Questions tagged [mmo]

MMO is an abbreviation for "massively multiplayer online," a kind of game that allows an extremely large number of concurrent players in a shared world.

Massively multiplayer online games are those which allow an extremely large number (generally in the thousands or more) of concurrent players. The most common MMOs are role playing games such as World of Warcraft, EVE Online, and Guild Wars 2.

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How do you prevent inflation in a virtual economy?

With your typical MMORPG, players can usually farm the world for raw materials essentially forever. Monsters/mineral veins/etc are usually on some sort of respawn timer, so other than time there really isn't a good way to limit the amount of new…
Tetrad
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How to deal with "Scrooge McDucks" in my fixed-currency-amount game?

I'm currently working on a very small scale MMO game planned to support approximately hundred players per server, but we're having trouble with our economical model. For various reasons we have decided to go with a fixed-currency-amount system;…
Applekini
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Why is it so expensive to develop an MMO?

I want to develop an MMO, like World of Warcraft , but some basic research says that it is going to take a lot of time and money. I'd like to know why. Why is it so expensive to develop an MMO?
Dr. Snoopy
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What kind of databases are usually used in an MMORPG?

Do people write their own DB for some reason?
user608
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MMORPG design for time-limited players

I believe that there is a significant market of players who would enjoy the exploration and interaction aspects of MMORPGs, but simply don't have the time for the endless grinding marathons which are part of the average MMORPG. MMORPGs are all about…
Philipp
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What makes MMOs with real-money economies legal?

I beieve most MMOs with an in-game currency tied to a real-world currency (e.g. Guild Wars 2 's gems or Eve 's PLEX) do not allow in-game items to be traded back into real cash for a bunch of reasons—partly because they may be subject to changes to…
Ross Taylor-Turner
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Why are so many games not fully voiced?

I'm wondering why so many MMOs are only partially voiced? I asked makers of games (Thimbleweed Park, in their Q&A) how expensive voiceover is, and they said it wasn't especially expensive unless you hire A-list stars. So why would so much game…
uliwitness
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Does an inventory limit in an MMORPG make sense?

I am currently developing a simple 2d MMORPG. My current focus is the inventory system. I am currently wondering if I should implement a limit on what a player character can carry. Either in form of a maximum weight, a limited number of inventory…
Philipp
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Profanity filter for an MMO chat

We are developing an MMO using Smartfox Server. The targeted audience is kids from 7 -12 years. There is a global chat option in this MMO. Whatever the user types in a textbox get displayed next to users avatar after he/she hits enter. We would like…
codeandcloud
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How does mmorpg store data?

I want to use sql database in my server.exe. lets say 1000 users online. And players will change their data when they play. And server need to save these updates. But how ? i think there two way: 1) server will save in ram at run time and sometime…
Emre Kaya
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Who does the AI calculations in an MMO?

I am building an MMO and want to add NPCs. The thing is I don't know the basic design. What does the calculations, the clients or the server? I would understand the server calculating events and reactions, but when it comes down to pathfinding and…
Patrick Lorio
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Browser-based MMOs (WebGL, WebSocket)

Do you think it is technically possible to write a fully-fledged 3D MMO client with Browser JavaScript - WebGL for graphics, and WebSocket for Networking? Do you think future MMOs (and games generally) will be written with WebGL? Does today's…
Alon Gubkin
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What has stopped MMORTS games from being successful?

We all know that there have been attempts to create commercially successful MMORTS games, but all have failed. By failed, I mean that they didn't get really popular in the gaming community. Why is that? What is an MMORTS? It's like an RTS (a…
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How is load balancing achieved in MMOs?

I believe it's a common requirement of MMOs that processing for a single shard or realm can be done over several servers to ease the load. I'm curious as to how this can be done whilst maintaining a unified consistent world where all the players,…
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How to handle a large number of pickups in a MMO game

How do games like Minecraft, or really any MMO game that has pickups, handle them? Say terrain spawns 3 pickup drops of "dirt" everytime you dig said terrain. Say every item has a rotation animation computed every frame. If the number of pickups in…
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