Overview

This blog is going to be about everything that makes up a persistant world game. It will, of course, be my opinions - on past, present, and upcoming implementations of these game systems. I realize that as hard as I could try to keep this blog an objective view, I would fail. So instead, I won't try to make it objective. Instead, I will voice my opinions on how things work in the MMOs I see, and what I think they should do instead - or rather, what I'd do - to make the ultimate MMO.

Typically, games can be broken up into a bunch of 'systems' that work together to create the overall gaming experience. Some broad examples are Combat systems, Economic systems, and Social systems. These can have different scope, and some can be broken up into smaller sub-systems. A Crafting system would be a part of the game's overall Economic system, for example. I'll try to make each post about either a specific, small system, or how a few systems interact to create a larger one.

So why start this blog? Frankly, this is a place where I can freely brainstorm and express my thoughts. Over the past couple of years, I've been taking steps to enter the gaming industry professionally, and as I've done this, I've found I've become more and more opinionated when it comes to game systems. I've always dissected games that I've played into their various systems, formulas and algorithms (I'm weird like that), but now I'm looking at it more from a business standpoint. Every game implements things differently and each have differing success. The great ones manage to get a strong set of systems working together, but of course, none have gotten them all perfect - yet. As I mentioned above, it's all opinion. There is no perfect game for everyone. There won't ever be. There can't be. What one person likes, another person hates. There's no way to please everyone. So once again, it's all just in my opinion. That said, as an aspiring game designer with ideas of my own, I am going to try to create something that I believe will be fun. From a business standpoint, it has to appeal to as many people as possible.

While I may end up giving specific details about systems I have in mind, these aren't for any specific project. I don't currently have an MMO planned that will be using anything I talk about here. If you like my ideas and would love to play a game with everything I describe, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you won't see me putting any of this into any games in the near future. Whatever I post here is obviously public domain. If you happen to be making a game yourself, by all means, use my stuff. Just let me know, so I can play it! Or even consider hiring me. You can find my portfolio at http://www.matthewchowns.com I'm always looking for new opportunities.

Feel free to give some feedback on my ideas too, I'd love to see what people think.