Cultivating Your MMO Ideas - Wizards and Warriors: Massively Multiplayer Online Game Creation - page 45

to make an MMO or we are making an FPS (First Person Shooter). Try
not to give too many details, as you want people to give random ideas,
rather than be selective based on what you have presented to them. For
example, if you say, “ we want to make an MMO, maybe in medieval

times, the brainstorm session will likely follow the path that you have

suggested. If you don

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' t have any idea at this time of what game you will

t make any particular suggestion at the start.
n End: Ensure you have an end time for your brainstorming session. If
you are doing this on your own, you can select short or long
brainstorming sessions, whatever best suits you. If people have travelled a
long way, you may want to have a number of sessions in a day, broken
up by coffee/lunch breaks.
n Post brainstorming: Ensure that the initial brainstorming session notes
are given to everyone who attended the meeting at a later stage.
It is impolite to get people to take the time to give input, and then
not provide them with a set of meeting notes within a few days of the
meeting.

make, don '

Note

You can brainstorm at different times throughout the development of the game. If you have already
decided to make a particular type of game, for example, you might need to brainstorm about the
introduction. In this case, it should be the particular subject that you are brainstorming about. An
example of this could be that you have decided to create an MMO about robots that have taken
over a planet, and you can take the role of a human or a robot. You need at this point to
brainstorm about the goal or purpose of the robots on the planet.

Playing Games
While brainstorming, it is recommended you play some games. Playing other
games is a good way of coming up with new ideas and concepts. You could be
playing a particular game, for example a game about jousting. By playing this
game you suddenly get a game concept for a game that involves horse battles.
The game idea might not even be in the same genre, but sometimes a small idea
can quickly grow into a full game.