I've been interested in MMO development for some time. I thought it would be good to point out some of the best resources for the potential MMO developer.

So it has been a good week for me. I've been working on the rendering system for about 6 weeks. That's a lot of time to go with nothing to really show. Usually programmers should be able to finish a reasonably sized feature in a week or two at the most. I have been writing unit tests and those I got running successfully to get a little shot of success from time to time (more on those another time), but mostly I have been looking at a giant inert pile of code.

Until Tuesday.

This is the story of a lone developer's quest to build an online world.

The last few years I've been working at Electronic Arts as the lead software engineer for Wii and PSP online client development. I worked on a lot of franchises - Madden, FIFA, NBA, Need for Speed, Grand Slam Tennis and Tiger Woods Golf, but my absolute favourite two games were Medal of Honor Heroes and Medal of Honor Heroes 2.

These games brought 32 player multiplayer to Wii and PSP. For me, it wasn't particularly the genre I liked, it was building the technology to get all those people playing together. Those games were an amazing learning experience. EA Canada was a cool place to work and I can't say enough nice things about the people there. That said, I wasn't able to pursue a project I've long thought about - making a small MMO.

I'll state up front, I realize how ambitious a project an MMO is. Even a small MMO is huge, I get that. But I still want to try. Chances are at the end of my time on the project, there will be nothing resembling a game. I think the value here will be what is learned along the way.

The goal is a game running on Windows and Mac.

Linux is unlikely. Source availability is unlikely. There are a myriad reasons for these decisons. Please don't bug me about them.

Initially I'll be posting infrequently. Mainly because I have a design to flesh out and a game engine to write. :)

I'm also going to remain deliberately vague about the game I'm building for a while.

Thanks for dropping by. Feel free to post here or in the forums if you have questions or comments. I hope you'll come by again.