If You Build It Right, They Will Come

A very amateur writer/designer/programmer opines on what does and doesn't work in MMOs, as well as shares his thoughts and progress on development of his own 2D side-scrolling MMORPG (using Netgore).

Author: Savant

I've been playing MMOs off-and-on for almost 15 years now, dating all the way back to when Ultima Online was the only real commercial-grade MMORPG out there. Since those days, even at times in my life when an online game didn't fit into my schedule, I have continued to follow the MMORPG world via websites like MMORPG.com and Massively.

MMOs have come a long way since those early UO days. The choices are much more abundant and varied since the late-90s UO/EQ1/AC1 toss-up. In addition to the smattering of high fantasy, Western-style MMORPGs on the market, we have games based on other genres and settings to select from, including Eastern-flavored Asian imports and post-apocalyptic offerings. Even the appending three letters to "MMO" have variety now (MMORPG, MMORTS, MMOFPS, etc.).

But as anyone who's followed the MMO meta-realm the last several years will tell you, the burgeoning MMO market is rife with crappy games, and not all attempts at procuring a slice of the MMO pie have been successful, even for big budget games like Auto Assault and Asheron's Call 2.

Given the buzz around the current and future state of MMOs, I present to you this blog, which will document my thoughts on what key aspects make an MMO successful (or unsuccessful, as the case may be). I also wish to catalog my own MMO-building experiences, as I begin my journey towards carving my own niche in MMO space. These two processes go hand-in-hand, and hopefully, the ideas on good MMO components I post will help me to construct a better game in the end. That's the goal, anyway!

So feel free to stop in, read what's here, and share your own thoughts. Hopefully, there will even be something for you to log into before too long!