As with any substantive undertaking, such as surviving a zombie apocalypse or asking Jennie out to the prom, being the visionary behind a successful indie MMO is a difficult but rewarding journey. It is, therefor, important to adhere to the following rules which practically guarantee success.
Let me preface this by saying that the following rules are for visionaries with great ideas only. All you other f**kers, get the hell out. If you don't know if you are such a visionary, ask yourself the following question:
Do I possess a skill or talent such that a reasonable business will pay me more than $15 an hour to be on staff?
If you answered 'YES,' YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE.
Ok, now that I've lost all the dumb f**ks who can program, animate, draw, model and compose, we can get to the first rule.
1) You're the visionary, you have a great idea, you don't need anything else. Don't even bother trying to learn things like programming or animation. They're mostly a waste of time. And you can't be wasting time. You need to put your game design document (GDD) together.
2) You need a GDD. It proves you're serious. Spend no more than two hours a day for no more than two weeks to produce this document.
3) Never, under any circumstance, show your GDD to the public. You're the idea man and putting out your GDD for public view would be like a modeler giving away his model for free. People are just going to steal your great idea or say hurtful things about why your awesome idea might not pan out.
4) Create a good company and MMO name. Recruiting for Joe Schmoe's Awesome MMORPG is going to be a lot more difficult than Excelsior Games' Islandia: The Re-Islanding. Most non-visionaries (which I may also refer to as dumb f**ks or DFs), though talented, are simple folk and easily impressed.
5) Make recruitment posts. Make them often, and bump them even more. Since you'll be making alot of these posts, don't bother putting much detail into them. Short and concise. DFs won't really understand your great idea anyway, so don't bother showing the GDD either.
6) AAA MMORPGs are made by a legion of DFs, all toiling away in their cubicle. You're an indie though, so you'll have to make do with less. Recruit atleast 10 programmers, 20 modelers, 5 animators, 2 web programmers and 10 texture artists. This will be enough. For now.
7) When it comes to recruiting, don't recruit anyone under 14. You don't need to deal with the immaturity. Require atleast an age of 16.
8) You probably don't have much money right now, but in the future, your MMO is going to be worth more than Jesus, so allude to some kind of a profit-sharing scheme in your post. You don't need to write out the specifics right now; its not like there are legal ramifications for entering into contracts like these.
9) Buy a domain name and install wordpress on it! This is important. Remember that DFs are very easily impressed. And who would spend $8 on a domain name and wordpress if they weren't dedicated to the project?
10) Respond to any criticism you may face by insisting that you are absolutely dedicated to the project. Dedication basically trumps everything else anyway. Remember that quote about a thousand monkies and a thousand typewriters producing Shakespeare? The same applies to MMOs.
11) At times, you may get too specific about your game (shouldn't have violated rule #3!!) and someone may comment that your idea isn't really technically feasable. Who does your detractor think he is? Some kind of networking engineer who has done this sort of stuff before?? This is the modern age on the INTERNET where ANYTHING is possible. Your opinion is worth as much as his facts.
12) Recruit some like minded visionaries onto your project. Give them improtant titles like 'Executive Producer' or 'Lead Developer.' When the CEO and Lead Developer of Excelsior Entertainment both respond to some scrub on the internet, you can be rest assured that the world will know.
13) Post some screenshots of the terrain and water plane you created last night. Yes, it took three whole hours, but it will really impress the DFs and prove you are serious. If you think your untextured terrain or blocky models aren't good enough, preface it by saying that they are placeholders. Thats why you need the DFs in the first place, right!!?
14) Change your vocabulary from 'I' to 'we,' as in 'we at Excelsior Entertainment.' This lends everything you say a certain amount of gravitas. Peopl-- I mean DFs respect that.
15) Sometimes, people may claim that it is impossible for you to have a great idea or manage a team without atleast some experience doing DF things. This is pure crap. The lead developers at id, Blizzard, EA and Bethesda never did any of that, ever. They let their great ideas do the talking.
Ok, with those 15 basic rules, you should be able to create an awesome MMORPG. Post here about your successes so more people follow my rules!!
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Originally Posted by WinningGuy
