Online RPGs... help needed!

[InCreator]

I was wondering... is there any  tutorials out there to create your own online RPG? For PHP or Flash? Or what IS used for most rpgs?

I mean traditional text-based RPG, with only supporting graphics, nothing animated or 3D.

Something that explains simpler things, like making basic user registration system and getting players to fight each other?

I'm extremely weak at PHP but I'd love to learn and this would be something useful too - making webpages has no point for me.

[Alun]

Sounds like what you're after is the tools to create a MUD.

There are plenty of MUD server suites out there.  Look at this FAQ, and in particular the questions "How do I start my own MUD?" and "What different servers are available?"  (The list on the FAQ is not complete, however; off the top of my head, for example, I know of a free server called Coffee MUD that isn't listed there.  With a Google search for "MUD servers", you should be able to find more--there are plenty to choose from, many (maybe most) of them available for free!)

It's going to be a fairly big undertaking regardless, but the first step would probably be to investigate the different servers and see which one appeals to you the most.  (Unless you really feel like writing your own code from scratch...but that would be a monumental amount of work.)  Hopefully, the FAQ I linked to above should answer most of the questions you might have about the subject.  Good luck!

[woodz]

have a look here:
http://www.gmacwill.com/lassie/index.shtml
you can build online flash games,, its designed to build point and click games but it could easily be used fr other types
it only requires a small amount of flash understanding to get good results

[InCreator]

MUD... Wasn't the MUDs those ancient improved console/chatrooms via telnet?

I'll better show what I mean.
Some Russian colleagues at work spend every spare moment playing something named Wizards World. I got interested and few days later, I'm a fan/registered player by myself (yes, me, otherwise hyperaggressive anti-RPG-type).
If nothing else, I atleast got an ideas from there and also polished up my rusty Russian language.

The game looks like a bunch of PHP forms bundled together and enriched with some nice, static graphics. But at best, it's still a text game.

Since I need something to get out of teH Stupid Slave Cycle (lousy underpaid job with no chances to get any better one), making something atleast 10% as cool by myself would boost my quality of life in 3 important points:

* Learning & understanding PHP/any other web thingies that's always needed from anyone applying at some IT-related job (especially since not a single school here actually teaches any of these 3-4 letter wonders (like MySQL, PhBB, etc) more than at a brief overview level, so experts are in great need
* Instantly gaining browser-based-game monopoly  in Estonia, and probably making some nice pocket money via advertising on webpage
* Increasing hope!

Well, I took a few screenies from WiW. This is the kind of game I would love to make. It's basically so simple!



This is the first city in WiW. A nice image with some links? I can do that...
You can visit places here, like tavern, bank, church, battle arena, magic schools, etc. Some places have nice purpose, like postal office where you can actually read and manage private messages from other players, etc.

Isn't it appealing? And it's fully browser-based, no downloading anything. Lower part of screen is separate frame with some character info and most essential buttons for refresh, messaging, forums, help and quitting the game...




This is the battle arena. From here, you can pick an opponent (other online players!) via radio button and if (s)he accepts, it's a duel.

There's also "chaos" fights here where all players can join until timer counts down, then the mass is separated into two teams and everybody hits everybody from other team. All usernames produce a popup window with character info when clicked.



The main moment of game: the fight. The fight system is actually 6 radio buttons! Very similar to the "fight" game on older Siemens cellphones, you pick from 3 places to hit and 3 places to move. Enemy does same, plus a magic blow is generated, which will choose random place to strike every turn.
Left side shows my moves and where enemy hit/magic went, right one is opposite, enemy moves and my attacks. Brown marks the move, red Z the strike and yellow crap the magic richochet. As you can see, Enemy managed to guess my move twice, and so did his magic, and I got one full hit at him with both sword and magic plus one sword hit 2 moves earlier. Though the battle is affected by the character stats ( close attack, far attack, magic attack, HP ), the main point relies 50/50 on luck and psychology: guessing where opponent will attack and where move. I love this!

I just don't believe such simple things could be hard to code!

Actually, this is prefight, where players advance towards each other. After 10 turns, they meet and close battle starts, where's 4 places to protect and 4 to strike. This draws line between archer-types (long distance) and warriors (close battle). On the screenshot, I'm playing "chaos" in 3-vs-3



...And eventually kill them bastards, thus getting some money as reward.

Now, sorry for stretching and pumping whole thread with pictures and kind of offtopic, but this is what I would love to learn how to do. Now, I know that there's good webcoders at forums, so I seek for proffessional opinion would something even close to this be possible for an amateur like me and is it worth for me to waste some time on this?

And also, any material/tutorials/links/whatever that could lead me towards getting started. Internet is full of PHP tutorials but I don't even have a clue if PHP would be sufficent or comfortable for such thing and how much skill does it take. I can handle most C-like game scripting language, but is it way over my head this time?


 

[Alun]

MUD... Wasn't the MUDs those ancient improved console/chatrooms via telnet?

No.  The first MUDs were multiplayer RPGs (albeit not very deep ones); the players went around and fought monsters (and sometimes each other), gained treasure and experience, etc.  They certainly weren't just chatrooms, although some later MUD offshoots have ditched the RPG elements and gone more in that direction.

However, apparently that's not what you were going for.  I guess I was thrown off by your mention of "traditional text-based RPG".  You can't get any more "traditional" in terms of online RPGs than MUDs, and they're certainly text-based.  What you're showing here...well, I wouldn't really call that "text-based", myself, but I guess it's a matter of how you want to define it...

So I guess this is where I bow out of the thread.  I know nothing about PHP (I've been wanting to learn, but I have about a hundred other things I want to do too, and learning PHP isn't near the top of the list), so I don't think I can really give much useful information for you.  But hopefully there's someone else on the forum who can.  Again, good luck!

[InCreator]

hat you're showing here...well, I wouldn't really call that "text-based", myself, but I guess it's a matter of how you want to define it...

But... the graphics is just clever disquise here. Most of buttons come along with browser
And creating an image with hyperlink ain't rocket science neither.

Well, thanks anyway!

[Alun]

Well, I said I'd bow out of this thread, but I guess I'll make one more post...

But... the graphics is just clever disquise here.

No.  No they're not.  For one thing, when you say "text-based", that usually means a text interface, i.e. that commands are input using the keyboard.  If your interface uses buttons, it's not text-based.  And then the graphical chart on top of the fight screen...this really isn't "text-based" by any usual definition.

And creating an image with hyperlink ain't rocket science neither.

Obviously, but the same could be said of patching together images without hyperlinks...and of updating those images over time...which is really all you need to do for a fully graphical game, with an overhead map and animation.  Break things down into their simplest components, and of course they're going to sound simple.  The hard part is getting everything to work together--it's not displaying the image that's hard; it's getting the program to display the right image, at the right time, at the right place, depending on user input, character statistics, and other variables...

Anyway, I said I couldn't say anything helpful because I didn't know PHP, but on second thought that may not be all that important.  I may not know PHP, but I'm pretty sure this could be done in PHP, yes.  It could also be done in CGI, or Javascript.  But if you want to try to create something like this to learn PHP...go for it.  I doubt there are any tutorials specifically on creating RPGs with PHP--that's kind of a specialized subject--but there might be.  If you want to find out, though, you really don't need to bring it up here...just do a Google search; you can do that as well as anyone else on the forums can.  I just tried a quick search and couldn't find anything (the closest I could find was a page where someone said he would write such a tutorial, but apparently he hasn't done so yet), but another combination of search terms may yield better results.  I don't have time to search more thoroughly, but like I said you can do the search yourself just as well.

However, if you really want to learn PHP with a project like this...the best thing to do might be to just dig in and try making the game.  But...I strongly recommend you start small!  Don't try putting in everything at once!  Maybe, for example, you could start with the character info screen, just getting a character's attributes to display correctly.  Then maybe a very simple fight screen, only with just one enemy and just one attack option, just to make sure it's working.  Once you get each small component working, go ahead and add in another tiny bit at a time, gradually building up.  Take it a piece at a time like this, and you shouldn't be overwhelmed, and even if you start with something very simple, boring, and unimpressive, if you keep at it as you learn more you could end up eventually with a very involved game.  But do start simple--if you try to create all the components of a full game like the one you showed screenshots of right off the bat, you're almost certain never to finish!

Anyway, I'm sorry I can't be of more help, but honestly I don't know what more there is to be said.  Just dive in and try it out, a little bit at a time, and see what happens.  And once again, good luck.

[Squinky]

This may be simpler than you wanted, or entirely different, but you might check this out:

ORE engine site:
http://www.baronsoft.com/ORE/tabid/52/Default.aspx

I messed with it and i seemed like ags, just with online roleplaying in mind....