
Development and Deployment of Massively Multiplayer Games - jayfk
http://ithare.com/contents-of-development-and-deployment-of-massively-multiplayer-games-from-social-games-to-mmofps-with-stock-exchanges-in-between/#toc
======
ldd
"This book is targeted towards at least somewhat experienced developers (in
other words, it is NOT “how to develop your first program” book with IDE
screenshots and copy-paste examples). If your game project is your very first
programming project – you’re likely to have difficulties understanding this
boo"

After spending sometime around people that want to become indie developers, I
cannot emphasize this enough. Please do not try to make an MMO as a first
game.

~~~
jonesb6
I remember one of my first hobby projects was trying to simulate the universe
with python (thousands of 3d celestial bodies gravitating around each other).
About a month later I tried to simulate a economic system with Ruby.

Let's not become the old people telling the kids not to have any fun.

~~~
MaulingMonkey
The problem with making MMOs is that they're massive projects that are
difficult for large teams of seasoned developers with large budgets to
complete and succeed with.

Just how much fun is someone going to have trying to tackle one of these
things as their _first game_? It's a guaranteed setup for failure, for being
overwhelmed by the scope of your project, for not knowing how to even begin to
tackle the problem, for - well, mostly a lot of frustration and not a lot of
fun.

I see it happen over and over again. People join gamedev communities, ask how
to make an MMO, and then get fustrated, leave, and never return when nobody
has a tutorial on "how to make an MMO from scratch with no previous experience
required in 21 days".

Kids, go have fun. Make things. Accomplish things. Dream big - but start small
and work your way up to those big things. You'll get to your goal quicker
anyways - more feedback from more projects - successful or not - means you
learn faster.

~~~
jonesb6
Equally however people who attempt large projects will accomplish at least a
number of small successes along the way, each carrying value as a learning /
growth opportunity. Many times those small accomplishments could never have
been had with a small or even medium size project.

People learn and engage differently. Some people will gain a lot from starting
at a fundamental level and working their way up. Others will be much more
stimulated at the macro level, and let's be honest the goal of learning is
rarely to create a true product but for the sake of learning itself.

~~~
MaulingMonkey
> Equally however people who attempt large projects will accomplish at least a
> number of small successes along the way

That frequently hasn't borne out from what I've seen. People try to tackle
MMOs without even understanding basic programming. They're so focused on
trying to build their MMO that they can't be bothered to read a programming
tutorial long enough to learn what loops are. They just become help vampires -
accomplishing nothing truly on their own, frustrating both themselves and
those around them.

Small successes require small projects, sub-projects, or sub-sub-projects. You
can carve some of them out of projects where you've bitten off more than you
can chew, but MMOs tend to be an additional magnitude of order larger - and
from what I've seen, that much more difficult to get even small successes off
of.

> Many times those small accomplishments could never have been had with a
> small or even medium size project.

I'd question this. Care to share any examples? I can't think of any sub-
projects which can't be spun off into project of their own.

> People learn and engage differently. Some people will gain a lot from
> starting at a fundamental level and working their way up. Others will be
> much more stimulated at the macro level,

Sure. Keep dreaming big. I'm not knocking it's effect on motivation.

I _am_ questioning how motivating the actual act of trying to tackle an MMO as
your first game is, and how much you'll learn from it. Where are all the indie
developers trying to jump straight to making MMOs with no smaller games in the
middle? How many of them have gotten so far as making a chat server? Why can I
count the number I'm aware of on one hand - outnumbered by the number of
_entire communities_ of indies, each bristling with untold numbers of games -
both in the progress of being made, and outright completed?

Where are all the indie MMO developers, if it's so motivating?

> and let's be honest the goal of learning is rarely to create a true product
> but for the sake of learning itself.

This is bordering on a truism - the goal of learning is to learn? Sure. But if
that's your only goal - why make games? And is tackling an impossibly large
project really the most effective way to accomplish that learning?

Another extremely common goal of making games - I'd argue far more common than
the goal of pure learning - is to have fun playing the game with the idea you
had. Which project is going to let you actually scratch that itch - the never-
complete MMO or the quick and dirty shmup? Which one can you share with your
friends and have _them_ play? Which looks better on your portfolio when
applying to that game development studio that makes MMOs, giving you hands on
experience with the real deal?

------
listic
I wonder if any MMO has tried using specialized hardware accelerators like
ASIC or FPGA boards for acceleration of e.g. voxel based physics?

If anything, it's easier to justify running exotic hardware on a server, where
its cost will amortize among thousands of players, than it is to expect users
to install it on the client. And the game industry _has_ tried physics
accelerators for clients (PhysX).

~~~
fla
I suspect H1Z1 to run its server-side phisics simulation on GPUs. Definately
not ASIC / FPGA, but still a co-processor ;)

~~~
listic
Well, maybe GPUs are good enough and more specialized hardware isn't needed,
or does not justify the additional development costs?

~~~
no-bugs
It is not only about development costs, but also about hosting costs. As a
rule of thumb, when running an MMOG you won't have your own servers in your
own office, but will rent them (apiece or as a part of the cloud) from an
ISP/CSP. And then it is not about "what you'd like to have", but rather about
"what they have". You may find a provider with GPUs (though they're going to
be damn expensive), but with ASIC - no way (by definition, as ISPs are only
dealing with commodity stuff). Hosting with FPGAs might exist in theory, but
I've never heard of it. Of course, there are also colo options where you can
host pretty much your own servers, but they're usually too much headache to
deal with - and too expensive too :-(.

~~~
listic
Yes, there is colocation. It is too much headache to deal for _me_ , on my
own, but if someone is using it (it exists for a reason, right?), I expect the
companies operating MMO games to be one of them. World of Warcraft costs $200M
worth of infrastructure [1] (annually?) including salaries; surely you can
afford colocation, as well as whatever you need, for such kind of invoice?

[1] [https://www.nethosting.com/world-of-warcraft-case-
study/](https://www.nethosting.com/world-of-warcraft-case-study/)

------
seivan
Is the entire book completely free or was this just some parts of it? Its too
good to be true.

This has to be the first book that extensively goes through writing one,
right?

~~~
no-bugs
> Is the entire book completely free or was this just some parts of it? Its
> too good to be true.

"beta" of the entire book is going to be free. "Release" version is going to
be paid (sorry). OTOH, if you make a "useful" comment (the one which makes me
to change the text, by pointing out a mistake, suggesting something, or asking
a good question which is not covered yet) - you'll get e-copy for free.

> This has to be the first book that extensively goes through writing one,
> right?

To the best of my knowledge - yes. There are bits of information available
here and there, but certainly not everything in one place.

~~~
seivan
Hey man best of luck! Looking forward to see how this ends up going. I won't
be tackling this again but I've always hopped someone write a book about it. I
read some. You're doing awesome work. Reminds me of the game pattern book by
Nyström!

~~~
no-bugs
Thanks! And BTW Nystrom's Game Programming Patterns is one of a few great
books on game programming, so I take comparison as a compliment :-)

