When you deploy an online game, you will need a server that will process all the world changes, and will provide each client (player) with the static world. When your game program is sloppy, even if there are few people logged in the server there would be lag. There are providers with dedicated servers, they charge around $200 Dlls a month plus a setup fee. For launching a commercial game, it might take hundreds of servers to maintain an even player/server distribution. Imagine the entire 9 million WoW players jam-packed into 10 servers.

Quests

Content sometimes is a reason for debate between players, but nevertheless is a vital part of the role playing experience of your players. Think about what would happen if you made 90% if your quests in the form “Kill X number of Y type of mob and then come claim your reward”, this is where your creative member of the team, or your own creativity plays an important part.

Economy

Trust me, even writing the title of this section made me yawn. Even if you are not a merchant type of player, you will have to deal with the economy balance. I’m certainly not going to going into economy design details, but you have to keep this in mind. That’s why in some games it’s nearly impossible to make decent money to buy your equipment. Bad economy design can lead to player frustration and to bad publicity.

The Iceberg-Sized problem with economy is that you cannot just all the sudden raise or lower monster drops or NPC prices, because it would turn into a pandemonium.

Promotion

After months of extensive development, you will have to start putting the word out about your game. Take into consideration that if you announce your game to early you will make your potential customers wait for an unbearable amount of time before they can get the first screenshots.

Timing plays an important role in your development, because any delay after you have announced a release dead line will come back and haunt you. In advertising you will have to consider your target audience, it is common sense to assume that you will not be promoting your game in a knitting website. You would use gaming portals such as mmosite.com that is recognized and increasing in popularity.

Maintenance

Assuming you have overcome the burdens and finally commercially published your game, you are going to spend quite a bit of your earnings in maintaining your servers. And bad news, your players have found dozens of bugs that need to be patched, so you have to put your coder shirt on again and tackle those problems.

Some of your duties:

Banning Exploiters

Moderating the Game Forums

Interviewing Game Masters/Moderators

Doing weekly server maintenance

Scripting patches for the game

Did I mention you have a life outside that you need to take care of? Sorry, my bad. Seems like the basement of your home where you were planning to use as your development head quarters is not going to be big enough for your staff.

Conclusion

This article is a mere synthesized version of a process that takes months and even years; but hopefully it would help you understand the inner workings of online games better. Making games is a full working enterprise; it needs more than just an enthusiastic team that likes games.

Jargon:

Client- Each game copy that a player has installed on their computer is called a client, or a “game client”.

Economy - the system of human activities related to the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and services of a country or other area.

Lag – A delay, when you play a game and the animations go almost frame by frame. When your game is not synchronizing properly.

Mob- A monster, a group of monsters.

WoW- World of Warcraft game.

Sources:

http://www.devmaster.net/articles/building-mmorpg/