[MUD-Dev] MMORPG: where to start for making and running a game

[Oliver Smith]

Lee Sheldon

> I'm also curious about "...you can't simply cobble together a
> bunch of single-player game-developers and make an MMO..." My
> perception is that quite a few of those on the development team
> are MMO veterans (as much as you can be a veteran in this type of
> game), many from UO. Several are members of this list. I know
> we're not going to get any real figures about the number of people
> playing, but I'd love to hear from somebody if this statement of
> single-player predominance is accurate.

> Why? Because it suggests a prejudice. Does single-player
> experience = low quality MMO? Are MUDs or tabletop the only
> possible training grounds for developers of MMOs?

Well, I think Dr Bartle's book quite adequately describes why some
backgrounding - if not necessarily experience - with MMOs is
desirable if not necessary to launch yourself commercially into the
MMO market at this point.

The notion of non-prevalence of prior-MMO staff on the SWG team is
drawn from comments by Mr Koster himself on the SWG forums (such as
blaming the design of missions on "not many of the team [having]
worked on multiplayer games before"); I'm no-longer able to
search/access the SWG forums or I'd try and dig up some of the posts
for you.

And again, "quite a few" would need to be scaled against the overall
size of the team.

With regards to suggesting it is some kind of prejudice... That's a
rather odd accusation. The two types of game are significantly
different and require very different approaches, almost arguably
related by distinct disciplines. Moving from one to the other means
a learning curve. The more of your team on the curve, the more
mistakes you're going to encounter over your project's development
time.

I think Dr Bartle's book covers this rather adequately in the first
chapter.
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