Development

In general, the cost of developing a competitive commercial MMORPG title often exceeds ten million dollars. These projects require multiple disciplines within game design and development: 3D modeling, 2D art, animation, user interfaces, client/server engineering, database architecture and network infrastructure.
The front-end (or client) component of a commercial, modern MMORPG features 3D graphics. As with other modern 3D games, the front-end requires expertise with implementing 3D engines, real-time shader techniques and physics simulation. The actual visual content (areas, creatures, characters, weapons, spaceships and so forth) is developed by artists who typically begin with two-dimensional concept art, and later convert these concepts into animated 3D scenes, models and texture maps.
Developing an MMOG server requires expertise with client/server architecture, network protocols, security and relational database design. MMORPGs include reliable systems for a number of vital tasks. The server must be able to handle and verify a large number of connections; prevent cheating; and apply changes (bug fixes or added content) to the game. A system for recording the game's data at regular intervals, without stopping the game, is also important.
Maintenance requires sufficient servers and bandwidth, and a dedicated support staff. Insufficient resources for maintenance lead to lag and frustration for the players, and can severely damage the reputation of a game, especially at launch. Care must also be taken to ensure that player population remains at an acceptable level by adding or removing servers ("shards"). Peer-to-peer MMORPGs could theoretically work cheaply and efficiently in regulating server load, but practical issues such as asymmetrical network bandwidth and CPU-hungry rendering engines make them a difficult proposition. Additionally, they would probably become vulnerable to other problems including new possibilities for cheating. The hosted infrastructure for a commercial-grade MMORPG requires the deployment of hundreds (or even thousands) of servers. Developing an affordable infrastructure for an online game requires developers to scale to large numbers of players with less hardware and network investment.
In addition, the team will need to have expertise with the fundamentals of game design: world-building, lore and game mechanics, as well as what makes games fun.


Trends as of 2007


As there are a number of wildly different titles within the genre, and since the genre develops so rapidly, it is difficult to definitively state that the genre is heading in one direction or another. Still, there are a few obvious developments. One of these developments is the raid group quest, or "raid", which is an adventure designed for large groups of players (often twenty or more).
Another is the use of instance dungeons. These are game areas that are "copied" for individual groups, which keeps that group separated from the rest of the game world. This reduces competition, and also has the effect of reducing the amount of data that needs to be sent to and from the server, which reduces lag. World of Warcraft's "raids", mentioned above, are often instance dungeons, as are all of the combat areas in Guild Wars.
Increased amounts of "Player-created content" may be another trend. From the beginning the Ultima Online world included blank 30-page books that players could write in, collect into personal libraries and trade; in later years players have been able to design and build houses from the ground up. Some non-combat-based MMORPGs rely heavily on player-created content, including everything from simple animations to complete buildings using player-created textures and architecture like A Tale in the Desert. However, these games are very different from the far more popular "standard" MMORPGs revolving around combat and limited character trade skills. Player-created content in these games would be in the form of areas to explore, monsters to kill, quests to carry out and specific in-game items to obtain. The Saga of Ryzom was the first of these "standard" MMORPGs to offer players the ability to create this type of content. Again, whether or not this becomes mainstream is anyone's guess.
The use of licenses, common in other video game genres, has also appeared in MMORPGs. 2007 saw the release of The Lord of the Rings Online, based on J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. Other licensed MMORPGs include The Matrix Online, based on the Matrix trilogy of films, Warhammer Online, based on Games Workshops tabletopgame and Star Wars Galaxies. Additionally, several licenses from television have been optioned for MMORPGs, for example Stargate Worlds, which is currently in development. The process is also apparently being applied in reverse, with James Cameron designing a MMORPG that will precede a film (Project 880) to which it is tied.
The introduction of free trials, making titles into shareware, has also become more common, as developers expect that players will become "hooked" by their worlds and begin to pay for them. World of Warcraft, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar and EVE Online have all incorporated short free-play periods with the creation of game accounts, while others, like Anarchy Online, RuneScape, Rappelz, and Shadow of Legend have unlimited free-to-play periods, though with caveats; these titles may display in-game advertisements to non-paying customers, or restrict some content.
Another trend that has shown great presence in MMORPGs is "player-driven" gameplay. Player-driven gameplay relies on the players themselves for events and wars, instead of having these things come from non-player characters (NPCs). Although all MMORPGs try to maximize player interactions, as it provides immersion, some take the concept to an extreme. One example is Shadowbane, which provides neither quests nor dungeons, and instead has players enlisting each other to control land, properties, provinces, and nations.


Non-corporate development


Though the vast majority of MMORPGs are produced by companies, many small teams of programmers and artists have attempted to contribute to the genre. As shown above, the average MMORPG development project requires enormous investments of time and money, and running the game can be a long-term commitment. As a result, non-corporate (or independent, or "indie") development of MMORPGs is less common compared with other genres. Still, many independent MMORPGs do exist, representing a wide spectrum of genres, gameplay types, and revenue systems.
Some independent MMORPG projects are completely open source,while others like PlaneShift feature proprietary content made with an open-source game engine. The developers of Endless Online have also released development information with details about their coding.
The WorldForge project has been active since 1998 and formed a community of independent developers who are working on creating framework for a number of open-source MMORPGs. The Multiverse Network is also creating a network and platform specifically for independent MMOG developers.