How much would it cost to fund a small online game?
How hard do you think it would be to find developers to work on the project?
Ever since I played Runescape and Wow back in like 2006/7, I've always wanted to make an mmorpg. I'm about to enter medical school, so I'll have a good amount of money to spend once I'm a doctor. Also I should probably mention that I'm not planning on doing anything but leading the project with groundwork ideas and quests. How much should I plan on spending to get this off the ground?
Just Google Rust and how much it costs to keep the servers up
>>335743041
I have no idea, but bumping out of interest
I've had thoughts about what would make for good rpgs
Problem is I have trouble bringing them down to earth, they'd all cost tens of millions
I have other, cheaper game idea should I ever desire such a thing
Well, RS was originally hosted in one of the Gower brother's attic. So it depends on your scope. Making an MMO is not as easy as you think it is. It's far easier to make a singleplayer RPG that benefits highly from being played with other people, a la Baldur's Gate.
>>335743160
I'd probably be fine with supporting only 50-100 people at first. It would be more of an expensive hobby.
ok I probably should have said ORPG
>>335743373
>Only 50-100
That's a fuck ton of people.
>>335743373
With that few players you could almost get by on free services offered by various people. Or for more reliability a single vps from a decent service runs you around $20 a month and would handle that kind of load.
>>335743338
Yeah I get that, but I really think it would be fun to lead a project like that, even if it takes years.
>>335743528
Is it? I really have no idea about these things
>>335743647
Don't fall for the make your own game meme
>>335743816
With money it should be possible though right?
>>335744079
Yeah. Just insert your money into your cd drive and wait 2 or 3 days
>>335744208
Lol you know what I mean.
>>335744403
Well it depends. How much are you willing to spend and how much of the work you will do?
>>335743041
>medical school
You are going to have money, but no time, m8.
>he's an ideas guy
>>335744623
At least until you're like 50
>>335743041
Depends on the game you're running. If you're going for something comparable to Runescape or WoW from 2007 with a population of 50-100 people you're probably looking at something around a couple hundred per month.
Of course this is entirely guesswork, it's like asking how much wood you need to buy for a house. What type of house? Are you a good carpenter? If not you're going to need more wood than someone who is good. Not a carpenter? Finding a good one to build a hobby house is going to be expensive, etc.
>>335744713
My apologies I should amend this and say AT LEAST a couple hundred per month. I would guess it would work to closer to a little under a grand per month all things consider and that's server costs alone. I can't begin to think how much it would cost to fund people keeping the server running and building the actual game.
>>335744484
All my income that doesn't go towards food and rent I guess
>>335744713
>>335744860
Yeah that's sounds reasonable, thanks for your advice.
So does anyone here have an OLD RS3 account they don't use anymore, and would let go of?
I'd totally pump out a few quick and dirty multiplayer games for /v/ to enjoy if I wasn't too lazy and/or unsure about the attention this coul bring, stuff like board games and things like that
But yeah, a whole mmo might be a bit ridiculous, but it's your dream and life's short, so go crazy man
It depends.
From zero dollars for small projects if you can do everything yourself (would take you years of full time work) to hundreds of millions for big projects (SWTOR, TESO, etc).
The cheapest way is obviously to use existing tools without reinventing anything. There are open source projects you are free to modify and commercialize such as Worldforge, ImperiumAO or Ryzom. Another option would be to use a free-to-use engine such as Unreal and modify it to support massive networking capabilities, like the Tera Online team did. Another option would be to modify the code of a proprietary, leaked game like Ragnarok Online to make your own. This would be risky, as it is illegal. I guess 'taking inspiration' would be better.
I'd say for a small project using an existing engine you could have it made for a few million dollars if they weren't working in the west (much higher salaries for the same work) and were capable and you could have them do exactly what needs to be done everyday, but given that you are not a producer/project lead that would be impossible.
Anyway start by checking this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryzom
