[MUD-Dev] [OT] Hi all an first time MMORPG designer tries to get inthe loop

[Brian Lindahl]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 20:56:59 +0100 
Sam Byard <Sam.byard at ntlworld.com> wrote:

>  states this mailing list is active with already renound designers
>  and I was hoping to draw from your influence and not manage to
>  make any critical mistakes in my first development.

The most critical mistake you can make as a designer is to not
commit to a particular genre. This means either picking an emphasis
on roleplaying or an emphasis on action and achievement. Choosing to
align yourself with one of these will make descions a lot easier and
will better define the vision for the game - a lack of vision can
cause great discontinuity in the world where some features will
promote roleplaying while others will promote achievement. I assume
this is a for-profit venture and thus, you will most likely be going
the achievement route - due to the much larger market. The most
important part of achievement MMORPGs is balance, IMO. Without
balance, the majority of the playerbase (driven to achieve) will
only explore minimal content that is designed for your world - thus
wasting a large portion of your efforts. This is because the entire
goal of the game is to achieve - thus players will follow the path
of least resistance to meet such goal. Although balance is not easy,
and you will be forever fighting to achieve a better balance, by
defining one of the main goals of your project's vision as balance -
it should be in the forefront of the minds of developers and thus
will save you major adjustments down the road (don't assume the
number of these will be eliminated, however). Full collaboration on
the part of developers will be essential to maintaining balance. If
each developer goes off and works on his or her sets of modules
individually (even if they have a well-defined interface with each
other) it will be a nightmare trying to put the pieces together in
such a way that supports the vision of balance - and would put the
project in a state of severe risk.

If I am wrong about your direction and you intend on going the
roleplaying route, I have much more to say on this topic - so let me
know. In many ways designing a roleplaying game is much easier from
a development standpoint - the only major time investment after the
release date will be related to developing the plotline and story,
not developing and tweaking for balance (something that is a bit
more abstract and difficult to master). However, like designing an
achievement MMORPG, a large amount of planning must be done for a
successful project. Instead of balance, the focus needs to be on
story. Don't even think about designing the system for the
developers to begin on until the world is completely coherent. Every
aspect of the world should be designed well before the development
phase. The world should dictate the system in this type of MMORPG -
and definately not the other way around. The goal is immersion -
where each little piece of the system reflects the world the players
expect to see continuity in.

A fatal flaw of designing a MMORPG is not choosing one of the above
paths and sticking too it. The goals of a roleplaying MMORPG and an
achievement MMORPG are conflicting in many areas and having a
blurred vision and goal between balance and world will only put the
project at risk - something that MMORPGs definately do not need more
of, the risk is already very high (countless numbers of MMORPGs have
failed well into development).

Note that the above ideas reflect my own personal opinions, but I
have followed this field for the past 8 years so I consider myself
to be quite knoweldgeable in MMORPG and MUD development. If you wish
to hear more about my opinion on either path for desigining a
MMORPG, feel free to ask away - I have plenty to say (although time
is not as plenty).

Brian Lindahl
Development Director
The Cathyle Project
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