Wikky PWNS at Bones (Episode 6)

Let's expand on some chatter - you'll hear in my video the complaint that I would offer for most independent MMORPGs. A lot of energy is often devoted to game engine and mechanics which is significant in terms of game development.

Graphics, mapping and sound are a major part of the process as your artists are feeding of the energy of creating new and wonderful things for the world to appreciate and this is important too.

What often gets lost in game development is the importance of good writing. This is the thing that separates good games from everything else. We tend to think: throw down a few maps, let people run around, and the game will succeed.

They won't. The failure of most games comes in the lack of dedication to telling a good story. MMOs are more than just games - they are narrative, storytelling, art. What you're trying to do is immerse a whole bunch of people in the grand drama that you're trying to tell. You want them to find their place within the story and the community.

To do this you create narrative arcs. You don't have to have one stream for every player (in an RPG that's okay but in an MMO it's bad). You have to write out the story you want to tell and then give players the opportunity to be overwhelmed by it.

Bones drops you in a bunch of maps and the story is meta. Kayfabe breaking. There is no fourth wall. The story is how I have more stuff than you. How I'm better at vidya games.

Timmy's in the well - but I don't care. All I care about is the reward at the end to put on my paperdoll.

If BU is going to be amazing: make me care about Timmy. Not about how I can't find Timmy. Not about getting lost in a clusterfuck of maps that serve too many purposes so I decide to forget Timmy.

Tell the story of Timmy - and then let me find myself in it.

Then you map.