I was wondering if this was possible

[Ultima_Rino]

I was wanting to have some program install and run a mccodes game was wondering if I could install something on a flash drive that could "run" the game as if it was a server and have the cpanel look/feel so I could code it in before I launch a game with everything I want to change edited exactly how I want. I used to have another account but I lost the e-mail and password for the account so I am just trying to start this project up right by having it offline so I don't feel pressured. I intend on customizing my engine to an extreme so I'm thinking it is a long term project that I don't want in the public for a random surfer to view an incomplete mess. I'm thinking my project will take several months to get set it up and I rather not have to close the register until I'm ready and the game is balanced. I am planning on making it a very long term game with a fast paced alternative (buying a new license with for the other) with a similar feel, so obviously I am going to take my time and get it right.

Nutshell: I want to simulate having a server running to test a game as I code it and have something that can run it as if it was being hosted.

[Enigma]

Yes its possible

Download XAMP here and change the install directory to point to your ' Flash Drive' ( Make sure that you don't make Apache or MySQL run as a service. When done just run it and get all your files ready and database set-up. When finished you'll be able to remove the Flash drive. When you insert the flash drive into another computer, browse to the directory where you installed xampp and run the .bat files for Apache and MySQL then start developing ;)

Sorry for lame explanation I'm in a hurry :)

[Ultima_Rino]

Thanks for the quick reply I wasn't sure if it would work. I read some of the other posts in the forum and thought it would but I didn't want to download it and find out it in fact didn't. But thanks for pointing me in the right direction. My project will, if it is even half as successful as I believe will allow me to drop out of college, quit my day job, and do something I enjoy as a main source of income. Obviously I have lots to secure and relearn but at least that is part of why I want to take my time because I intend on spending like $1,000 in advertising and like $400 in customized mods that I don't know how exactly to code within the first month to try to get it popular very quickly with long term customers. Obviously the money figures I am imagining will more or less be wrong but I am positioning myself to launch it when I am ready to and believe it is secure being that the money isn't the issue it is just the coding and balancing will be really tough.

Edit: So where do I put the code at to make this all work? I have the files just not sure how to set it up exactly.

[a_bertrand]

Sorry to cool you down, but no way a simple McCode game with a budget of 1400$ will allow you to quit your job and college. Non sense. Specially seeing that you didn't even ever installed an Apache / MySQL so far.

I would strongly suggest you to make some trials, see how far you can go and don't dream too much ;)

[Djkanna]

Offtopic: but why would you want to drop out of College; Games don't make income forever you're still going to need some form of qualifications and a job. However this isn't you're school council so yeah :P

Good luck with your project ;)

[Ultima_Rino]

Actually the thing of it is I did have a site before when I was younger. I just never really got into it as I was doing it to learn some stuff back then and didn't care about the money and spent nothing on advertising and shut it down. I know how to code the php and sql it is just a matter of making it work on my laptop or my desktop instead of a server as I'd prefer to have it 'invisible' to public eye until it is done. The problem is I'm not experienced with these types of programs to do what I want and am used to doing it on a server and the initial set is is the part I am lost at. I'm not like some of the players expecting a quick but my model isn't just "spend a lot of advertising and expect it over night" I'm thinking get a concept going that people will actually like using the mccode engine. It is like saying you have several PhD's in psychology including abnormal, parental, etc but not for children but you understand it to some limit because you know what the parents need to know so you can make an educated guess. But anyways after it is initially set up and somewhat stable I plan on budgeting over 4,000 a month for the games operating expenses (not for the server mind you or paypal fees) and updates for several things. Of course what would you know since you don't know what I have in mind. Also that amount of cash is just the start up cash as I already have a legal mccode engine copy purchased under the e-mail I registered here. So I have $400 on custom modifications I can use and the $1,000 advertisement money. That is failing to mention that I am prepared to spend much more to set it up to my liking. If need be I could tap into over 6,000 in funds that I have set aside for 'emergency' funds. Naturally you don't know me, but I used to come on here as Godhand, just I don't have access to my account anymore and I don't have the e-mail account it was registered to anymore since it used to be criminal exhistance (ce) before you were even originally even here on the forum.

I just want to make sure I get this set up and then I'd know how to edit it after I know how to make the program load the code I want. If you want to think that I'm just another dime a dozen mccode coder you should actually post something useful instead of just saying it won't work since what if you are wrong. I could just spend a lot of time getting it to work and it be a big hit. You should never assume anything since you know what they say when you assume.

Edit:: If my concept works I will be moving to where the girl of my dreams works (as it stands she lives two and a half hours away) and that is too far for her to really want to make it work . And the thought is that the game will make enough for me to hire on people who will work on much bigger projects that have much bigger income. It is a stepping stone, get a stable source of income to live on, get a higher platform of game, sell or hire someone to manage the other one, rinse repeat. I know several things for working as a business entity as my job I manage a lot of my families business already and I just simply want to get away from my family's business since I think it is basically beneath me.

[Djkanna]

before you were even originally even here on the forum.

Guess that was directed at me because A_Bertrand has been here longer than your 'Godhand' account...

Just a quick thing neither one of us stated that we wanted to know why you were wanting to start a game in order to quit your job and drop out of college we merely stated that a game will not provide that much income.

Again good luck with your project.

Oh and you say "You know what they say when you assume" - I say: well you've done a lot of assuming in that post yourself..

Djkanna.

[a_bertrand]

It was more a word of warning than anything else. Also budget is nothing, 6000 or 60000 would be anyhow a VERY SMALL budget for a game. Game budgets are in mil $ those days...

My point is, I do run my own game since 5 years, with advert, with ALL CUSTOM nothing to do with McCode and all... and I can tell you it would not be enough to live just with the game. So don't expect too much, as web sites generally don't produce as much as you would expect. Even for big companies like Yahoo it's not easy to get enough money out of their websites... so guess out little things.

[Enigma]

It was more a word of warning than anything else. Also budget is nothing, 6000 or 60000 would be anyhow a VERY SMALL budget for a game. Game budgets are in mil $ those days...

My point is, I do run my own game since 5 years, with advert, with ALL CUSTOM nothing to do with McCode and all... and I can tell you it would not be enough to live just with the game. So don't expect too much, as web sites generally don't produce as much as you would expect. Even for big companies like Yahoo it's not easy to get enough money out of their websites... so guess out little things.

Hey, your funny and I would laugh at your stupidity IRL. No really

[Danny696]

Hey your the stupid one, alain, hes well respected, great coder, and whats so funny. He spoke the truth, or is it another 12 year old wanting to make million by owning a game -.-

[mj12]

Bertrand is right...to make the kind of money you're thinking about requires something totally new and not mccodes, you can only change it so much...if you add spoilers and paint to a toyota it's still a toyota.

[Djkanna]

It was more a word of warning than anything else. Also budget is nothing, 6000 or 60000 would be anyhow a VERY SMALL budget for a game. Game budgets are in mil $ those days...

My point is, I do run my own game since 5 years, with advert, with ALL CUSTOM nothing to do with McCode and all... and I can tell you it would not be enough to live just with the game. So don't expect too much, as web sites generally don't produce as much as you would expect. Even for big companies like Yahoo it's not easy to get enough money out of their websites... so guess out little things.

Hey, your funny and I would laugh at your stupidity IRL. No really

Care to elaborate?

[a_bertrand]

Well I'm certainly stupid if after 5 years of owning a game I'm still not Bill Gates. But well... this is my own experience. If you have something else, then please show me. Sure there is a few (but very few) out there success story. Look at Kingdom of Loathing, Runescape, Dragonfable (or any other from the same people), Travia or some others from bigpoint.de.

Now tell me if ANY of those uses McCode (nope sorry), and oddly enough the biggest (and best) of those are actually own by companies, with huge budgets, and a big staff.

So maybe we are all stupid, but it seems that this is how the real life is...

[Dave]

http://unforgivenwar.com/ - Is reasonably successful and is also mccodes?

The script doesn't mean you cant make money.. You just need very good skills at running a game considering it's not at all unique (Unless you decide to make it unique).

[Ultima_Rino]

I never said how much income would be acceptable for me to quit my day job. Since my job is basically dead end and I'd be able to write stuff off at taxes having around 600 customers would relatively good for me to quit my day job. Dropping out of college maybe not-- but focus on specific classes to help expand my base of knowledge.

[Enigma]

Sorry to cool you down, but no way a simple McCode game with a budget of 1400$ will allow you to quit your job and college. Non sense. Specially seeing that you didn't even ever installed an Apache / MySQL so far.

I would strongly suggest you to make some trials, see how far you can go and don't dream too much ;)

It was more a word of warning than anything else. Also budget is nothing, 6000 or 60000 would be anyhow a VERY SMALL budget for a game. Game budgets are in mil $ those days...

I don't know why you are bringing up platform video game budgets into the discussion, a browser game does not take much ( if any at all ) money to create , if you have the skill that is , what matters most is a unique and fresh idea. Yes your game may have taken " 5 years " to create, but its more of a feat of engineering than anything else really. The main innovative things that your game contains are " A special pet system which let you talk in with your own words to your pets " ( Brilliant feature, if it does what it says on the tin ) and the fast and responsive 2D environment. Apart from those features, your game contains features that other games contain, but in graphical from ( which is not very appealing anyway ).

 

My point is, I do run my own game since 5 years, with advert, with ALL CUSTOM nothing to do with McCode and all... and I can tell you it would not be enough to live just with the game. So don't expect too much, as web sites generally don't produce as much as you would expect. Even for big companies like Yahoo it's not easy to get enough money out of their websites... so guess out little things.

You know whats funny ? your advising a person based on personal experience with totally different game, marketing strategy, storyline, motivation and ambitions .

As mentioned above, your game was created , I presume, as hobby and is probably nothing more than an engineering feat. I see that the main methods of you generating income is via selling different copies of your " engine " and ingame upgrades, you do not have many promotions regarding upgrade plans and with your current , unattractive website design I'm not surprised that your not making much money. Oh and bigpoint is a joke, honestly " Registered: 3.156.425 Online: 918 " thats from their most advertised game called Deepolis . Don't let a company with a shiny website and a ton of games fool you ...

 

Hey your the stupid one, alain, hes well respected, great coder, and whats so funny. He spoke the truth, or is it another 12 year old wanting to make million by owning a game -.-

WWE avatar, need I mention more ? I probably do ...

Alain's proffesion is programming, he should be good at what he does ( most defiantly is ). To answer your question, the main things that I found funny are the following quotes :

" Specially seeing that you didn't even ever installed an Apache / MySQL so far. " ( OP asked about setting up a development environment on removable media, not local PC )

" but no way a simple McCode game with a budget of 1400$ will allow you to quit your job and college. " ( With enough customisation and unique features his game could go far, your users don't care about how your application was created or what you used as a base. What they want is something fun and something they can escape to when bored . $1400 would be enough for a decent website desig

n, the programming and application design / development would be taken care of by the OP since its nothing to do with you really. Unlike you, some people don't need to hire people to create stuff for them, they have the motivation and desire to create something unique.

" and don't dream too much ;) " ( The most arrogant and worst of advice I've probably read in my life, everything starts with a dream and desire to do something they love and a prime example of this is Honda. )

Keep going Ultima_Rino, it's people like you , which ignore other peoples misdirection, that end up successful . If you need any help at all with anything your not sure of then just contact me and I'd be happy to help. After all I share the same dream as you !

[Zeggy]

Top browser games have huge advertising budgets too, not just platform video games.

 

what matters most is a unique and fresh idea

We all have unique and fresh ideas. Everybody has ideas. That's the one thing EVERYBODY can have. There is more to running a game to the degree that you can live off the profits and start your own company off it than just having a good idea. Seeing as how this guy clearly intends to start off and do everything by himself, judging from his posts he lacks a certain amount of necessary skills in order to run a game to the necessary degree of success (ie. technical proficiency).

Also, 'unique' does not necessarily translate to successful. If you are simply out to make money, there are plenty of established game types/mechanics that you could copy and make a decent amount of money in a relatively short amount of time.

 

" and don't dream too much " ( The most arrogant and worst of advice I've probably read in my life,

That was some practical real world advice. He didn't say 'give up on your dream completely'. This guy was clearly 'dreaming' in the short term - he intends to drop out his university and live off income from his game. That gives him a time-frame of 1-4 years to achieve this dream. It's one thing to dream, it's another to dream unrealistically. Being highly motivated and dreamy doesn't translate to success either. Clearly this guy is inexperienced, and this adventure would most likely (but possibly not) end in disappointment, and it would be extremely irresponsible to encourage him to give up his university degree.

[Ultima_Rino]

To be clear on what I intend on doing is simple once the site has like 600-700 stable customers I'm planning on quitting my day job. After that I'll be able to focus much more on improving the site and expanding my knowledge base with computers. In the short scope (within several months after official launch ) I plan on having a stable customer base of 600-700 people. At that point I will give my 2 weeks notice. And the 1,400 is not the budget I have in mind totally. And a test environment outside of hosting on a flash drive is where I wanted it so it would be out of the public eye and able to be easily moved to somewhere else. The thing about why I intend on using mccodes with it is simple and pure my life has been crazy and the difference with mccodes is I've had experience coding in it and have my own mods. Also with mccodes I know that the way I want it to work WILL work the only thing I do not know is the TIME. So I say why would I spend 1-3 years building a game engine when I know something that I can spend a few months on to get set up and then have a massive launch. But if you guys are going to mock me just because I'm not completely sure how to use a test environment maybe I should say the basic outline (leaving out the key detail).

The basic thought is

A) I'm going to customize the attacking system different from what mccodes has set up.

B)I'm going to change the wording from donate to subscribe- donating you are able to write off. I also intend on making it instead of buying donator packs they have "chips" which I set equivocal to some value (say .25 each) . I will use these "chips" to be able to use to buy a subscription pack (almost same as a donator pack except technically accurate) along with several other modifications such as an auto gym to gain the statistical average of their stats per day if they are going on holiday.

C) I'm going to have a custom gym that has a far different formula than standard mccode.

D) I plan on revamping completely the education classes along with missions. The scope of missions I MAY not be able to do exactly how I want them done but I believe that you get the point I know what I can't do and that is why I said first month my budget is 1,400, prelaunch it is as my cashflow allows to be able to have my launch time line compromised.

E) I plan on making some sort of a drug system to take money out of the economy and greatly benefit the users (similar to torn city.

F) I plan on having some sort of stock program that eventually would have a long term benefit (also similar to torn city yes weird I'd have something to remove money and something to add much more, but I plan on it working differently in the sense that torn city or well every other game so the game will be stable with say even 40 trillion on it but making it very hard to get that much (making the best crime give 500k)

G) And also have something like player owned company system like torn city has.

Yes you may have read a lot of similarities "like torn city" but I assure you it won't be nearly as slow paced.

[Uridium]

Mcc styled games are only as good as the effort, Thought, Stamina you put into it. You could have 800 users Logged into your game but it dont mean that 800 are paying customers.

Ive read your ranges from (A - G) and none of them mention Security which with a game your planning on Creating would be (A) on your list of priorities.

A few factors to concider. there are thousands of mcc styled games out there even ones not coded with mcc but they reflect the same image. Torn City's Members are quite large but how many of them are Fictional Characters made up by Chedburn to make the game look well used....

[Ultima_Rino]

I thought upgrading security would be a given. And yes Torn City does have a lot of members, but even if he fudged the books a little bit with that to make it look good indirectly he would have to pay taxes on the money. And also I believe having 700 paying customers for the spin I have for just getting started is the low end of the spectrum. In the end I'm imagining that it will be better off expanding via word of mouth. I never said which version I was planning on bringing in the most money of the two different concepts. One of them obviously will need more work than the other just because of the thought unless I plan something completely ridiculous to have both become extremely popular.

[a_bertrand]

Enigma: Before bashing others, please provide us with your own experiences: what did you had? Your own game? Yes? then which one? Are you a programmer? What did you do? Etc... So far from your posts I see nothing. So sorry but you are so far not the most trusty one.

To come back to the unique ideas is what it counts, sorry I see NOWHERE unique ideas, why? Because everything has already been done in one form or in another. So saying "I have an unique idea" is a common mistake, as it's certainly not. What can be unique is the storyline, the interface, the rules, that yes, but certainly not the base idea. BTW if you check the "todo list" of the original poster, it's all "like torn city has" more or less... how unique it is then? :P

For my own game, nope sorry, it's really 5 years the game is live, and the most unique feature there is certainly not the pet system anyhow who cares, we are not reading from my game, we are reading about a new comer to the field which is hoping to be living out of a web game. The only thing I said is: it's very hard. I didn't say it's impossible mind you.

Now if you don't stop with "free bashing", I will also act as admin of this board as this is not the kind of discussions we want (against me or any others, that doesn't count).

[Ultima_Rino]

Okay let me put it this way there are some games that my ideas are inspired from. I'm planning on merging several different game concepts into the mccode engine while taking on some of my own personal ideas which I've left unsaid in the forum post because I don't want anyone stealing my idea until I've got my project fully launched. Obviously being said I know more than just mccodes its just it is the fastest place for me to start. And considering the fact that ALL of them have traits that make them popular within a certain genre.