MMORPG Engine For Everyone

Amateur developers who would so much like to design their own MMORPG, yet are short on staff, millions of dollars and whatever else is needed to do that, may have a nice opportunity to still fulfill their dream, thanks to Kaneva. Indeed, this Atlanta company seeks to develop a game engine that could be used to create various kinds of MMOGs, from the RPG to the FPS kind - all of this for free.

The engine supports the latest in 3D graphics technology, as well as the import of 3dsMax art assets for every kind of customization one would like to add to characters and NPCs. Other aspects of the game can also be customized by the more technical-savvy ones. As a demo of what the engine is able of, Kaneva.com has put online the beta version of a MMOFPS called A Gorilla Paintball Game, which looks functional and decent-looking enough to show that there may be a real future for this kind of development.

Free? Too good to be true? What’s sure is that they won’t work for nothing. While Kaneva will host content on their own server and retain non-exclusive rights to it, they’ll also hold the business end of the deal, and split the prices fifty/fifty with the developers. This could be a good middle ground between developers who couldn’t give life to their dream anyway without an appropriate opportunity, and the company who would cover its costs without involving full teams in the making of one game. Time will likely tell if this can work or not, along with the fact that user votes may or may not be a good choice when it comes to separate the grain from the chaff.

More can be read in this article at MMORPG.com.