Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Maps and Places to Go
An MMO is usually set in a massive world, as you may remember that MMO
stands for Massively Multiplayer Online game. This is to give the players many
different places to visit and give the game designer the room to create an
interesting story across these areas. MMOs host many hundreds or even
thousands of players on the same servers at the same time. Having all of
these people next to each other on-screen would be very busy and confusing for
your players. This would also be a nightmare for the game as the amount of
communication between the client and server would be very high and would
cause the game to stutter. The characters on-screen might not move immediately
when the players press the keys on the keyboard. This delay is called server lag
and is very detrimental to a game player
'
s opinion of an MMO or any online
game.
Because there are many places a player can visit, it is important that the game
have a map that the player can refer to. Usually there are two levels of maps
—
the first is a continent or world map. The second map is a local area map; this
shows the location of NPCs and areas of interest. You can see an example of a
map that is provided in Realm Crafter in Figure 2.3.
There is one final map that a user might have while playing an MMO game, and
that is a mini-map. A mini-map is a small map that is usually situated on the
bottom-left or right of
the screen and shows close players, NPCs, and
objectives.
Death
As Benjamin Franklin once wrote, in this world nothing can be said to be
certain, except for death and taxes. In MMOs, death is almost a certainty within
the game, and there are a number of ways to handle what happens next.
When the players die in some MMOs, they become ghosts and are placed in a
nearby graveyard. They then have to get back to the body of their character to
revive them. This is particularly risky if the creature who killed them is still
nearby, as it
s possible that the player could be killed a second time by the same
creature when collecting their possessions. Once the player has been revived,
they may have some form of penalty, such as damaged armor or a timed
affliction that will reduce the players
'
'
stats for a short period of time.
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