graphics creation program and you're good to go. Torque is doable for you guys, you just need to learn about the low cost tools. I'm sure others can give even better advice than I have.

#4 Hey there. This question is asked a lot. Can it be done? Yes. Does it take a large budget and lots of time? Yes. Not to mention tons of engine changes. Point being, Torque is a great engine but not made to handle MMOs. Mr. Ritter pulled off Minions of Mirth but that took tons of time to do. If you really want to make a MMO, give Realm Crafter a try. From what I hear it's pretty user friendly.

#5 A level designer since three? Hmm, yeah right. :)

#6 Excellent, and thank you all. I did not expect replies in such a timely manner. In regards to Matt Vitelli's post, a large budget, an obvious necessity in creating an up-to-par game, is something we lack. I am currently trying to secure funding from both my school and the community that we operate, but we seem to be having a bit of trouble wresting the cash out of our members.

Nmuta, thank you kindly for your valuable post I will take it all into consideration. I took a quick gander at the Blitz3D engine. The screenshots of the two dimensional "Breakaway" game did not impress but the FPS screenshots intrigued. I went on to search for the MMO tool you spoke of and came up with this thread in their forums:

http://64.41.127.54/Community/posts.php?topic=33196

I was excited at first, and though that I had found it but it appears that, due to lack of funding, they have shut down. I only hope that our MMO fairs (fares?) better. At first, Cartography Shop sounded dauntingly like so many bought but useless CAD programs, but after checking out the site it appears to be a truly useful program. I assume that this program is only for the creation of the levels and I would need to find an engine that can import said levels for use? Do you know of such an adaptable engine?

Matt, the Realm Crafter engine looked excellent but there is one thing that worries me. It appears that with the engine you are supplied, and limited to, a number of structures and items to use in your game. If this is so would not all MMOs created using this engine look uniform? As with any game, it is my full intent to make this game original and different from what is currently on the market. Also, would this engine support WoW style, 3rd person, trailing camera angles?

To Stefan, make no mistake I am no MMO "n00b" so to speak. I have read fully in depth articles and books on the subject of MMO creation and understand many of the complex formulae and programming styles associated with them.

Once again I thank you all for your swift replies and I hope that I have, at least temporarily, disbanded the thought that teenagers are incapable of creating anything useful from your minds.

--Dave

#7 @Dave

I have an idea for you. You're 15. You want to make a fantasy RPG game. Buy Oblivion when it is released in November. Get the PC version because it comes with the editor. With the editor you can spend the next 3-4 years making a single player mod with Oblivion. This will let you design and build a game with a small team and no resources. Finish your mod and release it around the time you graduate from High School. This will teach you to make an rpg game using the most up to date cool stuff in games that you will probably get your hands on for the next 3-4 years and will build you a nice reputation and portfolio. Then you take that reputation and portfolio and experience and take the next step to making your own game.

#8 Mike, I do not understand your reason for not believing my pasttime and hobby but I can assure you that I was working with the Doom (admittedly low graphics quality and simple to use) SDK to create custom levels when I was three. I have gone on to use other engines such as Valve's Source engine, dabbling in Hammer world editor and have created expansive worlds for UT2004 using the UnrealED, the Unreal Engine's world editing utility.

#9 Anton, I appreciate your input and that would be a good idea if I were not at step two of your plan. I have already worked on several mod teams for both Half-Life 2 and Battlefield 2. (I seem to have some odd attraction towards sequels) The fact that I am of a questionably young age does not hinder my ability to devise and create games. I have a willing team of well knowledged individuals and we want to make a dent in the community by creating our own game. This is exactly the type of "agism" that I hope will be smothered out when the modern advancements of technology overtake the games and technology of olde.

#10 Anton, I appreciate your input and that would be a good idea if I were not at step two of your plan. I have already worked on several mod teams for both Half-Life 2 and Battlefield 2. (I seem to have some odd attraction towards sequels) The fact that I am of a questionably young age does not hinder my ability to devise and create games. I have a willing team of well knowledged individuals and we want to make a dent in the community by creating our own game. This is exactly the type of "agism" that I hope will be smothered out when the modern advancements of technology overtake the games and technology of olde.

#11 Right. Well, best way to avoid non sequitur discussion of your age is to not mention it in the first place :)

It would take a lot of time and changes to make Torque into a fully MMORPG-enabled engine. But, it can be done. More practical than making an MMORPG game would be to make an MMORPG code pack. If you accomplish that first, then you can make some money to pay for your MMORPG game's massive amount of assets. It will be far more practical to do, and probably more rewarding. in the short term as well as the long term.

But it's terribly difficult to say whether such a thing should be tried by an indie at all. It depends on your situation I guess. Josh Ritter and his crew did it. But they're rather extraordinary. It might work for you if you're extraordinary is well. And there's only one way to find out whether you are, isn't there?

So anyways, consider doing an MMORPG code pack first. If you can pull that off, you will be in a MUCH MUCH better position to make an MMORPG game than you are now. Could be a good thing. Or it could be a big distraction...

I dunno. Just something to consider :)

#12 @Dave

Realm Crafter actually was built to work with Blitz3D I'm pretty sure. That's the one I was thinking of.

Cartography Shop exports to Torque very nicely. Especially the newest version from what I've heard.

The Blitz3D engine is good. Download the demo and look at some of the 3d samples. It's intuitive and easy to code. If you got Realm Crafter you can go into the Blitz source code from what I hear and change stuff around.

Blitz3D also allows you to write custom dlls in C++ if you so desire.

But again I still have to say, as a side note, I teach middle and high school and I still maintain you are pretty articulate for your age. Just surprising to see. Perhaps you are not American, that would explain it.

#13 Actually, don't give up. Making the world MMO-ish for Torque isn't that hard really. In theory you can just have the server goto another port when the character goes to the end of the map. Hmm..I cant remember that much of my research, but I researched this a while back. It's not hard to do, but its not very easy either. The hardest parts would be the combat system and making the server compatable for a fair amount of people. Shader engine looks promising world-wise for MMOs. However, I personally feel it's not quite ready for finalized development on. It is an early adopter version though.

Here's a nice MMO resource though http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=3405

Don't give up!
-Matt

#14 Wow, thanks for all of your support. At the moment Realm Craft seems my best choice for the job, I will look into licensing. I am indeed American, and to further the mystery, a Texan. Take that into consideration next time you are listening to our president ramble on, we aren't all like that.

;-)

--Dave

#15 Haha. Well put Dave. I used to write well, but after everyone found out I was just a teen I didn't see much point. Still, keep being articulate. Realm Crafter does look pretty interesting. I think we'll see a lot of..interesting. Yes, that's the word I'm looking for. Interesting MMOs from it. Our best advice to give you now is to make your MMO the best there is. :)

-Matt

#16 Oh yeah. One more tip, don't press refresh. It makes a copy of your last post.

#17 Realm Craft goes on sale (supposedly) tomorrow morning at 8:00 am. I may be one of the first people to buy it. I'm curious. I have several years experience with Blitz and this Realm Crafter things looks really interesting.

I still like Torque for my heavier, more intense projects (graphics wise) but I think Realm Crafter will have its place in my arsenal.

For smaller MOGs , you really can't beat Torque. The engine just has so many features and is a lot of fun to play with. Down the road I look forward to working with the Shader Engine but right now my target market would not be able to handle it hardware wise so I'm waiting a bit before I start requiring shader hardware for people to see my work.

#18 Ha, I'm sorry for the multiple posts by the way, did not know that the page worked that way.

#19 Make a small game first. Start with a MMORPG and you will fail, and likely quit game dev altogether. Build on your success. From a few mods to a MMORPG is not one step.

#20 Multiple posts deleted.