Mike Sellers wrote:
> Second, there are other easier outlets for those with a moderate desire to
> create something online. Flash games for example can be created by a
> single
> person and there are multiple places to host them and get noticed. So
> some
> of those who might have tried creating an MMO go another direction
> instead.
I don't exactly buy this one since writing a decent Flash game is (I assume)
more difficult than using a MMORPG toolkit (at least the easier ones like
NWN).
> Fourth, the tools suck. There are no good, all-encompassing tools that
> snip
I could play devil's advocate and argue that MUD tools sucked too...
But I agree with you. Since the MMORPG toolkit developers are trying to do
it on the cheap (and not write a mini-3DSMax, wave editor, photoshop, etc.),
actually creating a MMORPG with a "toolkit" requires a host of other
software, some of which costs money, all of which has a different UI theory.
(This is often recusirve; I think a lot of 3DSMax users run Photoshop for
textures, for example.)
> Taken together, I question whether there really *is* a large population of
> people both willing and, given the right tools, competent to create
> amateur/indie MMOGs. We might see the equivalent of YouTube videos
> popping
> up on MetaPlace once it's done, but those are a long way from MMOs as the
> equivalent of professional motion pictures or TV shows.
So MMO "shorts" (as in short films)? I've been advocating shortened gameplay
for awhile. For example: The interactive fiction community has mostly given
up "epic" 40 hour games, and produces 2-ish hour games. I've actually tried
to convince MMO authors on various forums that they should aim to create a
small world, but my suggestions fall on deaf ears; they have visions of
500-hour epics with 1000+ PCU being produced by three men in a garage.
(Side note: If a game is only 10 hours, 1000 players on at once doesn't make
much sense either; there'd be an overcrowding problem.)