Hi, I'm planning to create my own web-based RPG game.

[Henriksson]

Me and my brother have decided to make our own web-based RPG game. We're hoping to make something like The West and/or Travian. We don't have any experience at all on how to make websites or games. Do you guys have any ideas on how to make this? Just throwing out there.

[greyorm]

Hello, Henriksson, and welcome to the Forge. That's a very broad question, especially given you are starting from complete scratch. Note that we generally deal with the creation and production of pen-and-paper (aka: tabletop) games played in-person with friends, pencils, dice and so forth, not on-line games, so you likely won't find much help here with coding a web-based or computer-based game. But if you're looking for help with creating a coherent set of rules for an RPG or story-game, whatever you eventually do with that, you've come to the right place.

For the rest, you might try searching Google for information or a more appropriate forum as well as basic web design. Borders or a local bookstore should also prove valuable in helping to get you up-to-speed on web programming and design, or there may be web-design classes in your area you can take.

Why not tell us more about your game and what you have in mind for it, and what problems you are currently facing in designing the rules?

[Vulpinoid]

That's a hell of a task to tackle if you don't haven't any idea where to start.

Beyond the theme, graphics and user interface, there are a whole lot of things you'll need to consider.

Pen-n-Paper games allow players to gather in a group to share their experiences through a series of fictional scenarios, but web games operate differently. Most of the posts on this site are related to trhe Pen-n-Paper version of roleplaying, but occasionally something will come up that could be useful to a web RPG.

You really need to consider the user experience you want to develop  from the web RPG, I've played a couple of them and there are certain some that are far superior to others. Beyond the initial gimmick, you need to consider elements that will bring players back for more. The games you've highlighted are obviously fit into the resource gathering, and empire building categories...every day a player will log on, whilst online they'll perform two types of actions [the first action gathers the resources necessary to trade/build/improve, the second action uses those resources to improve the user experience in some way]. In a Pen-n-Paper game, the results of these actions can be written on a piece of paper, or tracked with tokens, but the first thing you'll need to work out with a web RPG is how these things are handled by a database.

Beyond these basic actions [which can get very boring very quickly], you'll need to consider the social aspects of the game. Does you're game used noticeboards and forums to allow communication between characters? Are the characters able to enter "live chat" areas, which could be represented in the game as "taverns", "inns" or "meeting halls"? Are the characters able to spend some of their daily allocation of actions to send private messages to one another? Each of these communications options requires a different set of programs to be integrated into the site.

Also consider things like whether characters can directly attack on another, or if they are merely competing through resources. If the characters are merely competing to get the biggest pile of gold, then you'll need some kind of tracking system that monitors the available resources, and displays this to users on demand. If the players are directly attacking one another through the objects and features they buy, then you'll need to consider how the mechanics of combat work, what benefits will be provided to the victor and what penalties will be inflicted on the loser. Are kills tracked? Is it possible to see the highest kill count for a given day? Is it possible to see an all time leaderboard of kill counts?

[The same questions can be asked of trade...Do you want players to see who has done the most trading today? Do you want an all time trade leaderboard?]

Do you want the players to move around some kind of map? If you do, then you'll need another database table to determine where players are located and what they can do in each location. Is the movement abstract, where locations are merely defined by a location name? Or is the movement based on a specific grid, where players have to spend their action points moving from square to square? I've seen both of these systems used effectively in web rpgs. Either way requires different methods for tracking character movement.

Do you want to make any money from this game? There are a few games that offer a premium range of features to players who make a one-off donation, while other games provide certain advantages to players who pay a regular monthly membership fee. How much so you want players to pay? What advantages are you going to give them in exchange for this payment? Extra actions each day? Less fees/taxes when they trade? Non-paying players get a single character accountlinked to their IP address, while paying players get access to multiple character accounts? Whatever benefits are gained from a paid membership, you need to find a way to reflect this in the database as well.  

[In case you hadn't noticed the pattern, a game like this is almost always driven by a very elaborate database, with numerous tables covering all the different aspects of the play experience].

I'll leave it there for the moment, but you can also consider thigs like character avatars and factions, and this isn't even touching concepts like magic in the game, effects of certain equipment/weapons, or more electronic things like database security to stop smart-asses from simply walking in, tweaking there character files and causing havoc on the establishged players.  

What do you think your game will focus on that other games on the web aren't already doing?

There are some great games already out there, and each of them provides a different range of features. You'll really need to come up with something cool to stand out from the crowd, and it will really take something special to get people to part with their money on you game rather than spending money on someone else's.

I'm not trying to dishearten you, I'm just telling you that there is a lot of work involved.

Get to know SQL and PHP as programming languages (since most games of this nature are driven this way), have a look at some of the forums dedicated to these languages and you'll probably find some fragmwnts of code that can be used to piece together the game you're considering. I know that I've been toying with the idea of a web rpg on and off for the last year or so, and I've found a couple of partially completed websites that will provide a basic web game (all they need are some decent graphics added, some better descriptions and a bit of additional tweaking).

Good luck.

V

[Henriksson]

Thank you for your replies, they have been really helpful.