MMORPGs are hard to make


Ueda

Recommended Posts

MMORPGs are hard to make. Before I started Nin Online, I already had 6 years of Game Development experience, a diploma in Game Dev, multiple awards locally, a number of successful MMORPG projects I had worked on.

Don't let the fact that I made Nin Online with almost no resources fool you into thinking that anyone can do it easily.
Thousands of online game projects are started every year by individuals, small teams and companies, 90% of them are vaporware.

Making what looks like it could be an MMORPG is very easy.
For reference, I made this "MMORPG" in one day a few years back.

http://www.ninonline.org/nindemo/

Quote

Photon-based Networking
Login / Registration System
Saving / Loading System
Movement System (Walking and Running)
Chat System
Barebones Animations
Basic Combat Functionality

This looks like it could be an MMORPG like Nin Online. But no, this took one day, and if I wanted to turn this into what Nin is today, it would take another 6 years to do it (Minus the time taken for art and lessons learnt). Making the start of any project is easy, with a fully networked MMORPG, every system is intertwined and makes development exponentially more tedious and slow. I've put 6 years into Nin Online. That's how long a studied, experienced and very very fast working developer would take to make Nin Online what it is as a full-time commitment.

World of Warcraft took 50 million dollars to create the first version of classic.
Games like Wizards101 have teams of 50+ full time employees to develop and maintain it.

It's very very easy to create BYOND games. It's also very very easy to create the start of a Unity MMORPG with an engine like uMMORPG or Photon. But it soon becomes hard to continue past that.

Nin Online doesn't make enough money to justify the years of work put into the game by a lot of people. But it's made as a labor of love and I have no-lifed it myself to do it.

Before and besides Nin Online existed, there have been atleast a hundred projects that were trying to make a game like Nin Online, some by very talented people. None of them ever got released. These are just a few notable ones:

2D Projects

screenshot4.jpg
NarutoRealm

https://web.archive.org/web/20070916045404/http://s13.invisionfree.com/NarutoQuest/
NarutoQuest

LNOPretty.png
Last Ninja Online (https://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?p=1748872)

https://www.indiedb.com/games/naruto-realm
ShinobiRealm

https://www.indiedb.com/games/ninjubook
NInjuBook (This one is only worth a mention because it's made by someone who has been trying to make a Naruto MMORPG since before me circa 2004)

3D Projects

NarutoRivals


NarutoAbunai

There's also all of this..
https://www.indiedb.com/games?filter=t&kw=Naruto&released=&genre=&theme=&indie=&players=&timeframe=#gamesbrowse
You'll also find some here
https://www.indiedb.com/games?filter=t&kw=Shinobi&released=&genre=&theme=&indie=&players=&timeframe=

More recently in 2014, a bunch of Nin staff who were kicked from the team decided to make an MMORPG, and it failed. It was a new version of Naruto GOA.

In 2017, a Nin staff who was kicked tried to make one again, but this time joined up with another game project which was pandering money from Nin Online players on discord. A lot of people supported the project and sent them money. The project was ShinobiRising and has since been inactive from 2018 after announcing their third or fourth release date to be in Jan-Feb 2019.
https://twitter.com/shinobirising?lang=en

Just putting this all out there, before you think that it's a good idea to throw a lot of money at game projects that are in early stages.

I'm also in no way saying don't support new games and/or try them, I'm just trying to put it out there that making MMORPG projects are hard, and most of it is vaporware, so if you do decide to give you money to projects that aren't very far along, be prepared to get nothing from it.

I'm a fan of Naruto MMORPGs no matter what and I've been registered to and followed the development of all the games above since 2003. The reason I started making Nin Online in 2013 was because it had been 10 years and nobody had made a successful one. I would love to play a new Naruto MMORPG project, that would be awesome. But it's been 16 years and the only Naruto-based MMORPGs to be released have been: Nin Online, Jutsu Online (WoW Private Server) Byond Games and Roblox Servers.

So sharing my experience.
Not trying to turn anyone away from trying. I'm saying just be aware of the history of Vaporware Naruto MMORPG projects that are not documented anywhere and the difficulty in general of the task at hand being discussed.



EDIT: I also want to mention that there is currently a project being developed by multiple very experienced industry programmers to make a new MMORPG that is going to license Nin Online's artwork and be targeting more platforms. The project has been in development for awhile now and is starting to gain more traction. It's not being developed by anyone in our existing team, and I'm only overseeing it as a partner. But this project will be a grander version of Nin Online eventually. We're not collecting any money to have this developed and it'll come eventually and it's not a call to action of any sorts.

  • Like 11
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Ueda said:

-snipped-

Honestly bro if you release advanced/combined and the rest of the villages almost everyone supporting these games would come back to Nin. Ngl. You'd also get a HUUUUGE playerbase. I feel like you know this but just in case you didn't I said it. Shit I was going to come home tonight and buy a couple blessings for Nin myself lol

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Ueda said:

EDIT: I also want to mention that there is currently a project being developed by multiple very experienced industry programmers to make a new MMORPG that is going to license Nin Online's artwork and be targeting more platforms. The project has been in development for awhile now and is starting to gain more traction. It's not being developed by anyone in our existing team, and I'm only overseeing it as a partner. But this project will be a grander version of Nin Online eventually. We're not collecting any money to have this developed and it'll come eventually and it's not a call to action of any sorts.

What's it called?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Yugure said:

Honestly bro if you release advanced/combined and the rest of the villages almost everyone supporting these games would come back to Nin. Ngl. You'd also get a HUUUUGE playerbase. I feel like you know this but just in case you didn't I said it. Shit I was going to come home tonight and buy a couple blessings for Nin myself lol

I'm going to keep working on updates at my own pace, sometimes people just move on and I don't expect anyone to play Nin forever.
 

1 minute ago, Jellal Kuraen said:

What's it called?

It's not named atm

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

you're always gonna have haters, you can't expect a community to be perfect. From my experience there's always been toxic players in a lot of pvp type games, some people really just don't give a fuck on how hard you worked on it, but there's also people who care about it, just ignore the haters and keep this game going with your supporters

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm new but hope to stick around, for a very long time. Might not be here every day but I will constantly check for progress. You got something great going on here the community only gets frustrated I would assume because if the problem was something that could be handled financially we would probably contribute to it if we were guaranteed to get the development.

When I get some hairstyles in the cash shop with braids, or something similar to Killer B maybe ill gets a tattoo of the Nin logo as well!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Raw said:

because if the problem was something that could be handled financially we would probably contribute to it if we were guaranteed to get the development.

It can be. But I need thousands or tens of thousands, not hundreds.

There's not a programmer that is capable of programming an MMORPG server that would work for the amount that Nin makes. The problem is the game doesn't milk anyone for anything because there's nothing P2W about it, so it makes jack shit compared to a shit mobile game with an auto play button or a web game with no soul. Couple that with Nin being virtually useless to anyone's portfolio because people won't see a fan game as very much, the programmers who are capable of doing the work - aren't going to waste their time with Nin. Not for decent pay, which for that pay grade is just way too high for what we make.

 

Thanks for the support though

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nin is dope as hell for what it is. Idk the last free game I played for 2 years. So if I never said it, thanks for making something I enjoy. To me this community can be so wishy-washy. When something is released and the game is active, ppl neck Rory. When its not everyone is so dam hostile and ready to 'quit'.  How many "I am quitting nin" posts have we read and the person is right back lmao. 

I saw that shinobi rising game as a scam from the moment I was invited to the discord. When everyone thought it was really gonna happen they were bashing nin left and right. Saying how great it was gonna be and nin would die. Few months later and everyone is back on nin. Yall better wise up with project kunai and appreciate nin. Nothing lasts forever remember that. :eyes:

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Ozu said:

Nin is dope as hell for what it is. Idk the last free game I played for 2 years. So if I never said it, thanks for making something I enjoy. To me this community can be so wishy-washy. When something is released and the game is active, ppl neck Rory. When its not everyone is so dam hostile and ready to 'quit'.  How many "I am quitting nin" posts have we read and the person is right back lmao. 

I saw that shinobi rising game as a scam from the moment I was invited to the discord. When everyone thought it was really gonna happen they were bashing nin left and right. Saying how great it was gonna be and nin would die. Few months later and everyone is back on nin. Yall better wise up with project kunai and appreciate nin. Nothing lasts forever remember that. :eyes:

ninonlineforever

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.