I probably should have been more specific.
C++ is an excellent language to learn for games due to the fact that the DirectX library is already coupled with most C/C++ compilers.
C++ is an extensive language that will require several years of learning to fully understand the jist of what is going on, that is unless it is your second computer language to learn, which (fro you) I doubt.
For the graphics part, I recommended DirectX, simply because even though it can be very complex, it is rather easy to implement, not to mention but several begginning guides already exist. (I'm currently reading one of them)
Truth is, you'll need to do some research on the background of game design/development to truelly understand what you can do. For many years I found myself in a rut, that was untill I learned enough background on program development and design elements that it suddenly clicked.
[back on topic]
DirectX is designed to work especially well with C++; thus, C++ is great for games. Inside of DirectX, you have several driver libraries for several componants of the PC.
- Direct Network - for the networking interface for multiplayer games (not recomended for more than 32 connections though)
- Direct Draw - interface for drawing 2d sprites onto the screen
- Direct 3d - similar to Direct Draw, except used for the development of a 3d engine.
- Direct Sound - inteface for the sound hardware.
Normally, you'd have to do all of that yourself, or find some software which you could implant it yourself.
----------
Now, as others have recomended, it is not a good idea to start of with an mmo. I, however, see that you really want to make a multiplayer game, so I'm gonna recommend that you research making an orpg (100 or less players). An exa,mple of this is the Dungeon Siege multiplayer. You can fully utilize the componants of DirectX and C++/C to learn to get the jist of things, and once your ready, you can go about the creating of a high capacity network interface along with a high capacity server relay system for central player and world tracking. (See how complicated that can be.)