Cultivating Your MMO Ideas - Wizards and Warriors: Massively Multiplayer Online Game Creation - page 60

Note

If you are struggling to come up with different character names for the NPCs within your game, you
can always use the Internet. There are many websites, such as baby-naming sites, that can be quite
useful when thinking up different names. When you try to think of names on your own, it is very
easy to end up with all surnames beginning with the same letter or with the first names being too
similar. It is also a good idea to not use famous people s names for your characters. Many writers

use software or even write their own name-generation system, whereby you can enter lots of first
name and surnames and then click on a button to generate a new name.

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Adding World Items
You need your worlds to be populated with items that the player can use, as well
as items that make these worlds more believable. Some items that the player can
pick up could be combined to make other items or have a resell value (which can
make the player some money). The sort of items you should consider in your
worlds might fall under the following categories:

n Weapons: Most (but not all) MMOs contain fighting, be it with aliens,
robots, creatures, or zombies, so you will need to have something to fight
the hoards with. In some cases, you can combine weapons or have
different ammunition to make them more effective.
n Armor and clothing: Wearing items can change the look of a character
(and make your world seem less monotonous) while giving the player
the opportunity to find unique items from quests. Clothing can also be a
useful modifier in terms of providing protection when attacking or
defending against other creatures/characters. Some armor will be heavier
to wear but provide good protection, whereas other armor will provide
less protection but will be lighter and allow the players to run around
the world for longer/faster.
n Food: Food can be used to good effect in your MMO games. First, it can
be used to increase health and other player stats. Recovering particular
stats such as health is an approach used in many MMOs, or you could
also make it increase a stat to higher than its normal level (to a
maximum amount).