raph koster
End-of-Year Eleven: The biggest MMO surprises of 2024
I have not had a good 2024. I have, in fact, had the absolute opposite of that. I feel like I exist now through...
MMO Hype Train: My growing obsession with Stars Reach
As much as I respect Raph Koster for all of his passion and pioneering of MMORPGs, I've rarely crossed paths with his games, notably...
Stars Reach’s new trailer shows significant visual improvement – and a partial list of professions
Late last night, Playable Worlds dropped a new trailer for Raph Koster's incoming MMORPG sandbox Stars Reach, along with an update for its NDA.
As...
Stars Reach is testing its very Star Wars Galaxies-esque ranger skill tree and combat in this weekend’s playtest
Whether or not - and it's probably not - you're in Stars Reach's upcoming playtest, this week's blog post will be of interest to...
Stars Reach talks Unity, AWS, and how it avoids ‘endless bowls of oatmeal’-esque terrain generation
This week's Stars Reach development blog is a bit more granular than previous releases, but gamers who are curious about the tech behind the...
Stars Reach’s technical testing provoked emergent landscaping, player creativity, and the lag monster
Playable Worlds - technical designer Light Bates this time, not Raph Koster - has dished out another dev blog on Stars Reach's pre-alpha playtest....
The Daily Grind: What MMO do you see yourself playing five years from now?
Hey all, it's September 2029! We're just a few months away from the new decade, and against all odds, we're alive and still playing...
Raph Koster shows off Stars Reach’s updated world graphics in new footage
When Playable Worlds first fully revealed Stars Reach to the public earlier this summer, the one sticking point with a certain segment of MMO...
Stars Reach releases video footage of its movement tech from earliest testing to now
When writing up a post about last week's Stars Reach dev blog on character movement, I kept thinking one thing: This article needs a...
Stars Reach previews its pre-alpha cameras and movement, from grappling to sliding
Raph Koster is back with another set of blogs on his upcoming MMORPG sandbox Stars Reach, this batch focusing on something that seems mundane...
Stars Reach begins testing this weekend as Raph Koster talks playstyle and the anti-endgame
Playable Worlds' Raph Koster is continuing his weekly dev blogs about Stars Reach's intended audience this week - though he does say this one...
The Daily Grind: Would you play an MMORPG that limited you to just one character?
When Star Wars Galaxies originally launched back in 2003, it had a rule that was fairly peculiar for its day: Players were limited to...
Vague Patch Notes: Is it time for MMORPGs to start embracing romance?
The other day, I was writing about Baldur's Gate 3 celebrating its anniversary with statistics about all the companions that people have smooched over...
Stars Reach’s Raph Koster on MMO trust, fear, and freedom: ‘We understand how nervous players are about griefing’
Regular MOP readers know that our commenters have already spilled a lot of ink about Raph Koster's in-development MMORPG Stars Reach - and he's...
Raph Koster on designing and defining Stars Reach: ‘The Tragedy of the Commons is a lie’
Playable Worlds' Raph Koster is back with a new dev blog on Stars Reach, and it's not about game design pillars this time; it's...
Stars Reach’s Raph Koster: ‘We’re going into space, and it’s going to be awesome’
Playable Worlds' Raph Koster is back with yet another batch of Stars Reach game pillars, the driving concepts behind the MMORPG sandbox's design. We've...
Stars Reach’s Raph Koster argues that a persistent virtual world is ‘too powerful an idea’ to dismiss
Those watching the online gaming genre with a growing sense of dismay at everything drifting away from large, persistent MMO worlds may find solace...
Raph Koster’s Stars Reach will offer shorter play sessions specifically to boost stickiness
Playable Worlds' lengthy blog post on Stars Reach's middle quad of pillars earlier this week wasn't long enough, or so Raph Koster suggests, as...
Massively Overthinking: When I’m president of video games…
This week's Massively Overthinking is inspired directly by a positively delightful tweet that could totally happen.
"When I'm President Of Video Games, all games will...
Raph Koster aims to make Stars Reach complex but not overcomplicated – and focused on retention
You didn't think Playable Worlds' Raph Koster was going to stop at just two pillars of design for his new sandbox MMORPG Stars Reach,...
