Raph Koster isn’t done talking about Star Wars Galaxies yet, and that’s good news for fans, aspiring designers, or really anyone who realizes that MMORPGs can do more.
Koster’s latest blog post focuses on Galaxies‘ dynamic world, which he describes as ahead of its time given its detail, complexity, and the fact that DVD drives weren’t widespread when the title shipped in 2003. “A huge part of the ‘living world’ quality of Galaxies came down to the idea that we shouldn’t necessarily know what was in our world,” Koster writes. “That it should be surprising us, as well as the players.”
In a nutshell, Koster and the rest of SOE’s design team opted for a system that was sorta like “marrying Photoshop layers with procedural generation.” It’s far more complex, of course, and you can read all the details at Koster’s blog.
[Source: SWG’s dynamic world]
