Jessica Mulligan, the Executive Producer at Nevrax, has penned for us an English-language exclusive developer journal on player-controlled content in the upcoming Ryzom Ring expansion pack.
;) For years, players of massively-multiplayer online games (MMOs) have been asking – nay, begging – for the ability to actually affect the story and landscape of an MMO world. They want to make a difference by building and running quests, populating new maps with buildings and NPCs and missions, build out Guild spaces with more than just a pre-fab house, have a chance at having their stories integrated into the world’s overall story arc. In short, players want to have some control of how the world is shaped, grows and changes.
Damn near every online game already has these tools in some form; they just restrict them to the developers by making sure that only developers can use them. Sure, some tools require more knowledge to use than the average gamer possesses, such as using a scripting language, but many tools can be easily handed off to players with some simple modifications. Now, that list might look like a lot, but is that really so much to ask for, when most of the tools are already built? |
You can read her article here.
