3D or Zelda-style?

[PeterX]

Hi, programmers and gamers!

I'm currently designing/planning an MMORPG. But I am kind of stuck at the question if I should make it 3D or top-down/tile-based (Zelda-style).

Besides my own content I want the game to have areas made by normal players (with some minimum of design talent). 3D would be a much cooler game. But tile-based/top-down would be easier to edit/create.

Is there a desire for Zelda-style MMORPG anyway?
Can 3D be made easy to create?
Any other thoughts?

Greetings
Peter

[Julius]

Creating a 3D mmorpg is probably unrealistic, but 2D top down unless really well made artistically will probably not get much player interest. A compromised would be a 3D voxel world like Veloren is doing (why not join them?).

But if you really want to try the full 3D approch look into the open source engine of Ryzom. It included an extension called Ring that allows player made contributions.

[PeterX]

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I guess you are totally right: 2D would not be cool for many players.

For the voxel style: I don't like it, especially the characters' look (both player character and non-player-character).

I came up with the idea to give the player-editors ready-made 3D-"objects" or "blocks" like houses, trees etc. and give them a top-down view of their area (in the editor).

Why do you think 3D MMORPG is unrealistic? Is it the MMO programming or the 3D programming or the 3D art which is difficult in your opinion?

Well, Ryzom looks definitively cool. And, as you say, the engine is open source.

Greetings
Peter

[CYBERDEViL]

Can 3D be made easy to create?

If you mean by artists then sure if you provide a easy way for them. A approach would be to create a addon for Blender that an artist can install and use like SuperTuxKart does.

Why do you think 3D MMORPG is unrealistic? Is it the MMO programming or the 3D programming or the 3D art which is difficult in your opinion?

I cannot answer for Julius but I agree with him that a MMORPG is probably unrealistic for a single developer 'cause the overall picture (programming the game itself + networking + assets). Why not start the project as a single player, when that succeeds you can always adopt MMO networking. Also MMO is a very vague term since it is not well defined what massive is, for some it is 100 players, for others it's thousands.

How is your planning going so far?

[PeterX]

I have a very primitive single-player RPG with a (slightly buggy) ncurses UI. But it has only random NPCs, automatic fights, random map. two character classes and three types of items. No character advancement, no cities, no real NPCs, no skills etc. You can walk around and use items (loot).

I'm currently working on the network client-server code, but haven't produced that yet.

As I mentioned in a different thread, I have now the focus to produce a kind of "suckless" or minimalistic MMORPG.

Greetings
Peter

[Jastiv]

'm not sure why you are trying to decide between 3D or Zelda style, both of those have already be done to death in freedom respecting software. I know about the mana world, and also Stendhal

https://stendhalgame.org/
https://www.themanaworld.org/

for 3d you have
https://ryzom.com/
http://www.planeshift.it/ (assets are non-free)

for 45 degree isometric (like ultima online) you have
www.wograld.org

before making your rpg game, you had better come up with some good gameplay and level design, and most importantly, something that makes it different from every other generic rpg out there.
ps, I truely remember the hours of killing the same thing over and over in the mana world, that one was like the worst.

[PeterX]

I recently read a quoute: "Telling a programmer that something has been programmed before is like telling a songwriter that there is already a song about love."

I've played Ryzom, Planeshift and Stendhal. Not much, but enough to know that they exist and how they look and how the gameplay is.

Of course gameplay is very important, for some players even more important than shiny 3D. I have lots of ideas that would make a unique RPG. That's not the problem for me.

I guess I approach game development differently than you, Jastiv.

Note, that neither 3D nor Zelda-style is the goal anymore for me.

Greetings
Peter

[drummyfish]

If I was creating this I'd do it with 2D gameplay and create an interface for frontends: there could be many frontends and they could be in 2D or 3D graphics. Basically like what you have with chess engines and chessboards... or with roguelikes. Keep in mind that Ryzom's gameplay is 2D too (I think proprietary MMOs like Lineage also).

[PeterX]

If I was creating this I'd do it with 2D gameplay and create an interface for frontends: there could be many frontends and they could be in 2D or 3D graphics. Basically like what you have with chess engines and chessboards... or with roguelikes. Keep in mind that Ryzom's gameplay is 2D too (I think proprietary MMOs like Lineage also).

Didn't know that about Ryzom. But this is exactly how I'm planning it right now. Starting with a text interface, and later add 2D, and even more later add 3D.

Greetings
Peter

[O01eg]

The last Zelda games are 3D and it's nice 3D )

[Zsky]

If you are alone I do recommend you to create 2d is more easier than 3D, but if you have a team and great knowledge about game dev then take the 3D

[PeterX]

Yeah, I have changed my goals already. Now I'm writing a text-only client and will later add a 3D client. I try to make a very simple game, nearly "suckless" (See http://suckless.org/philosophy/ for details), but not _too_ simple. I'm currently struggling with the low level code, but I'm progressing.

Greetings
Peter

[DrAltaica]

'm not sure why you are trying to decide between 3D or Zelda style, both of those have already be done to death in freedom respecting software.
http://www.planeshift.it/ (assets are non-free)

Planeshift isn't freedom respecting software, that's like saying Over The Hills And Far Away is freedom respecting software sine it's written in Python.

The whole reason that the assets only keep secret, not just non-free they are kept server side, and that they don't document how to create you own is to keep people from forking the game