[passiveye]

so, typical story and request: i have been an RPG fan since i was a kid, playing games like Might & Magic, Baldur's Gate, and Ultima, and of course this leads to an interest in making them. now, i really want to get into programming, and i have had SOME experience with programming in QBasic(however i found it too limiting and...weird. i hate it) and a bit o' java, which was...okay...but not what im looking for. also dabbled in programs like Zelda Classic and have recently been looking at the OHRRPGCE. i have made lots of ideas/stories/concepts over the years, but i want to make this real and learn some serious programming and make something really good, because its a real love of mine and i have been waiting TOO LONG for this. i really want to learn C++ since it seems everything is made in that, but i have no clue how to start really learning that. i dont have the ability to attend some crazy college class so i am forced to learn this on my own. is there any resources i can be directed to for such a task?
i was also considering using an engine like the above mentioned OHRRPGCE or perhaps Verge. would these be good choices? eventually i want to create a full-fledged first person dungeon crawl in the vein of the classics.

[Ninkazu]

Programming takes a lot of time to learn, and C++ is definitely not the language to start with. You must learn the basics of data design, abstraction and process before you delve into languages with manual memory management and pointer arithmetic.

Managed languages are much more performant these days, and only the bleeding-edge games out there really need the bare-metal that C++ gives you access to.

The books out there like "Learn X lang in 21 days" or "Direct3D for RPGs" or what-have-you are absolutely terrible. I say this because that is the route I took when I was 15. I spent a lot of money and time reading so many poorly written books that I wish I had a time machine to go back and tell myself to read textbooks by people who know what they're talking about.

I'm currently a CS PhD student studying programming language theory. As a PL student, it is my job to teach all the freshmen coming in good design and programming habits. We use a textbook called "How to Design Programs" (free online) that has won the lead author the ACM teaching award.

There is a book, Realm of Racket, about to hit the presses by the same man and several freshmen using what they learned to write several computer games.

Please consider this route. You can waste a lot of time in unmanaged languages like C++ squashing bugs that are impossible to have in other languages.

[EDIT:]
As for using RPG creators, YES. Do this to at least prototype your game's core mechanics and story. You don't want to waste 3 years getting up to speed on programming before you see your story come to life.

[tcaudilllg]

I'd consider using the game creator I wrote, Gamestar. It's specially made for prototyping. It's written in Javascript and can run online or offline.

As for which language to learn, C# isn't that rough and you can apply it directly to XNA development (the platform used by XBOX Live).