*RUCCUS thanks the game creating gods for sending a good beginner for once*
First off welcome to the community, it sounds like you've got a good idea on what you need to get done before you lunge into something as big as an MMORPG, which is the first step.
Ok as for the question of what to start off with. I think you'll find many people will recommend looking into the tutorials, and in the past few years there have been a lot of them created for doing various things in DBP, each with a different programming level of experience required.
I would suggest to start off in this kind of order;
- DBP will come with a few rudementary tutorials. They aren't the best ones out there to say the least but they do get you to get a basic footing on how DBP works, its interface and some idea on the main structure of programming. If you've worked with C++ and HTML before you'll have a better chance of understanding how things are explained (using variables, getting input from the user, etc.) So, try your best to tackle the couple of tutorials that come with DBP first, but if you cant do get frustrated, there's a lot of people that just skip them.
- Located on the newcommers board (here) there is a stickied post at the top called something like "Tutorial City" or "Tonnes of Tutorials Here". Clicking that link will bring you to a fairly large list of some of the top tutorials for DBP at this current time. I HIGHLY recommend trying out the pong tutorial located on that forum post written by Chris K. It's been a newcommer-starter for learning how to program in DBP for years and will be for years to come. (It does what it says, teaches you how to create a 3D pong tutorial in DBP, excellent tutorial.)
- Theres a very helpful member of the TGC community named TDK. He's written an assortment of tutorials, helpful htins and more for programmers to get to grips with using Dark Basic. The only downside is that his tutorials are for Dark Basic Classic, so some of them may not work with DBP as DBP has a few commands taken out of it that DBC had (replaced with better ones ofcourse). Either way, check out his site at
http://www.matedit.com, look into the tutorials and see if they'll help you.
- Going back to the tutorial thread on this board I mentioned before, the other tutorials on that thread are there for a reason. Each tutorial is taylored to a certain type of game genre, I've even heard there's a pretty good tutorial on creating your first FPS on there by someone called RUCCUS...worth a looksy atleast (
http://www.ruccus.net/Tutorial.html.
- Almost done. Theres another huge resource of tutorials created by BatVink, another very helpful forum member on TGC. For the paste few years his tutorials have been posted on TGC's monthly newsletter, him releasing one tutorial each month. Every one of TGC's newsletters can be found from the homepage of darkbasicpro.com, not only do they feature one of Vink's excellent tutorials in each issue but also an assortment of programmer tools, new games created with DBC/DBP, info on new releases from TGC, and a lot more. I recommend signing up for the newsletter to be sent via email, very helpful.
- Finally, BatVink has ALSO created a website called Tutorial City (
http://members.thegamecreators.com/tutorialcity). The website features some of the tutorials posted in the thread mentioned at the top of this post, and some others written by various forum members.
Reading doesnt usually tickle everyone's fancy, but you'll find a lot of those tutorials are excellently written to not only teach you the most amount of programming concepts in the smallest amount of lines, but also to keep your interest through humorous writing styles and overall fun programming (it'll seem like a lot of reading but once you start each tutorial, you'll usually find you're having so much fun creating your next game that you completely forget the work part).
Keep in mind, you dont have to go through ALL of those tutorials, heck, I doubt anyone has before. Look into their descriptions, choose the ones that interest you or contain some information you think you'll need to learn. Once you have a good understanding of how DBP works, you can move onto making a few of your own games from scratch. A lot of people like to start off by making a few 20-Liners. There's a board on this forum called the 20 Liner Contest (or something like that), that basically challenges you to create a program in 20 lines of code or less. Each month a winner is chosen and their game is posted in the TGC newsletter, its a good way to set some basic goals for yourself and get yourself known on the boards.
Ok, after you've finished a few tuts, conquered a few mini-games of your own, you'll probably want to start making something a little more fun. Another important aspect of programming is the graphics side of things, will you model your own models for your games? I recommend looking into a free modeler to get some practise to see if modeling is your thing, check out
http://www.wings3d.com for a pretty good free modeler.
Leading into your own games you'll undoubtedly have a lot of questions/problems. There are loads of places for you to get answers, for one thing DBP comes with a Help File containing all of the commands in DBP and a description of each (though some will admit they could be a lot better). Use these as your first opportunity for finding out how to do something. If the help files aren't helping, check the forums and the code base located on this website. The code base contains a huge amount of programs showing how to accomplish small tasks (things like moving a cube around, checking for collision, creating a clock, etc). When resorting to the forums, PLEASE, make sure you do a search for your problem in the search option at the bottom of every board. Usually its a good idea to search in the newcommers corner as most questions are asked their, if you still dont find an answer, then go ahead and create a post asking for help. Be sure to be nice, use good grammar (programmars are picky when it comes to whom they help and whom they flame), try and give as much detail as possible about the problem, and most importanly post as much source code of what your using as possible. The more code we have to work with, the better the chance we can answer with a good explanation of what went wrong.
... *wipes sweat off head*, I think thats it. You'll find the forums can be a HUGE helper when it comes to programming, especially TGC's. I've been on a lot of programming forums and the TGC forums are without a doubt the most generous, helpful and usually laid back forums I've ever seen.
Goodluck starting with DBP,
- RUC'
