Create Your Own Online Role Playing Game

Have you ever played an online role playing game, and thought, "I could make this even better!" Have you ever played World of Warcraft, Everquest, or Star Wars Galaxies, and wanted to try to make your own Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG)?

I used to play many small MMORPGs, like Tibia and Shadow Worlds, and always thought it would be wonderful to make my own MMOPRG, and let players explore the lands I created. On the vast internet, I eventually heard of a program called "Player Worlds" and I ventured over to its website. I found that Player Worlds (aka PW) was a free program that one could use to make a 2D, simple online role playing game. The download included everything needed to start out, including sample sprites, tiles, and a server utility. I dove head first into this new find, and started posting on the forums, and working on my own game ideas. I was into pixel art at the time (pixel art is 2D art used in many older games) and many other people on the forums were looking for an artist to help with their projects. I worked with several projects, and helped co-develop one of the most ambitious PW projects to date. It featured its own 100% unique graphic set, storyline, and setup, and was later sold to a larger group.

Player Worlds basically allows the user to use their own 2D grapics of their choice, and place them on maps. Creators can then design maps with different 'zones', or areas where different types of fighting can take place, or where warps/doors are to other maps. PW allows you to customize what classes/races your players can play as, and what items they get, etc. It's all run in a fairly simple scripting environment, and is very easy to use. This simplicity may turn some people off, as may the 2D levels, but if you are willing to work at it, you can get a fairly decent little game created. Another problem due to the simplicity is that there are a few 'script kiddies' and 'haxors' that may attempt to ruin your project, and PW games have been hit rather hard in the past by these types of low lives, but it comes with the territory. Hopefully, future versions of PW will be more secure from attacks like those.

One of the biggest complaints that people have had with PW is how alot of the creators of games using PW have used ripped tiles/sprites/items from other popular games. This is an unfortunate side-effect, but it shouldn't be the reason to turn away from this game creation system. It's entirely possible (and easy!) to create your own graphics, and import them into the tilesets, and use them, instead of ripping them. It does take more time, but in the end you'll have a very nice-looking , and unique, game to show for your efforts.

Interested in making your own Player Worlds MMORPG? Why not get started now? Check out Player Worlds at http://playerworlds.org