MMORPG Engines

[SheenBR]

What is the best and easy to start mmorpg engine? I already tried some like:

Ogre3D - didn't go so far, it is pure C++ code(not that I think it is bad, it is NOT), doesnt have an IDE like Unity to create your maps
Unity - seems nice, but I didnt like it very much, I found it hard to understand how it works and design is not something I am pro at, so...

I was planning to start something new, if you want to join, let me know, but for now I just want to know the opinion of those who has more exp in games than I do.

It doesnt need to be really 3D, I mean, DDTank and GunBound arent 3D and they are very famous, so if you know any nice 2D engine, let me know aswell :

 

[Smitty]

Easiest one I've seen so far is Hero Engine.

It is free until you decide to start making money off your game, and then they take a cut of the profit.

 

[wolfulus]

Try libgdx, or even Slick2D: they are written in Java but they do their jobs pretty well.
Clanlib is a pretty awesome engine too, and it is written in c++, but, forget about MMORPGs if you don't really know how their structure works: it takes time and a lot of planning before diving into something like that...

Anyways... I'll be working on an university project (We'll use it into our company for developing an online game too) next semester and I'll be doing a simple extensible game engine. I'll probably make it open-source... maybe it can fit your requirements

 

[SheenBR]

Try libgdx, or even Slick2D: they are written in Java but they do their jobs pretty well.
Clanlib is a pretty awesome engine too, and it is written in c++, but, forget about MMORPGs if you don't really know how their structure works: it takes time and a lot of planning before diving into something like that...

Yeah, thats why I thought about doing a shift game in 2D, like gunbound or ddtank, you know? pretty simple... I guess lol

 

[wolfulus]

2D and 3D games has almost the same difficulty on programming, you'll have to deal with the same old things... the difference is the art, that is easier to create in 2D if you have the right tools for doing so... if you want to create an online game, try self-hosted games that users can create their own dedicated and non-dedicated servers, or even a simple 4-player coop game.

I miss old metal slug games

 

[SheenBR]

2D and 3D games has almost the same difficulty on programming, you'll have to deal with the same old things... the difference is the art, that is easier to create in 2D if you have the right tools for doing so... if you want to create an online game, try self-hosted games that users can create their own dedicated and non-dedicated servers, or even a simple 4-player coop game.

I miss old metal slug games

oh, i dont have problems in coding. i only suck at modeling and art, images...
2D would be better for the physics, only XY instead of XYZ I think.

humm... you mean like CS?where pple can start their own server? well, i dont like the idea very much, i was thinking about doing something similar to gunbound or ddtank, its easier/simpler than a full 3d mmorpg I guess lol

 

[Solo2]

Unity hard to understand? O.O
Just "trying" an engine (or programming language for that matter) is not good enough..
Even if you don't initially like it you are very likely to fall in love with it once you complete a project or two using it.

If I were you I would give up the idea of making my own MMO for the time being.
Mixing MMOs and beginners is like eating hot peppers after drinking milk; it causes diarrhea and is never pleasant.

The easiest route to making your own MMO is, in my opinion, Unity/PHP (dreadful combo, I know, but its easy and it works) closely followed by XNA/C#.

 

[wolfulus]

if you don't like the idea of people being able to host their own servers, do it yourself, make a lobby server which will broadcast room list information, and a standalone server node that will serve the 'room' for a limited number of players... easy to maintain if you don't actually need to broadcast messages between all nodes... but this of course will eat some dedicated server machines

as solo said, I would give up the MMO idea too... even Unity/PHP he pointed. have you done any type of game before? create something small and fun to play first... you'll need 'know how' to dive into multiplayer

 

[Raven0123]

What is the best and easy to start mmorpg engine? I already tried some like:

Ogre3D - didn't go so far, it is pure C++ code(not that I think it is bad, it is NOT), doesnt have an IDE like Unity to create your maps
Unity - seems nice, but I didnt like it very much, I found it hard to understand how it works and design is not something I am pro at, so...

Well Ogre3D is a graphic engine only. Unity is everything put together. If you want to use Ogre3D, your going to have to write a lot more code for the audio, network engines, etc. unless you can find other library to do it for you.

I personally would go for ogre3D, but that's just because I like to have control on how things are working internally. You wont have the source code for unity unless you pay for it.

 

[SheenBR]

if you don't like the idea of people being able to host their own servers, do it yourself, make a lobby server which will broadcast room list information, and a standalone server node that will serve the 'room' for a limited number of players... easy to maintain if you don't actually need to broadcast messages between all nodes... but this of course will eat some dedicated server machines

That would be easy, since Ive done a lot of sockets connections before,including an emulator.

as solo said, I would give up the MMO idea too... even Unity/PHP he pointed. have you done any type of game before? create something small and fun to play first... you'll need 'know how' to dive into multiplayer

Not a game, no, never did anything similar, only general C#,VB,C++ stuff.
give up the idea? why? if you want something go for it, start digging arround, thats what im doing =p

 

[Mucski]

There is no such thing as "MMORPG" engine , all MMORPG's run either their own custom engine , either heavily modified of existing ones. And those that are specifically made for MMORPG , are crap , and I strongly do NOT recommend using them. And this is why if you begin , you need to know advanced c++ , c# , and/or Perl. Hence even Blender has a game engine , though its pretty crappy , it uses Python.

 

[Mootie]

There is no such thing as "MMORPG" engine , all MMORPG's run either their own custom engine , either heavily modified of existing ones. And those that are specifically made for MMORPG , are crap , and I strongly do NOT recommend using them. And this is why if you begin , you need to know advanced c++ , c# , and/or Perl. Hence even Blender has a game engine , though its pretty crappy , it uses Python.

This, all current engines made for MMORPGs are crap as far as I've seen.

HeroEngine looks attractive and has very many nice features, but its performance is greatly lacking as seen on SWTOR. HeroEngine doesn't allow C++ code, you develop the game entirely through the engine's scripting(HeroScript), which is a huge disadvantage alone. You might be able to use it for a casual or non-commercial project, but anything else will most likely fail.

I'm very impressed with Gamebryo Litespeed if you're looking for a commercial solution for a 3D MMORPG engine. It's what a game engine should be, a modular group of libraries and tools. This allows much more control and freedom over the game's code than a scripting engine. CryEngine could work nicely as well, but it seems to be a bit more specified to FPS games than RPG. There's always Valve's Source Engine as well, but I've heard it's outdated and not frequently updated.

The reason I don't trust most game engines that are compatible with MMORPGs is because they haven't been used by any AAA games. This means they could have large bottlenecks that require major work-arounds for optimal performance. If you have $30m+ budget and a few years I would go with making a proprietary engine. If your budget is under $3m you should stick to 2D or forget MMORPGs all together. You always could make some sort of major revamp of a game with leaked source code, but I doubt it'll come out good enough to make a profit.