Putting It All Together - Wizards and Warriors: Massively Multiplayer Online Game Creation - page 276

n Past events: A game world generally doesn

t just appear, it has a past, a
history. This history can explain why things are like they are today and
why certain factions don

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t like each other. Telling this history is not easy;
some games build on the game

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s history as they release further versions,
whereas others releases large amounts of written material to tell the story.
n Future events: Having knowledge of what is going to happen in the
future is very important in a game. You may not be initially thinking
about the future as you are creating your MMO, but as an MMO creator
you will need to be creating additional content. This might mean events
taking place that you didn

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t originally plan for. Creating a game timeline
(a list of events from the past, today, and in the future) is a good way of
planning where your game might go next.
n Animal bestiary: Creating a list of creatures and animals for your game
is a very important step in its design, but also for helping you create an
interesting world. You can also use the bestiary to help create a list of
creatures that you use to design/model the game as well as to help write
the back-story. For example, if you decide you will have a river troll in
your game, consider why it exists, where it lives, and what it eats. All of
these questions will be important when you begin to place these objects
in the game world and decide their faction rating (if they should attack
the players or not).

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Prototyping
Prototyping is creating something to see if it will work. This could be a simple game
mechanic to a particular screen or level in the game. Prototyping is very useful as it
allows you to test small parts of your game without needing to make it all first and
then suddenly realize that what you designed isn

' t actually going to work.

With your MMO you should be continually creating prototypes to see if the
various aspects of your game work and work well together.

Script Building
One thing is certain when creating an MMO and it

s true in Realm Crafter also,
and that is you will need to build many scripts. These scripts will range from
improved inventory systems to chat and battle routines. There are some basic

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