Classic, yet still funny...
Anvilbeard's guide to creating a MMORPG
Step Zero: You
Before you begin, ask yourselves these questions and write the answers on an A4 sheet of paper:
* What is my name?
* Am I underpaid?
* Do I like games?
* What is my partner's phone number?
Next, take the sheet of paper, and burn it. The answers are irrelevant.
Step One: Concept
This step involves choosing a theme for your MMORPG.
Here's a fun questionnaire to help you decide:
1. I like:
a) Food
b) Women
c) Computers
2. I don't like:
a) You
b) Me
c) Old People
3. My idea of fun is:
a) Sports
b) Sex
c) Watching Television
If you answered mostly As or Bs, don't read any more as you are too cool to create a MMORPG, go back to art school.
If you answered mostly Cs, your MMORPG's theme will be 'Fantasy'
Step Two: Design
There are tons of things to design and, knowing you, you won't have anyone to do your dirty work, yet. The important aspect of design is not creating anything new, just renaming or repainting old material. If you have no old material, improvise.
Every Fantasy MMORPG has a choice of 'races'. Contrary to popular belief, this is not racist, but 'fun'
Your choice of races will include:
* All the races you saw in the LOTR movies
* Giant animals with rude sounding names
* Cyborg Ninja Pirates
* Gnomes
Feel free to rename them at will. Creativity is not required. Norcs, Trelves, Umans and Smarves are good examples of what you are aiming for.
Each race must be able to choose from a range of 'classes'. Your class list must include: Warrior, Mage, Priest, Assassin, Paladin and Hunter. You can add more if you want. Here are some tips:
* Class should sound cooler than it is
* There should always be one overpowered class, and one underpowered class
* There should be no obvious differences between classes
* One class should be hated. Make them have to wear pink armor, or have funny names, to achieve this.
At first, you may think that there are a lot of items in a MMORPG, but you are wrong, again. You can design an item list using everyday objects. First, add everything in your fridge. That should cover Food and Drink, unless you're a student.
Next add all your clothing items to the list, then add them again, but add 'of the X' at the end of the name, with X being an animal. Rinse and repeat, duplicates are ok, and give the impression of more items. Then, copy and paste the entire list of clothing items, and add 'X's' before the name, with X being a class
Lastly, open your cutlery draw and add all the items in there to the list. Then add these(assuming you don't already have these on the list): Sword, Axe, Bow, Gun. Do the same as with the armor, adding 'of the X' and 'X's' where appropriate.
So, finally you have to design the areas your players will occupy. The beauty of a Fantasy game is that no names have to make sense. Thump the keyboard a few times and you have a name of a place. If you get the same name twice, think of it as good luck, and use it as a NPC's name instead. This also means that players can't cheat by using 'teamspeak', try saying this regularly:
"Okay guys, we have to escort Princess Ybuioij from the Nljklof dungeon to Castle Nblkjgejlk"
"I got a quest to drop off for Marshal Dfghgkj at the Lgfhkl Outpost first"
"Meet you at Klgfhlm"
Step Three: Production
Send your idea to a big gaming studio. If you're lucky they'll give you a pen with your game's name on it. Agh, talking about the name, you gotta name your product before anyone wants it.
Luckily there's an easy way to do this. Take an item from list one, and put it in front of an item from list two.
List One
Power
Ever
Land (of)
World (of)
Galactic
Dark
Light
The
Ultima
Age (of)
Never
Fun
List Two
Land
War
Pain
Strife
Boobies
Quest
Online
Evil
Fat
Death
Heroes
Vengeance
Fun
You'd be surprised how that works. If the name is taken by a competitor(Someone who read this before you) then add 'The' before it, and/or number after it.
Okay, now you've got your name, mail all your documents(Make no copies) to a gaming studio. Then sit and wait while they do all the work. Don't worry if no-one contacts you, that means they are working to hard on your plan to have a personal life(And if they did, they wouldn't waste it on you anway)
Step Four: Support
If the impossible happens and your game is produced, it's likely the gaming studio won't afford to produce more than one or two copies(One is for you, I lost the other, sorry) so you can easily handle support by doing the following:
* Buy a call centre in pakistan for 750 cents and accidentally lose the number
* Eliminate in-game support and 'reward' players with Game Master abilities
* Make sure your support website is under maintenance 23 hours a day
* Make sure your support website's script is complicated enough to take two hours to process a request
Step Six: Learning to Count, or Updates
It is very likely that by the time your game is released, it will be out of date. Also, the gaming studio may have tested the game to perfection. To fix these two problems, you must release regular updates.
Updating, otherwise known as patching, can be implemented easily. For patch 1.1, follow these steps:
1) Shut down the game for 6 hours
2) Start up the games programming in 'word' and delete random fragments of code
3) Upload the new data
4) Force users to download 300mb of empty data to be able to play again
5) 'Forget' to reactivate the game.... for a day
The following patches can be done in roughly the same way. Instead, on step two, do this:
2) Fix missing fragments of code by cutting code from other parts of the programming and putting them in the holes.
This process ensures that you are doing something every so often, and that there are always new bugs to fix in the next patch! Unfortunately, it's a double edged knife. You will have to work. I recommend training some Monkeys to do it for you.
Step 7: Escape Strategy
There will come a time when your clients hate you so much, they pretend to be monkeys just to get close enough to attempt assassination. After the fourth look-alike's corpse is dragged out of the office, you may be starting to rethink your career choice.
But, you have a choice!
* Hire a security team of monkeys with banana guns AKA The 'big spender' option
* Fake your own death AKA The 'smart man' option
* Eject! AKA The 'weasel' option
Naturally, you will choose the third option, because the first two were too long and you didn't bother to read them.
I'm going to overestimate your intelligence for the sake of my bleeding fingers.
To Eject you will need to do the following:
* Hire a 'Community' monkey
* Secretly announce mergers and budget cuts on April Fools day, to trick morons into investing in your game
* Use the money to build a Jet
* Once your clients hate the Community Monkey more than you, announce that it is now the owner
* Escape to Cuba on your Jet
* Fall to your death, seconds after realizing you shouldn't have spent the money on coffee
Step 10: End Game
Personally, I think a guide with 10 steps seems a little more 'Value for Time', so this is step 10. Also, I know all you lazy people will just skip to the last step anyway.
It contains religious phrases, so please look away if you are a satanist, or you refuse to acknowledge you 'exist'
Okay, now you are in Limbo. How do I know this? Well, by creating a MMORPG you have instantly been disowned by both God and the Devil. So you are stuck on Earth. Therefore you are invincible. Anyone who wants to argue with my logic, please contact my trained Community Monkey, Thundgot.
In Conclusion
For the 99% who think that that was too long, and didn't read. Here is a handy conclusion section just for you!
* Creating a MMORPG is easy
* Playing a MMORPG is hard
* Follow this guide to be Invincible
* Monkeys FTW
* Anvilbeard rocks
* Cookies are tasty
Sat 8 Nov 2008 - 5:58 
