   wow
  ok so here is a question.how simple is it to create an incredibly small version of wow?im not talking a city or a village but maybe a character and a monster in a room.wow is a huge game and i would quite like to create a similar sort of game even if it takes me years.i am gonna have alot of spare time on my hands very soon. about 2 months of doing nothing everyday and i am preparing to learn the c++ language (already decided so now posts saying NO! bad bad learn c# easier)anyways i have a grasp of blender for importing 3d models to the game and am getting to know the c++ language already.i dont want you all to post saying - whoa slow down there wow is out of your league - i just want you to tell me what sort of level of programmer you need to be to create a 3d - room monster and character and create a panel which decides the manner of attacking options. and anyways i am going to be starting off very small with 2d games and stuff like that. but it intrigues me to know how hard it is to create such a game.i have a dream that i will build a very simplistic morpg host it myself (if possible) and allow players to play for free(if they feel my game is a quark above the boring level anyways) and then implement new features every week/month and basically expand on everything while getting to grips with the programming language anyways please tell me :D   
  Well, if you have a good book on game programming that targets 3d game basics it shouldn't be too hard.However, the things you are talking about are only half the battle!The other half is network code which you haven't mentioned at all in your plan of attack.It's a big deal, and i think will take you just as long to do the networking code and server as it will the client graphics and gameplay code.2 months will go fast but good on you for trying, i hope you at least learn a lot (:"and allow players to play for free"Who is going to pay for your bandwidth if your game gets too big?? :P   ;  I personally would choose multiverse platform, but since it's coded in Java+Python, it's not an option for you. Of course, I would start with not a room, but world, fully functional and tested client and server, loads of models, community support and more.But you have already made up your mind on language, tools, time-frame and general approach, so I cannot really add anything.Just something to think about: Multiverse takes about 30 minutes to set up (download, server and client install, toolchain), then you can start adding content, while your players are already playing what you have. 30 minutes. What you get out of box is basically WoW functionality, but no real content.   ;  i would have a website i could host the game on so hopefully advertisement on the site would cover this.and to be honest i would only implement networking once i had a good enough grasp of 3d programming and stuff like that.i mean if my game was like a monster a character and a room then would there be a point of networking. but if i started to really expand on it then i would proceed to try my hand at networking :D   ;  i have looked into things like that but i would much rather program everything from the ground up.   ;  Oh cool!Well if you aren't hard set on networking then it sounds like a good, fun project (:   ;  Let's say you do just the programming - no art, models, sounds, music, or any other assets, no QA or testing, no tech support, no level design, no quest design, no server hosting, just the core engine with account for scaling. Now let's do some napkin math. WoW took about five years to develop. Programming efforts were probably not distributed evenly in that time, so let's just say four years. Looking over the credits of WoW, I see that 27 programmers were involved in the production. So as a very rough estimate, if you were as skilled as each of them individually in their areas of competence, you would need 108 years working full-time just to replicate the WoW engine.It gets a bit easier for the expansions: You will only need around 29 years to program Burning Crusade, and 24 years for Wrath of the Lich King, assuming that each took about a year to develop and that the people listed as programmers were actually working on the expansion full-time (which might not have been the case).   ;  thanks :D   ;  i dont want a replica of the wow engine i want a very simple man vs monster engine to which i can implement new features like levels ( congratz you reached lvl 2 you get 20 more health and magic points or whatever) and then implement small upgrades like a new room or maybe a small village   ;  You don't need many skills for that at all (be prepared to read and think a lot, especially about networking and architecture), the real problem is making it scale so that more than 50 (or 5000) people can play. That's why "M" is for "massive" :D Doing a smallish persistent multiplayer 3D game with the development power of two people (one programmer, one graphics guy) is very much possible. Eternal Lands started out with only one guy I think, and the team behind Wurm Online is also very small.I also think you can save yourself a world of pain by not doing your project in C++, but if your mind is already made up... good luck!   