@surreality said in Making a MU* of your own:
It's also worth mention -- and maybe this is just me thinking too much in 'what I wanna do' terms here -- that I think games continue to be fleshed out more and more the longer they exist.
For example, I want this process to become a part of the game itself, in the current project. I want people to be able to develop unique areas and territories. I'm looking at a variety of means of encouraging this, too, not just before the doors open, but as an active and ongoing process, as a part of normal game operation and play. (Worldwide grid. There's room for this to happen. That choice alone has changed more than a few dynamics from square one, and giving people the freedom to create spaces of their own to whatever extent is a huge one.)
I like the idea of building these things into the game itself -- not just before it's open. I've seen various takes on this, but the amount of it that's most common is still somewhat limited.
Tangent alert: In part, I think people hate on building more than they once did; I 'grew up on' games where you could build a wee sprawl of your own as a territory and develop and encourage play there much more than the typically hyper-restricted and limited stuff I see a lot of in recent years. I also know how much people actively enjoyed that, and it was partly because they were contributing something to the larger reality of the game, but also because it was something that was uniquely theirs.
Way belated and perhaps off topic now.
But this was the process behind Redemption. The fantasy world meets post-apoc future tech world place from nearly a decade ago. It was three main staff, then 6 folks were recruited as faction heads/IC leaders, taken from various places based on how well they could gather a play circle together. The idea was the would control liquid factions that could change, leadership, name, philosophy, they could take over other factions, incorporate other area, etc. etc.
It jumped off to a good start, with two of the three main area factions getting a lot of theme developed by the faction head and a few of the players joining those circles. It started development in December/January of and by that summer it was open for beta (wasn't just invite/word of mouth, still developing) with 120~ chars on a given day come August, top alts were 2-3 I believe. By September was the major crash and the slow decline over the next few years
A few things to take from what we learned, or should have learned, from this. Yes, player input was valuable, it allowed staff to focus on things like the code, the meta, and the larger picture, while players could readily develop as they played along.
It came down to choosing good players at the time that would attract a few players to play with them, and that were active enough that folks would want to join those factions because of the activity. The concept was solid and everyone wanted to play along to see where it went.
The problem, some faction heads were besties with staff (always an issue, alas), and they admitted they wouldn't give up anything, such as allow their char to die, or the IC reigns to pass into other players hands, or their 'territory' to change. This came up in the first staff head/faction head meeting. This drove away two major faction heads when they realized there was nothing to play if it would remain status quo.
I do miss the places players could contribute though, by adding to the grid, or coding objects. I remember the big problem back then, especially related to WoD, was the use of puppets and spying.
It would be good to see another project like this, however.
