Hey guys. Was just wondering if you guys could help me out a bit. I've been wanting to design an MMORPG for a while now. I know what your thinking. It will be a while before I get it done. I know. But, the problem is, I'm not sure where to start. I have a lot of ideas and such, but need some advice. Any tips you guys can give me will be much appreciated. Also, are there any basic games that I could program to help me get started with programming? Thanks for your help guys.

Have you programmed before? Have you programmed games before? Don't start thinking about a full-blown game unless you have the basics under your belt: AI, path finding, collision detection, etc.

Take a look at the programming/computer section of a bookstore. There should be several books dedicated to making MMORPGs. Also, take a look at www.sourceforge.net and see how the various RPGs there are written. And take a look at www.gamasutra.com; it's dedicated to game programmers.

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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

I have never programmed before. I've messed around with a few web pages and html, but that's about it. Other than that, just looking at some script codes and other codes, but haven't really messed with them much yet. Yeah, I may end up purchasing a book sometime soon, on the subject. Thanks crystalattice. Any other tips would be appriciated.

If you search for "game development", "game programming", etc. you'll find a lot of sites. One I found (can't think of it off-hand) gave an idea of how to progress in your game skills.

Start with something simple, like Tetris or Breakout, then make a Pac-Man clone, and so on. You'll build on what you learn as you make new games but you won't overwhelm yourself. There are also several books that just came out that expressly discuss MMOs and similar games; you might try your hand at making a MUD since you can worry about game logic without worrying about graphics.

If you ever plan on getting a job in the game industry, don't bother getting a degree from one of the game universities, like Full Sail. Sure, you'll learn some of the basics of game design but you don't get the well-rounded experience companies want, like advanced math or algorithm design. A computer science degree will serve you better.

Plus, if you ever decide you don't like game design, you're in a better place to move to a different industry with your degree (embedded programming is the current hotness and will be for the foreseeable future).

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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

Ok thanks crystalattice. I was wondering, is there a site, that I can learn to program basic games, like tetris, or pac man? Just wondering.

The site I saw these recommendations from didn't give any tips or sample code. It only suggested which games to try.

However, I have found some sites in the past that have sample code for various games. You might try Sourceforge since nearly everything is GPLed so you can look at the code and there are many game clones since they are the "easiest" ones to do.

I'd recommend doing a search and see what you find. Make sure what you find is in the language you want; most games are written in C or C++ but you'll also find Java, Ruby, etc.

Here's a few sites that I have bookmarked:
http://wiki.gamedev.net/index.php/Game_Programming_Wiki
http://www.gamedev.net/
http://forum.rpg.net/
http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/allegro/readme.html

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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

Ok thanks crystalattice, I'll be sure to check those out soon. Going to be a lot of work ahead of me, but probably a lot of fun as well. Well, I'll be sure to post again if I have any other questions.