Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

C H A P T E R 8
frameworks and toward taking the big plunge in developing all of their MMOG from
scratch. This route, as we’ve said, can be devastating to timelines and budgets.
If you choose to write your own MMOG engine, the cost and time impact could
be so steep that by the time the technology is stable, your content idea or game
content direction may have lost some of its original appeal due to competitors.
Preparing for the construction of an MMOG title requires serious preparation, market
study, and technology evaluation. If there are no trade secret or disclosure issues
applicable, it can be a serious advantage to have your MMOG construction plans
subjected to a peer review by other developers with experience crafting MMOGs.
MMOG DESIGN FACTORS
We’ve seen how technical considerations shape design decisions. Now it’s time to
look at several of the design factors that play a part in building, enhancing, and maintaining
MMOG content. Again, this is the newest and largest technology and design
area to challenge game developers everywhere. If we’re looking for comfortable
MMOG design rules to lean on, they are still being written. Every developer is looking
for answers to design issues (and not just for MMOGs!). Every developer is trying
to understand how to best challenge and engage players in an MMOG setting using
all the strengths (and none of the weaknesses) of the platform. No one really wants to
simply repeat the same game ideas that worked well in non-MMOGs. Some of those
ideas are an utter mismatch for the MMOG platform in any case.
In this section, we’re going to focus on some of the critical design factors that
affect the development of any kind of MMOG. These issues tend to apply across the
board, and are not necessarily genre specific.
Latency
Latency, as mentioned earlier, is one of the biggest problems designers face in doing
anything interesting (in a fast action sense) game-wise. This is why character-driven
MMOG titles or MMORPGs work so well. Notice that the successful characterdriven
MMOG designs emphasize what the MMOG platform can do well, rather
than what developers wish the platform would do well. This is smart design. There is
combat in these titles, but it’s not the kind of combat fast-action game players will
probably appreciate. How about other genre extension into the MMOG? Why don’t
we see MMOG sports, racing, shooters, and so forth? Real-time operations, judgments,
calculations, and latency don’t mix very well at all.
Due to latency issues, the best MMOGs avoid trying to do “twitch” game features,
because it’s too difficult and the results are less than impressive. Remember
also that your game players or clients are connected to your game server at different
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Design Considerations for Massively Multiplayer Online Games