PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE

The first thing to determine is: what exactly are you looking to create? An MMORPG? An online shooter? If I know more about your goal I might be able to point you in the right direction.

Your best bet is to start simple. Very simple! Start by trying to make a small "interactive chat room" as I like to call it. Don't go into using 3D Graphics right away. Just try to get a basic Client/Server system working with 2D characters that move around in a room and can exchange messages.

Once you have that down, then start improving where you see fit. If you really want it to be in 3D, well since you already have basics done, start going in that direction and try to make your 2D interactive chat room into a 3D interactive chat room. Keep adding small features one at a time until you start to have something that feels more like a game.

To ensure you keep working on it, try to make each iteration it's own project and actually release them. That way you release something and start getting feedback early on. Early versions of your project can also help with recruiting people to help you.

As far as programming languages are concerned, I would say to stick with C++. You could also use Java, but C++ might be easier for when you decide to go 3D.

The biggest issue you will have to deal with early on is security. How do you prevent players from hacking, cheating and so forth?

It's not too hard to learn to program a game. You just have to not become overambitious. Like I said in my previous post, you'll want to start simple.

You'll probably want to forget about making an MMORPG for now. I'm not saying it's impossible, but you have to start by getting the basics of a game down. You want to make the MMORPG the ultimate goal, and work on smaller projects on your way there.

I had suggested to start by making an interactive chat room, but you can start even more simple than that. Make a small game where you control one character and you have to go around and attack enemies. Once all enemies are dead, the game is done. It's simple, but getting that done from scratch can take a while.

Start by doing some beginner tutorials for C++. You could also look into Visual C++ to get started. The beginner tutorials will let you get familiar with the programming language and how different things work.

Once you know the basics, you'll want to look into a few things: Displaying an image and making it move when a keyboard button is pressed, making it move differently when a different keyboard button is pressed to attack, checking if the attack hit something, making enemies move around and attack the player.

You could very well do the same thing in any programming language at this point and it won't matter much. Once you figure out how to do all that in one program language, it's not too hard to redo it in another one. So I would say not to worry too much about which programming language is best to make an MMORPG in 3D. Just stick to something that's easy to use and that has good tutorials available.

Please understand that I write the following because I care about you as a fellow game maker. I have been down this road myself and I feel that I must warn you about this.

You need to start small. Don't think big. Think small.

Let's do a back-of-the-envelope calculation. All games that are on the scale of any 3D MMORPG you can think of are made by teams of at least a dozen people. In the case of big name games like World of Warcraft there are more than 100 people working full time on the game and its content.

Imagine it takes a group of professional game developers a year to make a game. This means that if you started off as skilled as a professional game developer, then it would take you at least 12 years to make something that a team of a dozen people could make in a year. In the case of WoW, it would literally take you more than one hundred years, working alone.

Boot up your favourite game, one that you aspire to make, and look at the credits. How many programmers are listed? You can be sure that those programmers worked for at least a year on that game. That means that if there are 20 programmers listed, it would take you 20 years to program your favourite game on your own. Just the programming. That is leaving aside the fact that a whole different team was working on graphics, on audio, on level design, on writing, and so on. It is not an exaggeration to say that most big commercial games that exist today cannot be made by a single person even if they devote their lifetime to this one goal.

It's important that you understand this; please do not see me merely as a killjoy: it is not possible for anyone to make a 3D MMORPG on their own. I can't do it, you can't do it, a game programmer with 30 years of experience couldn't do it. You are going to realise this sooner or later.

There are only three ways that an individual person can make a game. The first is to pick something restricted in scope. Make an original 2D game that has an hour of gameplay. You may be surprised at just how long this takes. We are probably talking about weeks or months of work. Most of the games that have deeply affected me have been those that the game designer made small, but put their heart and soul into.

The second is to use an established game engine. Doing this is nothing to be ashamed of. This is the trap that I fell into again and again for more than 5 years. I considered it 'cheating' to use someone else's game engine. I thought, "I can just program my own engine from scratch! How hard can it be?". The answer to my question was: very, very, hard. The unpleasant truth is, any engine made by one person, especially one who hasn't had a lot of practice, is going to be really buggy and limited in functionality. Use an established engine. If you want to make an RPG, try using RPG Maker. You will be amazed at how long it takes to make a full length game even using RPG Maker. If it takes you a year to make a game when you already have RPG Maker and all the resources it provides, how long is it going to take you if you plan to do it all yourself from scratch?

The third option is to join or create a team. This can be a lot of fun, and the team is going to have much more collective time and motivation at its disposal.

Ask yourself, what is it you really want to do? Do you want to battle with the ins and outs of low level programming code, or is your passion really just to make games? In my experience, setting aside my pride and diving in to just use everything at my disposal make games has really increased my level of enjoyment in game making.

Pick a small project to start with. Please. The programming language does not matter.

Hm... I know a Game Maker which is made for MMORPGS, but is 2D.
It's called Eclipse, here :
http://www.touchofdeathforums.com/eclipse/

Hope this helps you kickstart your dream!