• Intro
  
• Basic Features
  
• Stats

Like Trevor (The guy who made and is working on this game) as said, "Take charge of a full-sized MMORPG world and fill it with monsters, towns, NPCs, and quest chains. Design the player classes for AI subscribers to use, and keep them entertained!".

The game, as of making this, is a good ways from a full game; however, it still has a good bit of entertainment value for what it does currently offers! From making leveled zones in detail to just spamming elites in hoping your players can take them just because, the game currently has a good bit of entertainment value, with more to come (Including the Steam Workshop from what Trevor said too, and I think that'd be awesome)

With that being said, the game is a Sim/Management type game where you have to focus so zones don't get overloaded, players stay happy, and you remain profitable.


The basic features in the game include MMO stats, unique game setup and world generation, 'player' interactions and personalities, zone balancing, quest design and world design - Currently.

Additionally, you can be hands-on and hands-off with your approach to the game by either hiring GMs to help control and regulate your game, or do it yourself by keeping an eye on players and their interactions (Not recommended but I've done it and it went okay until the playerbase shot up).

Lastly, is the absolute depth you can go with design, like the below. These are just two really nice builds I've seen from the MANY that are out there, and I dig them and can't wait to see more, but these are just examples of whats possible currently.

Build by Cepil


Build by Singrall



Stats in the game come in a few different forms with the first one being encountered at game setup. After selecting your game icon and name (see Part 2: The Start for this), and game type (Again see Part 2), you are confronted with the option to put points into the 5 primary game stats which all affect the game in a few ways.

Astroturf

• Astroturf adds to the advertising power of your game. Advertising in your game helps generate more players which typically generates more subs which gets you more money. So if you use an advertisement for get more players in one way or another, you will have a much larger response if you have more points into Astroturf.

Fluff

• A games Fluff offers more to the exploration and theme of the story, otherwise known as Lore and Story. This stat has a great response with adventure players who play for the story of your world. The more you have of this stat, the better experience those players will have within your game.

Hugs

• Hugs increases the socializing of a game. So if you have casual players or social players this will reinforce their experience playing because it gives more social setup for your game.

Bling

• A games Bling gives your game something to show off, either with loot or achievements for your players. This skill helps make those hardcore players more things to show off and achieve. This would be the stat those hardcore raiders would go after in whatever MMO you have actually played.

Gibs

• Gibs in a game add to the combat prowess of gameplay. It makes fighting more fun and enjoyable with every skill into this stat. This would be the equivalent of going from a normal swinging strike to a fiery strike that puts a blood effect on a target. Not literally, but that's the best anaology for this I have.

• Starting Your Game
  
• Zone Selection

Okay so the game is good and straight forward to start at the time of making this guide. Like super straight forward. I'm still going to explain it because I'm assuming the person reading this (You) haven't played this before or are deciding on getting this game, and you're checking out this guide as a deciding factor. Maybe. Maybe I thought about this a little too much. We'll see.

So first we'll start a new game and pick out amazing name and icon. Make sure the name is some amazing, or truly incredible - and in the spirit of doing just that - I didn't (see below). Now, you can also pick an icon from a list of about 20. Or, and I'll blow your mind, or you can pick your icon first and then your game name. Entirely your choice.



Okay, sweet! So we have a name and an icon, the two most important things for a new MMO. We'll ramp this experience up and click "Next" on the bottom left of the screen so we can move on and select our game type!

Really quick here's two things

• The average cost of an MMO is $40 in this game, and average monthly fee is $15 (Important later)
  
• Some of these MMO type's start with technologies and some don't

So the type of MMO you want to make doesn't affect your gameplay that much in the long run, but early on it can be a pretty decent difference. There's 7 different starting type MMOs as well, and like I noted previously, they can also start with different technologies. Below is a highlight of the types, their starting tech (if they have one) and their 2 primary stats.

Combat

• Primary Stats: Bling (#1) and Gibs (#2)
  
• Starting Tech: Badges (Gives +5 Bling at the start)
  
• The Combat game has an emphasis on fighting, so a good strategy for this would be to make a lot of combat quests and fighting elites and such. Pretty easy to do in the current state of the game as there's only about 4 types of quests possible, but I'm sure more will come, especially once Steam Workshop features are introduced.

Story

• Primary Stats: Fluff (#1) and Hugs (#2)
  
• Starting Tech: Flight Paths
  
• Story type MMOs focus on the world. The prettier and lore-friendly it is, the better, and the more the player can see of it the better. This usually gets the adventure type of player in so they can explore and.. Adventure..

Role Playing

• Primary Stats: Hugs (#1) and Fluff (#2)
  
• Starting Tech: N/A
  
• Role Playing type MMOs bring the 'feel' of your game alive. Similar to the Story type MMO, this type has an emphasis on world and sociability. Players want to be part of the game rather than in it. Sometimes too much, like.. Look at Moonguard US for World of Warcraft. Sometimes roleplaying is dark and evil. Anyways a fun thing to watch for here are the toxic players. Warning/banning toxic players weill help promote an enjoyable game world. To somewhat more automate that hire more GMs.

Player v Player

• Primary Stats: Gibs (#1) and Bling (#2)
  
• Starting Tech: PvP Duels
  
• This is a type of MMO that players want to be better than eachother and often fight and duel eachother to show whose better and can show off the most. PvP players are usually more toxic than other types of players (From what Ive noticed, but Im not sure if its intentional or a feature), but its usually fine if you have enough things to do and progress

Casual

• Primary Stats: Hugs (#1) and Astroturf (#2)
  
• Starting Tech: N/A
  
• Casual MMOs bring the people who just want to vibe and chill with other players - this means that social stats and distancing toxic players are essentially the two biggest things to focus on with the player base. Additionally, you'll notice larger social circles forming. This means that people are grouping up to talk and hang out together.

Social

• Primary Stats: Hugs (#1). This MMO type doesn't have much of a hard secondary stat as its.. I mean its social. More than casual, this is just a game to play and meet people essentially. I'd suggest Astroturf to be (#2) stat
  
• Starting Tech: Friends List (+5 Hugs at the start)
  
• I can't stress how casual the Casual MMO type is, it's like going to a bar where people are a few beers down, talking about some relatable stuff and trying to relax and have a good evening.. But in a game.

Free To Play

• Primary Stats: Astroturf (#1) This, like Casual, doesn't have a strong second stat. You want to attract more players since its free, so ads should be more effective. But this opens you up to trying a focused game with a real stat. Want to have a combat MMO? An exploring one? Etc? Its up to you.
  
• Starting Tech: N/A
  
• I have never personally tried this game type yet, not sure what to expect to be honest so.. I guess name your game "EA Online" and try to squeeze money from people as best you can?

For my game, I'm choosing a Story type MMO since I think Flight Paths are incredibly useful. So, after you pick your stuff, click "Create" and lets go to the next section.


Okay, so we have a cool game name and great icon, we wisely chose our MMO type, and thoughtfully put our stats in the correct spots. You should see a world and screen like this (below) on your screen.



If you see something similar, then congrats! You've kept up. If you don't then you messed up and should start again.

So. Zones. The first question to ask yourself is how you want your game to progress. Do you want a starting island and move to the mainland? Do you want a mainland primary game and move to an island for end game content? Fortunately for you (and for me, this guide is already long but I have a lot more to do) there's not an overwhelming amount of content within the game to have to min/max about. I personally like starting islands and moving mainland later.

Pro-tip: If you dislike your starting world and want to change ANYTHING with the regions and areas before you start making things, I suggest doing it. Just click "Grid" on the bottom-left UI bar, and use the Raise Region and Lower Region tools. They do as they say, and can help you craft a world to your liking (Almost? Mostly?) before you actually start.

I'll use this tool and you can see the change from the above picture to the new one below.



Okay so, you've played God with your world. What now? Well now we pick a starting zone. I'm going to use the 9-region island above as a starting zone, the single island on the left as an intermediate zone with a lot of content, and some upper level zones on the mainland starting from the top left of it. If that confused you, then it's okay, you'll see what I mean as I go along.

So now we'll pick our desired zone. A level 1 zone. So we'll go back to the Grid menu and click the circular money looking "Activate Region" button. This will allow us to buy a region for $5,000. Additionally, as the picture below shows, the button with the red above it is used for setting region levels. (I want to say the max in-game is 99, but I'm not sure)



Anyways, be sure to pick a zone with flow in mind, like player flow. Where will the player go when they hit the max level of that region? Keep that in mind. So find a zone to start in and we can move on (Or don't just yet and see what I do in the next section to help you better pick?)! to the next section!

Before I start here - Oh my god. Did you guys know guide sections have maximum characters? I didn't. I had to make this section specifically about zone basics because of that and I'm annoyed. Good god.

• Zone Basics

Okay so by now you should have an idea of where you want your first zone to be in, or you have already selected a zone - hopefully with flow in mind.

So for me, I picked a nice corner spot of my starting island continent area. The top right. (Fun thing, you can see which zones you own by clicking the "Interact" UI option, and the game will shade unowned areas and leave your owned areas lit) as seen below.



And a closer view:


Now if you don't like the theme of your starting zone, lets say you have this desert but you want a forest here simply click your region and it'll show this (below) popup. (You can also rename zones here too by the way).


Then click "Terrain" and see the 4 options your zone can have for diversity. Mine has Desert, Forest, Icy and Mountain.


Since the desert here is the primary zone, that means the Type 0 is the primary zone of the region, and changing that will automatically change the zone itself. Lets show you. I'm going to change Desert to Field because I want to start in a field (I'm also changing the name and other 3 zones but thats not important this second)


Oh also as a reference, I'll go into details about them later, but I'm picking this zone based on my starting 3 NPCs. You can see the starting NPCs you get by clicking "NPCs" and click the wolf with a plus symbol on it (see below) and it'll show your starting things.


Anyways to fully start your MMOs full first zone, you need 3 (technically 4) things.

• A Respawn point (Graveyard)
  
• An inn
  
• Spending about $40k on your starting zone
  
• A Starting Point (Where players enter your game)

Now - Why the weird money thing. Well because. The games 'progression' is based on money spent. So you can technically spam money and more or less unlock everything. You start with about $100k, and a loan of $150k that dictates your MMOs net worth, but that's not important until later. Back to the point though. Zone basics. Well finish with the things to get the MMO started then go to advanced!

So if you don't care, you can find a place to just plop down the ol' Graveyard and Inn. If you do care then pick where you can expand. If you're like me you have an idea for a starting zone sort of thought out, at least the town. So I'm going by the sea.

At this point we have a few things going on and I circled them below. First on the top right for cash, we need to keep an eye on this. With buildings being $1k each it seems like the $91k will last awhile. It wont with whats to come. BUT we have an upgrade now! We'll check that out in a few seconds. Now we also have the 2 buildings, but they're glowing red. Why?


Starting with the buildings - They're glowing red because they aren't connected. In this game, MMO Tycoon 2, you need to connect a zone to the internet in some way to activate things otherwise they won't work. So, click on "Network" on the bottom-left UI. Then we'll click the cloud on the left. (If I took a screenshot here it'd look wired otherwise I'd be doing the Wiki-HowTo here with pictures.) Now you have a blue ball thing and "$5000" above it. Wtf is this? Well this is an Uplink. It helps bring internet access to your game to help it run smoothly. If a region, mob spawn, etc doesn't have connection, it won't run. I suggest placing this about in the middle of any given zone like below. (Also these Uplinks costs $1k/day so be mindful of that and dont spam them)


Now the zone is still shaded and theres no blue. We can fix this. Click the little electrical cord looking thing 6 things to the right of that Uplink. This Cable will help us connect the game! Try and cover what you need in an efficient way if possible. Check below for my example


The highlighted area show the areas that can be connected. If you didn't pause your game, then your 2 buildings should stop glowing red as your Dev enabled them since they're connected now. Also, your zone should be turning blue to show its online.


Okay so we have the setup going, we need a few more things to finish it. Lets start by putting a few more things down. Specifically, a few monster zones. If you checked earlier what monsters you have so you can prepare your zone a little better, then you already know how to get to the menu. Otherwise, click "NPCs" and click the wolf with a plus on it like below


You should have 3 monster types, I have a bear, kobold and wolf. For animals I don't really care too much for where I put them, but I'm going to do some neat stuff because this guide, or try to anyways. So I'm going to place a few zones and show you below how they are. Also before I do, and before you do, keep in mind that these zones cost money per like.. Inch. It adds up.

Okay so i placed 3 zones for now and like I said the costs add up if you check the top left cash amount. The $81k isn't just from the zones, since the network things cost money too, but still.


Alright so we have the connections, the minimum of a town and 3 zones. What else? Well, I'm going to put some elite monsters down now too! Named monsters. Theyre stronger than the regular mobs by about 1.75x I think. Something like that. So with that I'll place those in some spots.

Now I've placed 1 elite monster per respective zone. You can see 2/3 from this draw distance. Also I let my game run a little bit to stop the red zone thing too. I forgot if I mentioned but I'm keeping my game paused as much as I can for this guide.


Now it's time to make some quest guys and guards! So while we're still under the "NPCs" tab, the 2 left most options are for these guys. I'm sure you can guess which one they respectively are. I put 4 quest guys down and 2 guards directly in front of my inn. it' doesn't matter too much where you place them, but THEY BOTH COST MONEY TO PUT. Quest guys are $1000 and guards are $100 EACH. It adds up. For me, I don't care because I'm going to minge soon, but if you're playing to play then it will matter. So I'll try and keep this concise a bit with that in mind.


Now before we start doing the questlines, lets add a few more things. Under the "Buildings" tab, I have the "Landmarks" selected, it looks like a tower next to the Respawn Point (Graveyard) button, and I have the tower selected. Put it where ever you want. Again, Im doing my placement deliberately for later in this guide. I'm also going to place some more things for my town. This includes a Tavern, and 1 of everything under the shops tab. Again, be mindful of your cash. Afterwards, this is what I have below.


I hit the character limit again. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Go to the next ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ section, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Steam..

• Zone Basics (Continued)

First: ♥♥♥♥ Steam and their character limit. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I was thinking I'd be able to touch on Advanced Zone stuff in the last part, but I guess not.. Damnit. Whatever, I'll finish the basics here.

So. We left off at essentially having 1 of every building type. Well, before we go on I want to interject with something. 3 things specifically. In the top right you may have noticed a flashing "Upgrade" button. Don't click it yet if you've held off the urge, we're almost there. Let me talk about how progression works in this game.

Everytime you spend money on in-game things like buildings and props (not mob zones, network stuff or buying zones) you get a game version point. The "0.0.111" on my screenshot below. Everytime you get #.#.100 you can put something in upgrade to make your game better. From game stats like we talked about earlier, to actual tech. Now if you hit that 100 mark and keep going and think "I can rack up points and just upgrade at once!" then no. You can't. At least not yet? So if you get to #.#.300 (I have done this before) and thought that, the second you open Upgrade, you can only use whatever it is, once. No matter what. It resets the #.#.100+ to 0 and changes your game version to #.1.0 version, and about every like 4 middle version numbers you get a technology. Otherwsie you get a stat.


This first upgrade WILL be the "Starting Point" building. A spot that costs $1000 and allows players to enter your game if built. But you don't have to place it right away if you don't want, and I'll show why later. So, lets finally click it. After we click it we get this screen below and can only pick the Starting Point. Afterwards we can click either "Release" or "Delay Release". Truthfully I've never clicked on delay, so lets just release - Now we are in version 1.0.0! Congrats!


But we aren't open for business yet. Lets make some questlines before we spend the $1k on a Starting Point

Now we carry on from the last section for zone basics.

So go back to your quest giver(s) and click one. Try and keep track of them if you can, otherwise we can just check later. So as soon as you click them they get a popup screen like this


So lets click the "Quests" tab. We see they offer 2 quests already. We don't care about those. What we do care about is OUR quests. It's VERY important to note that these quests make up a questchain - from what I've noticed. I thought they were random for the longest time but saw all of my people doing the same quests at the same time because they're in order and.. Yeah. So lets make our first quest simple. Lets click the quest and then click "New Target"


Im going to make my first quest to visit my tavern (red building with keg) so the player can enjoy the scenery before they hate themselves. Youll also notice a red arrow showing where the quest is going.


After that lets start an easy kill quest. So well make the 2nd quest into a kill quest by clicking it, then "New Target" and then click "Change Task" until the kill requirement is 1. Lets get the players a nice feel for the game.


Nice. Okay so theyll go check the tavern out, then decide to murder a wolf (or whatever you have them to kill for your MMO?) I'm not satisfied with that. Now if you did as I did in the last part, you put 1 elite mob per respective zone. If not then skip this I guess? But elites are free so whatever. Now, well do another kill quest for the elite. In my case, the elite is called "Mother Wolf", which makes me feel bad but I don't care because exhaustion is creeping up on me. So, we send them to kill the wolfs mom by clicking "Add new quest" under the quests tab, clicking the "Change Target" and clicking the elite mob. Sometimes this is annoying and wont select the elite mob right away but you just have to roll with it.


Awesome! Now if you have another quest give, then make some more quests! If not then I guess you're ready to put your Spawn Point in - the building that lets players connect. I WONT BE DOING THIS JUST YET IN THE GUIDE. I'm still going to show off a few more things in this section for basics. If you're happy starting now then go to the "Buildings" tab, and theres a gate icon next to the Respawn Point (Graveyard). Click that and place it where you want. Again, I wont just yet.

Also a neat thing is if you dont want a quest anymore you can delete it. Drag the quest name via the quest giver menu, and drag it right. This will remove it


>I had a small brake and came back and added quests to my other 3 quest guys. You're caught up with me again.

Okay so you should have maybe around $72-75ish thousand left, and your game version should be 1.0.0, so we'll be working on these. First things first - Roads. I'm doing 2 things here. 1) Im going to make a Mountain Pass and 2) Im going to make some decent roads around this starting zone. I'll be working under the "Paths" tab which is next to the "Buildings" tab - BUT before I can do this, I need a second zone.

So under the "Grid" UI option, go and buy a neighboring region, and then while still under the "Grid" toolset click the "Set Region Level" button, it looks like a 1 with an arrow above and below it. Youll see a popup on the upper-left side of your screen with an arrow set, click once up and set it to "2" then click your new region and its set


Now well be able to make a mountain path. Below is my idea for what Im wanting, the red is the town and the road is white, with the I look showing estimated mountain path start/end


So doing that path and road, you can see how it looks from here. I have a plan for those empty spaces in the Advanced Zone section, but lets stick basic.


So we still have thousands, but were only at 1.0.## now. What do we do? We add a few things to our empty zone. So under "Scenery" we will click "Place Scenary" and well get a scroll option on the left side of our screen for all the scene props in the game right now. They cost like $10 each, so place a few and get some easy version points, but remember to spend at #.#.100 because the extra doesnt carry over


Wrapping the basics up, below is a basic zone for me with props


Note: This is a very basic zone, a lot less than I would regularly do but its late and Im tired so heres the end of the Zone Basics! In the next section well focus on advanced zone ♥♥♥♥ and I dont know what else after. Theres a lot, but I hope this has been helpful so far for everyone.

• Really Just Quest Stuff
  
• Quest Giver Stuff
  
• Level and XP

Really Just Quest Stuff

Hello! Welcome! For you, this might be just the next chapter of this guide, but for me it's coming back to this for this update! So welcome back to me! Anyways lets cut the ♥♥♥♥ and get right into it. This XP update adds a lot of neat little things. It adds Quest specifics from quest givers, as well as monster XP, level requirements, and so on.

Quest Giver Stuff

Okay so - Since I've made this guide I've changed my world and game because reasons. Anyways, heres the stuff. If you click a quest giver youll see a quest or two with different things like this


So we can see a few things here. The edit button and delete button, as well as a few things. The quest name at the top, quest summary on the left, some things on the right which I don't know what they are, and the rewards! Lets click the edit button.


So with this, we see that we can change the location of the target, or the target itself with the lefthand bullseye. On the right we see "Use default rewards" and the XP and Gold earned. Let's change the rewards (Ill let you do your thing for what the quest will be).


Now we can change the gold and xp rewards of this quest. This means you can make currency in your game more difficult to get, making it a premium, or lowering XP by the quest to make certain chains slower or faster to level. It unlocks some neat dynamics of your game.

Level and XP
Now lets check Level and XP. On the bottom right of your game, click the book icon. Then well click "XP and Leveling" at the top. Then we have this screen


So we can see a few things. The Monster XP which means the base or minimum XP a monster gives, and the extra XP they give per player level. The formula is seen under this section.

We also see the Kills Per Level which shows how many kills are needed for them to level specifically from killing monsters. No quests to kill them, just killing them. Like killing 65,340,285 boars to get 30 levels in 3 weeks. The horror. Anyways, it gives the 3D dynamic to how levels work by throwing it in with quest XP and required XP a level.

Now, on the right we see XP To Next Level. This shows that if the player is level #, they will get # XP per monster, and the needed monsters for that level if they only killed monsters, with the total XP needed per level on the very right.

Want to change things? Change a single digit and then click Apply. Like this.


So with this, you can set the 3 dynamics of your players leveling. You can do a 3.5 if you modify the quest XP on completion like we talked about above too.

TL;DR A few things in this update give you a HUGE change to your game, and you can do some really cool things with it like change the entire game economy, allow players to power level, or have a horrible grind to max.

• Connections
  
• Breakdown
  
• Paths

So we already talked about connections but lets think of this. Those Uplinks cost $5000 each, and another $1000 a day to operate. They bring in about 50 Bandwidth (MBs?) a second to use across your zone, so that is quite a bit to take into account if we have some 2, 3, 4, etc zones. That cost would skyrocket up. So, a good strategy is to use the Capacitor. The Capacitor is $1000 and has no upkeep costs. Effectively a single Uplink can power 2 zones, provided the zones aren't overloaded with very dense mob zones.

Now remember the second zone from earlier? Well start setting that up a little for future use bu getting the networking started. So lets place a Capacitor in the middle of this zone like below


So we got this, now what? We need to connect this bad boy to the Uplink! If you recall before, we used a cable to hook our first zone up, but for some reason a cable can't cross zones. Fortunately a Fiber can. So lets select the Fiber which is 1 to the left of the cable and connect our Uplink to the Capacitor.


Nice, so were hooked up! Now its important to know that these Capacitors can hold 500 Bandwidth (MB). Now you can connect the rest of this zone as you want - But in the 3rd zone I usually add a 2nd Uplink and connect it to the Capacitor for redundant use, and to start the cross-zone connections to keep out world afloat!


An idea for this was given to me by a commentator. This isn't exact but its the best I can gauge it as without using tools. Testing was done mixing network pieces and sections and repeating tests over and over. Anyways; heres a percentage breakdown on efficiency of network items

Note: The gold stats means I'm unable to actually gauge the in/out of these items but from my tests it appears they have more input than output which means you could chain certain network pieces together for max efficiency.


So we have two kinds of paths in the game right now. Roads, and flight paths (my favorite feature. You have no idea, man.) According to the tutorial, and my experience, players explore the world mainly using the roads. Additionally they can travel between zones using flight paths and if they have the gold for the flights. I personally set my flight path cost to 6 gold per flight, which is under the "Services" tab if you click on a path point.

Walking paths also afford the player to go near new quest hubs, mob zones, and so on. If theres interesting scenery or something interesting to the player (Story players like to explore, Achievement players like challenges and etc). So if you have a path going near somewhere mildly interesting to the player they tend to explore a little sometimes.

Back to flight paths because I dig them a lot. I'll show how they work, if you've never used them before - using my single zone (I'll add a second quest hub so its fine). So under paths, if you have the tech unlocked (or use this part for reference when you do unlock it), click the dual wings, and then the only option that comes up from there. Now when you go to place this, the Z key wont rotate this for you. You have to left-click and hold to face this the way you want. It helps make it look nice but doesnt do anything otherwise.


After placing, you get a purple line. This line is the path. So, to make the path look nice and shape it, simply left click ONCE at certain spots along your way to make it look nice. A VERY BIG THING TO NOTE is that flight paths can cost up to $10,000, and the flight points are $1000 each. So $12k in total max. Once your path reached a value of $10000, if you end it there without another flight point, it simply drops your players on the ground directly below it. So be mindful. Anyways, heres my path (First image). For note, this cost me $6824, plus the two flight points of $1000/ea so $8824 in total. Flight paths don't go too far to be honest, but they can be very useful. Let me show you why (second image)


Edit: As of 0.17.49 this across the water is not really needed anymore since you can just do it now, but Ill leave this here as a relic/possible helpful thing for people.

Here Im planning to jump across this water with a flight path, see my outline below.


So trying this normally doesn't work since we don't own the water region. Thats an issue, but an easily worked around one (if you have the $)


To work around this, simply go to the Grid UI menu, raise the water up then buy it. So we own this and can fly over the land now! Yay! Place your flight path like below


Now just sell the region (Option to the right of buy) and submerge it again. Badda boom badda bing, you crossed the ocean.


In the next section I'll make a kickass zone out of the level 1 area and show some additional things off.

• Minging
  
• The Zone

Remember back in Part like.. 1 or 2? I said I was going to minge later? This is it that later part. So what is minging? Minging (To Minge) means to deliberately ruin or detract the experience - usually done in RP games, but can be done in others.

"Azurn how are you going to ruin the experience? You're doing a good job at this guide and everything checks out so far!"

Yes, you're right. So far. If youll look below, you can see my impressive $19669 game account.


Now, count to 3 with me. 1.. 2.. I don't care. You already see the picture below. You know what I did.



Nice. Okay so, youre probably wondering how on Earth I did that? or better yet, why? Let me tell you the answer to those. I did this using a program that hooks into a program and changes values if you know what to change. And the why is.. Well read the section title. Im going to make a Cool Guy Zone. Now before I do anything else, check the game version. Im at 1.0.63. Keep that in mind.

And the zone Ill be working on is my level 1 zone. As a reminder, it looks like this right now.


Note: Something of interest I found while doing this is that if you put a prop house/building down and sell it you get 2 version points for it and your money back. 1 point for placing and 1 point after selling. Exploit this while you can. Anyways...


Heres the zone now, in a few screenshots.






You get the idea. It looks decent. Now check the current cash and game version.


As you see, we've spent about 74k on this zone for the props and doodads. With enough work and drive a zone can look pretty amazing, and one step (at least) from the basic zone we had previously. As for the version, I have been putting all of my points into Fluff and am currently at +40%, and into Hugs and am at like +22% for those both. I have also unlocked about 5 different techs as well so far.

In the next part well talk players.

• Basics
  
• Neat Stuff

Basics

Okay so lets just start with making the Spawn Point, assuming you're still with me on this stuff. Spawn Points cost $1000 and allow new players to spawn into your game. Under the build tad theres an icon that looks like a gate, thats it. So once you place your first point down and wait, a Dev will enable it and youll start getting players (after a little cut scene. I think its neat since it shows your stuff to you in a little trailer like thing, but I skip just because I want to do other things. Id say watch tit he first time you get it)

So lets place it down. I placed mine and made a Stonehenge around it.


After waiting about 3 seconds your first players will join!


Meet Ormbe and Hermuckha. Ill say Orm or Herm (UwU) for them. Okay so lets see some basic stuff from them.


So seeing their info screens we get some points of interest

• Real Name (Irrelevant)
  
• Player Type (Important)
  
• Analysis (N/A. I want to say important but I.. I forgot what this is for.. Im sorry)
  
• Connected for (Irrelevant)
  
• Usual Hours (Can be important later)
  
• Demand (Not Important at the time of this guide)
  
• Expertise (Kinda important)

Okay now lets go through the important stuff. Player Type is a big factor. Remember a long time ago we talked about this along with our MMO type? The MMO stats and what they help with? Well this point of interest for the player helps show what kind of player they are. The more you have for your #1 and #2 stats the better.

Usual Hours can be important later I feel, once the game (MMO T2) is more developed to work with time cycles.

Demand WILL become more important fairly soon I believe. If I remember, Trevor said this will be for telling if the game is too hard, if they want more quests, less running around, etc. In the end you eventually will have to cave in to some of these little terrorists' demands, even if you don't negotiate with terrorists. But right now you don't have to worry or care about it, so you're golden to go.

Expertise is somewhat important. It shows how experienced the player is with the game and can help move them along in the world instead of getting stuck, dying, and such. Remember the flow idea I talked about? This is kinda why.

Also some other things to note before I move on:

• A players inventory is for statistics really. You see their gold, weapon, # of potions or loot, their money and bank balance (I think the last 2 play into Free To Play MMO types but Im not sure)
  
• History just shows what the player has done in the last X amount of total time. What quests, what theyre thinking, if they died, etc, and it comes with the time stamp too.
  
• Stats show the happiness and addiction of the player with your game, and the social, advance, loot and scenery bars too, basically showing what they are lacking or excelling in with their experience.

Just 2 quick things. The first is you start with 2 player classes and 3 monster types. If you click the Book icon in the bottom-right of the screen you can see character classes available to you, the monster types and even NPCs which are all usable to you. Youll also see a lot of lock icons that say "Unlocks at Subscriber Level #", this means once a player hits that level, the lock is unlocked and you can use it. More classes, more NPCs, etc. Dont forget to check back every now and then, but youll know because you get a notification once someone reaches the next highest level for your game. Example being you see first level 2, 3, etc.

Next and the coolest in my opinion for out-of-game things. In the MMO Tycoon 2 Discord, a person named Goliath made a pretty good spreadsheet[docs.google.com] of player levels and their requirements. I highly suggest checking this out if you're all about planning for your game, or just want to see estimated things for player levels.

• Trainers
  
• Abilities

Note: This section is made specifically because of patch 0.17.49 which added a lot of neat new ♥♥♥♥ to the game

Note 2: I forgot I made the initial guide with a "Steam Guide" world and so I did this portion in my other "Test" world. Sorry for that confusion, but it gets the point across.


Okay so, as of patch 0.17.49 players are required to visit trainers to gain abilities that they don't start with. So this means that if they're level 1, they can start with X abilities, and at level 2 if they gain another ability they can talk to a trainer to get it.

Now to find the trainers, well go to "NPC" tab in the bottom left UI, and to the right of the guard option shows a person with a book. Thats the trainers


Then one you click it, youll see a trainer for every class. My classes are modeled from the Horde in WoW (Which will give you an idea for abilities too).


Now each trainer costs $500 to place with no upkeep, and you cannot change anything about their service to players, as in how much they charge for abilities. I think if ability ranks were added, then that would be feasible, but this is a neat feature as is so I won't push what I think would be neat to add since its also new.

Abilities (Updated 7/2/21)
In the Combat & Abilities update there was an overhaul for the abilities. Those overhauls are explained in a summarized way below.

So first to get to the Abilities, in the bottom right we'll click "Design" (The book), then select the class we want, as seen below.

For this I'll be using the Bard. So go ahead and select your class, and a screen liek this should appear

Now afterwards we'll select the "Abilities" middle tab at the top, and well be presented with a series of ability slots for your class, like this

Select the ability you want to change, or even make one. I'm going to use "Attack 3". So select it, and it should have a screen like the below, with a random animation and such set for it.

In this instance it looks like a weird electrical smoke bolt thing for my example. So just jumping into it, we can check the "Animation" and see how it looks. I'm going to keep the "Attack" one.

Now under the "Effect Type" lets check out whats there. Theres a lot of neat stuff, and I'd suggest going through it to pick whats best for your ability idea. I'm going to be simple and use "Physical" (Previously was "Electric")

After we can check the "Path Type". I'll use "Straight"; I think what was for the last one was "Ballistic". After you set your type, you can change the color. It's pretty self explanatory for that.

Next lets check the "Flavor" tab. So on this tab it lets you add a tooltip for the "Description", and see it in real-time on the top right. You can also set the name and level it's accessible from at the top. Selecting "Fully custom" on the bottom will remove the end part shown here "dealing 22.4 damage", and lets you fill EVERYTHING in; I think leaving the checkbox off would be nicer, but thats your call

Now lets get to the meat of this section, the outcome. Select the "Mechanics" tab and we can see some interesting things. Starting at the top 3 bars, in order you can select its cast time, if any. Then the range it can be used at, followed by the cooldown time of the ability. (Note: Youll have to tweak abilities if players want a lot of buffs or nerfs for the class)

Now, for the "Cost to user" and "Effects on target", we can set what it costs the caster/user, like mana, health and rage, if any. Under that we can set the effects on target, which is a lot. (Shout out to the devs for this). Theres heals, damage, heal over times, damage over times, siphons, regenerate over time, roots, slows, and more. Theres a lot of flavor that can be gotten from this section.

For this example I set the mana cost to 10, the heal over time to 20 for 10 secdonds, which comes to 2/hps. (Under the name theres a quick math which shows the dps/hps)

Now the best part. Theres a lot of ability icons to pick from with a lot of color hues. Check them out! After you find one and select it, your screen should look something like this

And thats it! Woo! Okay so remember that if your classes are too strong/weak youll need to tweak all the abilities until the right formula is done. It'll be a pain.

• Reports
  
• Achievements

So in the game there's some good insights and technicals you can use and work with. These can be found under the bottom-left UI button for "Reports".

Now the first one is a scroll looking this, which is your MMOs Overview. This has A LOT of data, but nothing extreme, but very useful. So the first screen we get is "General" which has information such as the top 5 thoughts of your player base, which the top 2 are usually "I like this town" or "Its too crowded here". Additionally you can see the total subscribers you have and how many are connected, along with the type of player they are. Again, remember the MMO type and stats we picked? Lastly for this page you can see the World Summary, this includes the staff you have working, active regions and average users per active region.


I'll gloss over the Ratings and go to Advertise. So under Advertise is where you can pick a few options to promote your game and get players coming. Before this I suggest waiting and watching the flow of players so there wont be a massive backup of people doing things. We want gameplay smooth. Anyways, each advertisement costs different amounts of money, and bring in respective levels of players.


Glossing over even more until we get to Sales. On the Sales screen you see two things. The cost of your game in a one-time way, and a monthly cost, as well as MMO averages. You can tweak these as you want, but its good to have a decent price the larger your world gets.


Ill come back to loan later on below. Next is Features. Truthfully I only know of the PvP Duels being in here so far from technologies unlocked. So when you get that make sure to turn it on under this tab or it wont be usable for players.


Past the Scroll in the UI is "Finance" which gives you a detailed look at costs and income. Thats it. No picture for that.

Next after that is Dev and GM Management buttons! So, the Dev and GMs currently show like $100 (Dev) and $50 (GM) upkeep. This is a lie. They are both about $2500/each a day. Kinda jank but oh well its whatever.

Now what these guys do is the Devs help keep your world running smoothly by making sure buildings, NPCs and mobs are all working for you and your players.

GMs help players.. Not be stupid. A player stuck? Or getting trolled? Maybe 'bullied'? The Gms are usually there to help.


The game has 2 achievements. One is super easy and the other is.. Easy if you minge like me. Anyways, the first and easiest one is by going to the main menu screen (Press Escape. Save your game, then click Exit Game. On the main menu double click the Achievements button on the mid-left)


And the second one is in-game. Under your Reports tab, click the Scroll, then click "Loan". All you have to do is pay back your loan and you get the second achievement. This is easier said than done though, but by the time you have 5-6 regions unlocked, you should be generating enough for this easily.


Now with both done, you have this game at 100% achieved! Good job.


As of the 0.17.49 update, theres 1 more achievement to get! This is a secret one. Spoil it for yourself
This achievement is unlocked once you reach a certain amount of money. For my example I cheated to get a nice $69 million, but I want to say the threshold for this is just $1 million

Hello! Man, it's been a minute since I updated this. A quick recap of updates since my last touch on this guide from back in 2021 (Updating this in 2023), theres been a lot of scenery items added, some icons and QoL things, but most importantly, Dungeons! Thats what this section will focus on. Dungeons.

Okay lets just jump right in, as I'm assuming you already know the basics of the game from the other sections. So, well start by going under the "Buildings" section, and selecting #9, Dungeons.


Selecting this will bring up the "Dungeon Exterior" listing, which has a series of dungeon entrances for you to select from. Pick a pretty or aesthetic one you like.


After you place it, youll notice it has a series of options like other buildings, Info, Instances, Service, History and Options. Well ignore all but Info in this guide, the rest is mostly self explanitory (Id suggest seeing what Instances is, as default is 2 maximum instances at a time, which is $100/day/instance, you can edit this to be whatever # you want. It allows more parties to run it with the more instances you have) - You'll notice at the bottom mine shows "Currently Open", but when you put yours down itll be red saying its Disabled. A GM/Dev will need to connect it, for which well then need to make the dungeon itself.



Okay so, we not have our dungeon placed, and its been turned on by a GM/Dev, but how do we actually make our dungeon? Below, you'll see the outlined "Inside" button. This button is the bread-and-butter of making your dungeon. Click it.


Now youll be brought into your dungeon and itll look somewhat like the below.


Now first and foremost, you'll want to navigate to the options on the lower-left, it should read Layout, Scenery and NPCs. Well go to Layout, Option #2 Dungeon Tile Themes.


Pick from the themes for the type you want to use, then well start making our dungeon! It's kind of like selecting the overworld for your MMO, like the regions, so you can raise and lower regions, similarly here you can raise and lower a dungeon. Below is my before and after. Have fun and make your dungeon, but I'd suggest not making them HUGE just yet, as the AI party seems to try a one-and-done approach, so if they die they just dont come back and dont care it seems like. Anyways, below is my before and after.

Before


After

Within my dungeon I have 5 main areas. The entrance, first room, second and third rooms, then the big room. Lets place the actual entrance now. Under Layout select Option #1, Dungeon Entrances, and place an entrance for where you want your people to start their experience at.


Now, you're probably thinking "Man, what are the rest of these options for in the hotbar?" Lets go through them quick to see. Under Layout, we've already seen Option 1 and 2, for our dungeon tiles and entrance. Option 3 is the floor paint and as of making this update to the guide has 5 options. Planks, Solid, Starfield, Swirl and Water. What these do is it changes the ground texture to that of your paint. Starfield is really neat, but I havent had a use for most of these yet, although I have used water just because it made sense in my first dungeon. Use these as you will.


Option 5 is the Door option. This will be useful soon, but please note the top where it says "Normal" and "Boss".


Option 6, Keys, next. This, along with the doors, is self explanatory. Please again note the top where its Normal and Boss. Well also use this later.


Lastly is Option 8, Treasures. This represents the dungeon loot you can spawn in for players going through your dungeon. The spawn rate is 100% for each of them, so if you place it, they will spawn in for every single dungeon. (For any Developer that may read this, at some point down the road if you have professions added in, itd be neat to turn the gems here into profession materials that players can get to then up their professions. Suggesting this here because I like this game but dont want to try and force my opinions into development. Keep on, keepin' on)


Now, I'm going to skip "Scenery" and "NPCs" as these are just very straight forward. I did notice that the NPCs doesnt include bosses/elite NPCs in the Dungeon, they represent spawn zones and individual monsters. So.. Just be aware of that.

Anyways, lets get back to making out dungeon. So, you dont have to place doors and keys, but Im going to run us through the placement of them because why not, were already here. - So. Under Layout, select Option 5, Doors. Pick a NORMAL door and place it somewhere logical.


Next, select Option 6, Keys, and place a NORMAL key somewhere logical as well before the normal door. If you don't understand why, the reason is that players will need to get the matching key type (normal key -> normal door; boss key -> boss door) before they can progress.


Let me show you what I mean. Below is my dungeon thus far. In the blue circle we have our entrance. In the red circle we have the normal key. In the green circle we have our normal door. The orange arrow represents the pathing that the players will take at first, followed by the yellow pathing.


TBC

God.. I hate Steam's section limit.. Anyways, continuing from before and to reiterate, at this point we've made our dungeon layout and have placed our entrance, our normal key and normal door. I showed the path the parties will take for the normal key and door.

Now, I'm going to make our boss key and boss door. Below is that example. Green shows us our normal door from the last section, the red shows us our boss key and the yellow shows us our boss door. I intentionally left a lot of open space for players to go around and near as they please, but regardless, they should aim for the key and then the door. If you want, you can have multiple layers of keys and doors before the next section if you really want them to go specific routes, but I dont hate my players that much yet, so this is fine for now.

So now we have our doors and rooms, now we'll place our treasures - please note in the picture below, it shows our boss room (Behind the boss door). Please also note the little white dots. I jumped ahead and put down NPCs from the NPCs tab all over my dungeon and didn't think to capture it and show it as an example here. It's honestly really straight forward and like placing NPCs in the overworld. - Also please note I dont actually understand what treasure does, but I assume that it gives players loot and currency of some kind. So.. Keep that in mind here. Anyways.. Select Option 8, Treasures, under the Layout hotbar tab.

Place your treasures as you see fit, for this example I put a ♥♥♥♥ ton of treasure in the corner of the boss room, and no where else. In my original dungeon I spaced treasure out and didnt put a whole lot, but in this example I said "Ehh, ♥♥♥♥ it, we ball".

Now, when you're done placing your NPCs, treasures, entrances and doors as you see fit, well consider it done. As you load into your live dungeon, such as if you follow a party in your dungeon, itll show statistics as shown below (This isnt the stats of the dungeon I made as the example, this is the stats of my first dungeon. But note the yellow "Goals Collected". That directly correlates to the treasures placed, but I'm unsure if this means the players need to get them all before theyre happy? The few parties I watched collected around 70-95% of them and either left or died. So.. idk.


Anyways, now youll exit the dungeon, buttom-right it'll show the "Exit Dungeon" button with a door and an arrow. Select that. Then well be back in the overworld. While in the overworld, your dungeon wont be active for players to run in and kill monsters and loot yet. For this, you need to select your dungeon again, then select the green button on the bottom to activate it. If tis activated, itll say "Currently Open", for which players can then go in. If you ever want to edit the dungeon again, you CANT do it while its active, so youll need to select it again and click the red button to disable it, so you can then edit it.

After you enable it and a party forms, you can follow them. If theyre in the dungeon, select "Instances" on your dungeon and then view/observe them. Heres my party that ran my test dungeon.

Meet Stxo, Isrose, Evermo, and Vitel. 3 warriors and a wizard. This screenshot was captured just after they went through the normal door, you can see it on the left.

Its good to watch how they progress in your dungeon to know if you need to edit or change it to flow and feel better. Anyways, this next screenshot was in the boss room (RIP Stxo), but these guys just gobbled up all that treasure, before they left the dungeon happy.

And uhh.. Thats.. Thats it. Thats the Dungeon update for this guide. As it stands right now its pretty neat. Itd be cool if we can get in-dungeon, quest givers or triggered events sometime down the line, but I'm not complaining. I love this game as is and I'm sure I'll love it down the road too. - I also imagine once raids are worked out, well then be able to get an upscaled version of this update for those, but with raid bosses and such as well to, but thats my hunch.

To make some suggestions here though, and again, doing it here so i don't distract other suggestions for the game:

• If professions are added, it's be neat to be able to place profession-specific loot/treasure in dungeons, example being in World of Warcraft how dungeons have mineral veins or herbs
  
• In-dungeon / in-raid quest givers
  
• Actual NPC bosses/elites for dungeons instead of just regular NPCs
  
• Triggered events. I know this will take some work if its done, but I think if you can have a "key" attached to a specific NPC and a door is opened once its killed, thatd be cool.
  
• Chance spawns, so you can set specific treasures or bosses/npcs to spawn every #% of time, so you can make rare bosses and rare loot/treasures

That's all I got. Love the game still, and excited to see the next major patches!

Okay so this guide was neat to do. There was a lot that went into it, and I still haven't covered everything, but what I have covered is more or less the extent of the game right now. I hope you all enjoyed this or found it useful. I'll be doing more as the game is progressively updated and has content added.

If you want anything specifically explained then ask away, otherwise feel free to join the games Discrod (Link found on this post)