Do MMORPG creators build backwards?

Comments

• Forcan Member UncommonPosts: 700

  May 2007

  Originally posted by Lonewolf
  
  I have always wondered this, playing the many many MMORPG's I have I always wondered if it would be a more sensible idea to start with the end game content first and then work your way back to the starting zones.
  
  
  
  Doing this would mean the endgame is polished and worthy of playing too. On the flip side the starting zones may suffer and people may be put off when they initially play
  
  
  
  Maybe they should build the end zone and starting zones initially and then fill in the middle
  
  
  
  Anyone have any ideas?

  Building backwards... you mean to start with what kind of end-game contents they wanted to be in game, and design it from that and the gradually goes back to the starting areas?
  
  
  
  Do you mean end-game contents like PvP? RvR? Raid? or all of those?
  
  
  
  It's an interesting way of design, and it might be good.  I'm just wondering what kind of MMOs you expect them to use this method of designing?

  Current MMO: FFXIV:ARR

  Past MMO: Way too many (P2P and F2P)
• Lonewolf Member UncommonPosts: 252

  May 2007

  Well obviously existing games and games already in development can't adopt this approach, but it always seem to make sense to me to make the starting zones and endgame zones first as they have the largest impact on people
  
  
  
  Because of WoW more people expect to reach the endgame quicker, within 2 months, the old MMORPG's it could sometimes take you over half a year to a year to hit the level cap, with that there is more attention needed to end game design.
  
  
  
  I just think working initially on the endgame of an MMORPG will allow it to be more polished, whether its raiding, PvP or RvR
  
  
  
  I think WAR has the right idea at the moment
• Nazrohn Member Posts: 3

  May 2007

  Endgame and MMO seem a contradiction to me, but I'll take your meaning as:
  
  the Goal Areas -- those locations that either have the highest potential population, or are the locations that the content designers want players to reach as goals (and where goals can be accomplished).
  
  
  
  if this be your meaning - than I think I agree, completely, with your 'natural' production approach.
  
  (let the filler be filler and not the focus, if filler is filled in at all)
  
  
  
          
  
  
  
  Oh, and I think I might have heard of quite a few titles planned out this way.
• gpett Member Posts: 1,105

  May 2007

  Games are not really built in this fashion.  The level designers design and polish the levels.  The artists create the models.  The animators animate the models.  The quest scripters are constantly trying to think of which quests and npcs to  fit where.
  
  
  
  So, at the begining of development, end game content and newb level content is more or less worked on at the same time.  But, to support your cause.. yes the newb content is polished off first. just because that is where testers start and that is where most of the bugs are submitted.
  
  
  
  So, it is very easy to test the newb content cause every tester that starts up the game and hammers the begining content.  So as the game progresses more and more things slip through the crack of the content testers test.
  
  
  
  So the quality of the content is more directly related to the testers, which content they test, and the bugs they submit.  Programmers are more likely to fix bugs at newb area content because producers (the guys that decide which bugs get "featured" and which bugs are to be fixed) know that more players will see those areas.
• Mordacai Member Posts: 309

  May 2007

  As for us, we started with both character creation experience and combat. If its not fun, then nobody is going to play it. This was before we even started coding a single piece of the game, we literally started making paper (old pen and paper roleplay) characters and testing them out in a combat environment. If it was fun to create them at that level it ought to be much better in a computer environement. Same goes for combat, tons of games out there have balance issues, if balance is inherently built into the concept from inception then it makes sense that by the time we have and end product its ought to be pretty darn stable. IMHO.

  http://www.forceofarms.com/index.php