Saturday, September 27, 2008

TKO



Credit to Perry Bible Fellowship.

World of Warcraft attracts a lot of attention from the game industry. Why shouldn't it (and I'm not just saying that because I'm a recovering addict)? It's a massive title with a massive following. Regardless of how you feel about it, nobody can deny that it has (and will continue to for many years) a huge influence on the game industry. Every seminar that I attend and a frighteningly large proportion of articles that I read reference it in some capacity. Love it or hate it, it's here to stay.

On the topic of MMO design, I came upon an interview of two very bright developers: Ed Stark and Dave Williams. Some very good points arise, including just about every RPG gamers wet-dream: being able to have a "discernible, integrated" (Credit to Rules of Play) and persistent effect on a persistent world. Being able to actually destroy a town in an MMO, slay a world leader, or save a captured champion for good.

From the traditional model of game design: Create content and watch your players consume it in a fraction of the time it took to make, this seems impossible. As always, times are changing. I believe that player-generated content is the next major leap in great game design. Second life has taken a step in the right direction, but there is a long way to go. With a push in the right direction, and game designers providing the right tools, environments and motivations to players, these games can have, effectively, infinite content (what publisher/investor doesn't get turned on by that?). Keep an eye out for the next indie MMO that does just that. Heck, maybe it's already out there and I just haven't found it yet.

Edit: I know a lot of designers out there disagree with me. Good storytelling needs to result in change, which is a total nightmare in the MMO world, pretty much to the point where a true MMO narrative cant explicitly designed by the development team. Have faith in your fans designers, I'm going to trust my instincts on this one.

3 comments:

Colin Sanders said...

Update your damn site.

Jon Hinchley said...

Hey! I didn't know you had a blag!

Tyler Moore said...

yes, yes I do :D