How would Love be for an MMO?

[Lemony Lime]

I've had an idea for a 2D MMO that I've wanted to make for years... and I'm really getting the itch to delve into it again. I know a bit of Lua already (only because of computercraft for minecraft... I certainly can't say I "know" the language yet. lol) and Love seems like a nice engine, so I thought it might be a good place to start making some real games. I've made this game once before in Multimedia Fusion 2, but absolutely no coding is required for that, and it's impossible to make an MMO with it, so it was singleplayer, and honestly pretty terrible. lol

Anyway, point is... How is Love with multiplayer games? Especially for an MMO. I know absolutely nothing about that sort of stuff, so I'm hoping to find something that would simplify the process quite a bit. (Maybe it's not all that hard to begin with, I dunno. I figure you probably need to know a bit about internet type stuff first though. lol)

[Roland_Yonaba]

A bit of reading for you.
Is love2d suitable for MMO game client?
How Big projects can Löve2d handle?
Love2d's prototyping power- Cosmic Contact (MMO?)
New to Game Development and could use some guidance.

[T-Bone]

While it's not impossible, I think that you'll probably want to start with something easier first. It's not much about if LÖVE can handle a MMO, and more about if you can handle an MMO.

[Robin]

It's not much about if LÖVE can handle a MMO, and more about if you can handle an MMO.

Exactly what I wanted to say.

An MMO is like the Notre Dame. How are you going to build that? Building a regular house is hard enough, let alone a huge cathedral, especially if you're not the catholic church or Blizzard.

[TheDeskPop]

It's not much about if LÖVE can handle a MMO, and more about if you can handle an MMO.

Exactly what I wanted to say.

An MMO is like the Notre Dame. How are you going to build that? Building a regular house is hard enough, let alone a huge cathedral, especially if you're not the catholic church or Blizzard.

lol... the or Blizzard part made me laugh.

[BlackBulletIV]

I'd imagine a 2D MMO is significantly easier than a 3D MMO, but MMOs, even if they're 2D, are still some of the hardest games to make. I recently heard of a 2D MMO project which recently shut down after a long period of work; it had a team behind it too.

Moving even more into the difficulties of MMOs, they're only as strong as their community. That means that in order to make a moderately successful MMO, you need to build not only the game, but a community around it. Both difficult things.

It's not much about if LÖVE can handle a MMO, and more about if you can handle an MMO.

Very well phrased.

[Lemony Lime]

Believe me, this is much much simpler than WoW. I'm not reaching for the stars straight away. Plus, remember that I've made the game once before as a single player version, so the only real challenge is figuring out how to do the multiplayer side of things. Well, once I know Love well enough to do the rest in the first place.

I'm just gonna start learning, and see where it takes me. Thanks for the responses.

[BlackBulletIV]

Well then, to answer your question directly, yes LÖVE is most likely capable of what you want to do. You may want to take a look at lua-socket (the Lua networking library included with LÖVE), or the LUBE library.

[scutheotaku]

I'm not one to be recommending other engines/frameworks on LOVE's forum, but...if your main goal is to make a 2D MMO and not to necessarily learn LOVE, it may be beneficial to learn and work with a 2D MMO engine (not one of those "MMO creator" thingys - an engine). I've heard a lot of good stuff about Eclipse ( http://www.touchofdeathforums.com/eclipse/ ), and some tinkering around with it a few years ago proved it easy to use and work with. It has its own scripting language, and it's also open source so you can delve into the source code (C++, I believe...though actually it may be Java) if the need arises. It's got quite a large community around it too (though note that the engine has just recently been completely rewritten, so some older tutorials and such may not be worth much).

If, on the other hand, the goal is to build the majority of your engine from the ground up (i.e. only using libraries), then LOVE would probably be a really good choice. It just depends on your focus: rapid development or the joy (or potentially pain) of writing everything yourself from very little. The latter option, among other advantages, also gives you the opportunity to keep things much cleaner since you'll only put in what you need. Then there's, of course, the experience and knowledge gained from doing everything yourself.

Either way, an MMO is a big project. While something like Eclipse can make it a lot easier (particularly since all of the server and network code, including user accounts, admins, chatting, banning, updates, etc..., is all taken care of), it's still a pretty large task. I really wouldn't recommend that you start off in the direction, particularly if you are starting with a more generic 2D framework like LOVE. Anyone who's floated around game dev forums long enough has seen countless people try to start with an MMO, only to get discouraged and quit game design/programming all together. If you absolutely must start with something like this, then I'd suggest starting with a simple, small multiplayer (NOT massively multiplayer) game in the style that you want. Something meant to have four or five players playing at once. That way you don't have to worry about master servers, persistence, admins, or a lot of the other more complicated stuff that comes with a MM game.

EDIT: Sorry, I misunderstood - I was thinking that you were a newcomer to game dev (though it appears that you may be a newcomer to programming?). Most of what I wrote still applies though
If you've already made a SP version of your game, then I still suggest that you try making a simple multiplayer version of it first, especially if you will be using a more generic framework like LOVE. Trying to make a full MMO (simple or not) during your first stab into 1. programming, and 2. a framework/engine will most likely end in frustration. Start small.

[Lemony Lime]

Yeah, I have a reasonable amount of experience with game development, and a very small amount of experience with many different languages, but have never taken the time to actually get good at/use any of them. I wasn't planning on doing the MMO for my first project of course. I actually have a neat idea for a 2 player puzzle game, that might be a good place to start. It'll give me some practice with networking as well.

That MMO engine seems strangely similar to RPGMaker, lol. My game is set in a sidescrolling, metroid-esque world, with real time combat, so I don't think that would work, since it seems to be geared only toward standard RPGs.