Whoops, didn't see those posts there. Whatever, someone else might still benefit from reading my brain dump below.
spynaz wrote:How is MMO games so hard to make?
A simple single player game is doable, but can still be pretty hard to pull off (and I speak as someone who has made quite a few of them). Two players locally (either "hot seat" or "fighting over the keyboard") is a bit harder. Two players over a network is at least an order of magnitude harder than two players locally: networking, negotiation about what "happened" in the game world, lag, connectivity issues, player communication... A group of 3-8 players? Much harder still: a lot more negotiation and related issues. 10-1000 players? Every issue you had before compounds, and you get scaling issues extra. 1000-10000? Scaling issues get worse and worse, you need loads of servers to keep things going (and you need some way to distribute players over servers -- can two players on different servers still interact? If so, it gets even harder)...
(Actually, it's worse: MMOs are more than just networking. You need that too.)
Also, read
So you want to make your own MMORPG...
The most important thing, though, is not that you're MMO idea is a pipe dream (although it is, painfully so). We kind of like pipe dreams over here. No, the problem is that this is not
interesting. You have told us nothing that would make us interested in
your idea. Working on this thing sounds
boring. Really, really boring. We've got loads of other games we can work on that
do interest us and, hey, most of those actually have some chance of actually being finished and released and get actual players. That sounds so much better than this.
You want someone to do this boring thing? Fine, but make it worth it. Pay loads and loads of cash. Then, after years and years,
something is produced. It will work (sort of), but it won't be polished and it won't be fresh or original in any way. Worse, it won't be
fun. No-one will want to play it, not even you (unless you pay them, I guess). The persons you paid to produce that thing will then leave, because you're broke and can't pay them any more.
So. Don't do that. What other options do you have?
Make it yourself, as you said earlier in this thread. So you work on this, really hard. You don't have time for a day job, and you hope you will make it back with subscription fees once the game is finished. Day after day, you work on your MMO. Then, after decades,
something is produced. It will work (sort of), but it won't be polished and it won't be fresh or original in any way. Worse, it won't be
fun. No-one will want to play it, not even you (unless you pay them, I guess). You lose the motivation to work on this. On top of that, you're broke and not getting any money from subscription fees.
That's bad too. What's left?
Stop it. Drop this thing, this MMO. Do something small. What kind of games have you made? Make something small, something you like. Something original. Something slightly larger than the largest thing you've made, finished and was a success. Repeat.
This community suggests you do that. Don't like it? Here's the last alternative: get rich in some other way. Then you can pay others to make whatever you want.