Revolutionary Idea.

#1 i think it might work. except for the massive cooperation. that would be the toughy.

#2 I think the community can work together. Look at Realm Wars.

#3 Well, one huge giant cooperative effort isn't gonna work, at least not in the organized sense you're talking about. However, your sentiment is 100% on the money, and that sentiment is: right now, you can't just start making a MMORPG.

Instead, you have to deal with millions of technical hurdles. You have to program in day/night cycles that work. You have to program in the ability to have much, much, much higher player counts (which requires changing the way that the server/client validation works). You have to add (likely) dynamic lighting. You have to add AI ability, at least some kind of dumb 'homing missile' AI, and simple pathing AI. You have to increase the maximum terrain size, or more likely, program in a way to dynamically load and/or create said terrain (and/or because right now it would make more sense to generate the terrain -- but not on the fly, in blocks, and then load/delete those chunks as necessary into current memory).

Then you get into the really hard stuff. Like load-balancing and so forth, which I couldn't even make a good managing decision on since I don't understand exactly how it works, except that I read some info on how they did it for AC (they subdivided the world based on the number of players and assigned those subdivisions to different amounts of servers, as opposed to doing what EQ does and doing it on a zone basis). And you'd definitely need to add mySQL support for your item/object database, because that's the only relatively clean way to do this (central master database that all servers can check against). Other things, too, that seem simple, like figuring out a way to tell the engine to load certain models/prefabs as needed, instead of loading every referenced object and item at game startup, although that one isn't as necessary (look at DAoC).

The problem is that you'd only be creating an engine here. The coding of your GAME would be an entirely different matter, as complex or as simple as you want it. Here we enter the realm of game creation and design, which is not what we want to talk about; designing an MMORPG is not an option until we have the tools to do so.

So, how to get this functionality?

Well, I for one am very optimistic about this. See, the community can handle that type of stuff. Someone will add a 'dynamic lighting' code sample; someone else will add mySQL database support (in fact, ODBC is done already), someone else will add in a good way to implement higher numbers of players (like a 'dumb' client approach, where the server instanciates everything and doesn't trust the client at all, only taking simple input from the client and sending back the effect that input has on the player's character, so the client sees the results, ie, the player moved or attacked or whatever; any method that parrots the server's state back to the client is going to have a little more apparent lag, or at least seem a little 'weird' even with client-side dumb prediction, but it would be more secure and also remove a lot of CPU burden from server), etc etc etc. The point is, as the engine matures and more people add more things, you will be able to 'pick and choose' what functionality you want your custom brand of Torque to have, and eventually it will be very easy to toss together a good engine for anything from a PornChess game to an up-and-coming-MMORPG.

So, to recap my view: we'll get there. Eventually.

#4 It's already been done. There are some freeware ones online, plus things like FF11 will be coming out soon. Generally, people are pretty stupid when it comes to cooperating online, which is why they aren't very popular.

#5 Eli: erm . . . what the heck are you talking about?

#6 I agree with luc except I suggest not using ODBC or mysql for any MMP database that you expect to grow to any reasonable size. Check out something like postgresSQL(free) or if you have the money Oracle.

Also, if your going to make a framework for everyone you are going to have to drop the concept of MMPORPG, because not everyone wants another dame MMPORPG(geez there are so many) plus an MMPORPG framework won't work well for other game types.

Also, big groups online havent really shown to work together all that well. ie look at crystal space, big ol team, open source yadda yadda, and the engine still isnt all that great and it doesnt seem like its being used for all that many games(if any)

It really takes some direction from the holders of the technology. If you let people go nuts they will add all sorts of crap to the baseline, most of which will never be used. someone or some group has to take responsibility and keep it organized.

#7 Which would mean finding something with experience with MMOGs who has the appropriate domain knowledge. That's the whole trick: how many people in the GG community (or any indy community) has that kind of real world experience? Find one, and then you'll have a shot.

#8 First about the subject of this thread. GG has it's community project. If people want to do a large group effort on a game, RealmWars is there for you. No need for another large community group project yet.

Now off the topic. Martian, yes there are many MMORPG's out there and at the moment I don't play any of them. It's because none of them suit me. There's still room for different types of genres of MMORPGs that could attract people like me. One would be a true cyberpunk one. There's AO out. Neocron and Citizen Zero: Big World coming out, but still no true cyberpunk. Nothing that has the feel of Gibson or Dick. It would be my dream to build something like that, but neither have the time or resources to do something on that grand of a scale. So, I'm hoping people are going to put out more MMORPGs and hopefully one that I would enjoy.

#9 Large unstructured teams rarely work in *any* software project, and games are probably the worst candidate for that. If you look at the typical large open-source effort, one thing nearly all lack is polish, which is monumentally important for games.

I firmly believe that too many cooks spoil the broth, and that a good game needs a leader who can take the ball and run with it. A framework would be a little different, but not as much as you might think. Regardless of how general you claim you framework is, people will be working on it with destination games in mind - different destination games in mind.

I would also point out that MMORPGs are still quickly progressing not only in terms of pure technology but in what sort of experience they offer. If you look at say FPS games, FPS games today play like the FPS games of yesterday, for the most part. The fundamental gameplay has not changed for years. (No, making people slow down when shot is not a fundamental change)

On the other hand, there is still much to be done in MMORPGs. Player housing that you can build from scratch, individual missions that don't completely suck, player created quests and other player created content. (Other than textures here and there) PvP that works, dealing with grief playersm, actual stuff to do other than bonk progressively bigger rats over the head with progressively bigger hammers...when you make an FPS engine you have a much more stable concept to aim for than a MMORPG.

What I mean is, it's pretty easy to make a bullet-point list of what a typical FPS engine should include. For a MMORPG I don't think that is easy at all.

#10 I think most of you are missing the point, he is not talking about a game, he is talking about a workframe for MMORPGs and I think that idea is pretty neat.

Think about it, manny people are doing MMORPGs and they share lots of caracteristics, sure you have load balancing, classes and a lot of extra code to code on your own, but at least you wont start on 0.

we could call it, MMOTORQUE

count me in!

#11 Just call it MOTOR (get it...garage...motor...ehehe...I crack myself up =)

#12 remember (and this goes for RPGs as well as MMOGs) the current player limit INCLUDES NPCs ;)

Can't have a very good RPG without many NPCs, in my mind.

#13 I dont know if this might help but let me expand why I think this is a good idea.

As you have read in the article I posted on the Forums (MMORPG no more) and several other sources A mmorpg Is an incredibly large task which requires lots of effort from a large team to develop a complete world (models, levels, items, quests, etc) in addition it also requires a large and rather expensive infrastructure to get it running.

However this somehow wont change the minds of dozens (maybe hundreds) of developers around the globe, who are still developing their own indie MMORPG projects.

Does this mean they are wrong? well in some cases probably, but mostly no, they are strugling for something they want and that they believe will get them in the map and in addition get them some revenue. If you tell them is hard they will just strugle harder.

Nine out of ten of this projects will finally fail, and theres even a good change that none of them will ever be finished.

For years of work, all this developers will just be left empty handed, disapointed and in the worst cases bankrupt.

Some of us, have at least partial information on what is needed to create a MMORPG we just know is just too damn much work to put it all together by ourselves. Or consider this information too valuable to be shared for nothing.

A project such as this, might be the best chance for all indie developers to be able to deliver their MMORPG, In the worst of cases (if they dont have money for dedicated server with enough bandwidth) they would need to stablish a user limit per zone or world but at least they would have it running.

An open source, MMORPG torque workframe, usable for ANY MMO game!

Think about it.

Is not as easy task, but it would be one all could benefit from.

Together we can make the dreams of thousands indie developers finally come through.
(besides this will really would help stablish as THE engine for indie developers =) )

The choice is yours...


May the torque be with you.