Bryce Dixon

What is involved in "networking" when making an MMO?

All games (and programs, for that matter) can be broken up into various systems that work together to create a cohesive experience. Those systems are usually fairly comprehensive and for many projects can even be totally owned by a single person. Some examples of systems and their responsibilities in a game include: Physics: simulating intertial movement and detecting and resolving various collisions.

So, what is a "shard" server?

The term "shard" originally comes from Ultima Online. A more generic term would be "channel," but I tend to stick with "shard" since it's been adopted by many existing MMOs and holds some MMO-specific connotations. In short, each "shard" is an identical copy of the game server software running simultaneously in a server hardware cluster.

First: Should you make an MMO?

There are two potential answers to this question: If your goal is to make money (or otherwise compete with existing titles): no. Most people will tell you you shouldn't make an MMO for one simple reason: there's no way you can stand up to existing competition in the market.

What will this series cover?

In a word: everything. At least on the technical side - MMO gameplay design is a whole field of study which I don't yet feel confident enough to tackle. This does mean the series will be ongoing for quite a while, but I want to be sure everything is covered in detail.

When will you cover _____?

Not the answer you want to hear, but I'm not sure. It took me about 140 hours of development on my own project to get to a point where players can log into the game and chat - and that's without anything to *actually* do, so there's a lot to talk about.