[MUD-Dev2] Specialization

[Joshua Clausen]

John Buehler said:
Heh.  When I go through design exercises, I don't even consider the 
emotional angle.  I assume that any emotional involvement that players have 
will be with each other's antics, not that of the game itself.  As you say, 
it's a mess trying to ensure that a given player is presented with just the 
right experiences to walk him or her to an emotional destination of the 
designer's choosing.





It strikes me that the above indicates a distinction between "design during 
development" and "design during production".  Working on the post-launch, 
production end of an existing MMO that is around 6 years old now, the 
stories in the game when it was created have become so, well, old that they 
are no longer relevant.  The stories and characters have completely become 
tools in their emotional connection with players.  What is left are the more 
fundamental mechanics and game systems that allow for players to generate 
their own specific reasons to play - in our case, it's the PvP and emergent 
politics.

I think it brings up the topic of what is really happening in the 
pre-release development phase of a game and the ongoing post-launch 
development.  In my opinion, the initial development really creates an 
engine that allows post-release staff to observe how players actually bahave 
in the game and be able to effectively respond with story development and 
quest arcs.  To me, the post-launch phase of the game seems to present the 
real meaty opportunities to grab the player by their emotional heart 
strings; and more and more it seems to be a very distinct, almost 
independent aspect of MMO design.