How to Craft a Great Multiplayer Experience
polycounter lvl 19
Heya...
I wrote a white paper for Threewave about 6 months and it was just recently published @ GameDaily.com's business section. I've reposted it at my website (with permission) and figured I'd share it with you guys.
You can check it out here.
I wrote about 75% of the document and did the majority of its research. Threewave specializes in multi-player design & content and wanted to have our ideologies of a great experience written down. I researched the experiences for about a week and spoke with a number of people from different studios to get their thoughts on multiplayer as well. The article is a culmination of all ideas, thoughts, and theory on what makes for a great multiplayer experience.
Enjoy!
I wrote a white paper for Threewave about 6 months and it was just recently published @ GameDaily.com's business section. I've reposted it at my website (with permission) and figured I'd share it with you guys.
You can check it out here.
I wrote about 75% of the document and did the majority of its research. Threewave specializes in multi-player design & content and wanted to have our ideologies of a great experience written down. I researched the experiences for about a week and spoke with a number of people from different studios to get their thoughts on multiplayer as well. The article is a culmination of all ideas, thoughts, and theory on what makes for a great multiplayer experience.
Enjoy!
Replies
Did you ever research live events?
On the NWN/NWN2 mod I am involved with we have done live world changing events where players were responsible for doing quests that would change the course of the server.
One example is an event where I built a series of levels for a war we wanted to cut loose on the players. The invasion started on the coast and the invaders worked there way inland to destroy our capital city. We then ran an event where the players had to mine resources that we tracked on the website in order for the city to be rebuilt.
We coordinated it with lots of DM interaction and raids on guild halls. Not sure you have used the DM interface in NWN but its like getting to play RTS vs. real players. (Very fun).
The players worked hard to repel the invaders and collected resources for the new city.
Anyway it was a blast and our server pop was at max 24/7 for the entire 2 week duration the event ran. They eventually collected enough supplies for us to add in the new city. We kept adding small variations to the city to make the transition.
Its hard for me to play regular MMOs anymore because they lack dynamic on the fly events/interactions. Even just dropping a bunch of destructible boulders and a pack of appropriately leveled bad guys on a unsuspecting group of adventurers make the experience so much more immersive and unique.
Anyway just wanted to get some thoughts on live events.