I have some good news and bad news. The bad news is that Raph Koster’s Stars Reach is probably a good long while away for everyone but lucky pre-alpha testers. The good news is that means we’re in for a whole lot of dev blogs and videos about the game along the way, the latest of which enumerates some of the MMORPG sandbox’s core game pillars.
“We didn’t just come up with these out of the blue,” Playable Worlds’ Koster cautions. “These were based on doing market research, looking at what things players have been asking for, what things have been missing from MMOs for a long time, and so on. It was also based on dreams about what is possible now, with current technology. MMOs have been kind of stagnant, we feel. Back when I was working on Ultima Online we were dreaming of fully simulated worlds, worlds that could react to player actions. Instead, we have kind of settled into a mode where we as developers tend to make theme park rides for players, little canned experiences they run through, rather than alternate worlds.”
Specifically, here are some of Stars Reach’s first pillars:
- It will be “the Most Alive Online World Ever Created” – which means “economic and environmental simulation” underpinning the game, with everyone “interconnected into a living society” and a world that reacts to everything players do.
- “The game will run off simulation” – Here, Koster aims to avoid “stagecraft” themepark design and focus on a genuine simulation that leads to emergent gameplay and a “playful attitude to the game,” all tempered with the understanding that “realism is often not very fun,” so the devs focus on gameplay that leads to fun outcomes.
- “The game will be a true persistent state world” – meaning the studio will create “pride of place” with a persistent single shard, where players aren’t just “mov[ing] through the environent” but planting roots, shaping the planets, and crafting the kind of game history that generated the nostalgia veteran MMORPG players feel toward the genre’s earliest entries.
- “The game will be driven by player community and interdependence” – Finally, Playable Worlds hopes to harness strong and weak social ties to improve retention and lessen the impact of celebrity players; interdependence isn’t just about trade but about guilds, planetary governments, player cities, housing, and all the things that “[make] you less likely to want to leave.”
Further reading since the game’s official announcement:
• Stars Reach has wiped its pre-alpha and revamped for a (hopefully) less messy testing experience
• Stars Reach talks Kickstarter test access, world resets, player governance, and player-made contracts
• Stars Reach’s final Kickstarter haul inches past $750,000, unlocking the shield generators stretch goal
• Stars Reach Kickstarter ends with over $750K raised – plus fresh investment and a new vampire species
• Stars Reach hits $650K in crowdfunding and unlocks a construction overhaul for player builders
• Stars Reach adds procedural creature variance, combat updates, and new mining tweaks in latest build
• MMORPG sandbox Stars Reach previews its procedural planet generation tech
• Over the weekend, Stars Reach crowdfunding topped $600K and unlocked the rollerblading Fae species
• As its Kickstarter nears $600K, Stars Reach aims to feature reactive music – but maybe not voice acting
• The Stream Team: Getting a taste of seasons and events in Stars Reach’s pre-alpha
• Massively Overthinking: Toxic positivity in the land of MMORPGs
• Stars Reach’s Raph Koster discusses plans for outer space and ‘full-blown sandbox MMO’ mechanics
• Stars Reach begins testing accelerated seasons and the public event system
• You can cosplay as Princess Leia in Stars Reach if it collects 5000 Kickstarter backers
• Stars Reach passes $550K on Kickstarter and unlocks a detailed guild alliance system
• Stars Reach teases adorable retro bug people for its newly unlocked species
• Stars Reach’s Kickstarter broke half a million dollars already, deep-dives the fishy princess Hansian species
• Stars Reach Kickstarter hits $450K, unlocks crafting appearance customization as devs say headstart isn’t P2W
• Stars Reach crosses $400,000 pledged and unlocks waterworld Hansian species
• Raph Koster’s Stars Reach has launched its $200,000 crowdfunding campaign (and now it’s fully funded)
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on Stars Reach’s origin story and his goal to create ‘an alternate reality’
• Stars Reach: ‘We’re not gonna break the economy for the sake of the Kickstarter’
• Stars Reach reschedules its Kickstarter launch for February 25
• Stars Reach has delayed its Kickstarter to get more testers in ahead of the campaign
• ‘We are designing it to last for decades’: Stars Reach is hoping for ‘a few hundred thousand players’
• Raph Koster offers a high-level overview of what Stars Reach is and what you’ll do in it
• Stars Reach lays out its four major Kickstarter tiers, including one where you can design a planet
• The Stream Team: A first live peek at the pre-alpha build of Stars Reach
• Mining in Stars Reach looks to be an exercise in prospecting, planning, and real-world mineral knowledge
• Stars Reach expands its pre-alpha to Kickstarter followers, begins refinery skill branch testing
• Vague Patch Notes: The unsettling optics of the Stars Reach Kickstarter
• Working As Intended: Stars Reach could be the demographic revolution MMORPGs need
• Raph Koster’s Stars Reach MMORPG is launching a Kickstarter in February – and could launch as early as 2026
• MassivelyOP’s 2024 Awards: Most Anticipated MMO
• MMO Hype Train: My growing obsession with Stars Reach
• Stars Reach unveils the earliest stages of its player housing homesteading system
• Stars Reach says it ‘heard you loud and clear on graphics improvements’
• Stars Reach’s new trailer shows significant visual improvement – and a partial list of professions
• Stars Reach moves its pre-alpha testing from single worlds to multiple worlds
• Stars Reach is dropping ‘a sense of pride and accomplishment’ trophies in tester inventories
• Stars Reach is testing its very Star Wars Galaxies-esque ranger skill tree and combat in this weekend’s playtest
• Stars Reach’s world reshaping tool test rewarded curious players with ‘spectacular’ death
• Stars Reach’s skill tree system seeks to let players ‘gain experience by being useful’
• Stars Reach talks Unity, AWS, and how it avoids ‘endless bowls of oatmeal’-esque terrain generation
• Stars Reach’s technical testing provoked emergent landscaping, player creativity, and the lag monster
• Raph Koster shows off Stars Reach’s updated world graphics in new footage
• Stars Reach releases video footage of its movement tech from earliest testing to now
• Stars Reach previews its pre-alpha cameras and movement, from grappling to sliding
• Stars Reach begins testing this weekend as Raph Koster talks playstyle and the anti-endgame
• Stars Reach’s Raph Koster on MMO trust, fear, and freedom: ‘We understand how nervous players are about griefing’
• Raph Koster on designing and defining Stars Reach: ‘The Tragedy of the Commons is a lie’
• Stars Reach’s Raph Koster: ‘We’re going into space, and it’s going to be awesome’
• Stars Reach’s Raph Koster argues that a persistent virtual world is ‘too powerful an idea’ to dismiss
• Raph Koster’s Stars Reach will offer shorter play sessions specifically to boost stickiness
• Raph Koster aims to make Stars Reach complex but not overcomplicated – and focused on retention
• Raph Koster lays out the (first) four pillars of design for his sandbox MMORPG Stars Reach
• Vague Patch Notes: The stuff that has me excited about Stars Reach
• Here’s how the ‘cellular automata simulation’ in Raph Koster’s new sandbox MMORPG Stars Reach works
• Raph Koster’s new MMORPG is called Stars Reach, and yes, it’s basically Star Wars Galaxies 2
