The mandate of our site is usually limited to Massively Multiplayer Games. Beyond that scope is an increasing number of virtual worlds built for very different purposes than pure hack and slash gaming. Education, socialization, even military training is occurring in virtual spaces nowadays. For text worlds this isn’t news at all. Text-based MUDs, MUSHes and MUCKs have been used for purposes other than gaming almost as long as there have been text based world. Graphical worlds are another matter. Today I’m going to take a moment to talk about the realities of virtual worlds with nary an elf or alien in sight.

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When it comes to rolling your own campaign setting in a table-top game, my favorite part has always been creating the geography of the world. Massively Multiplayer Game developers have similar goals when the work on a setting begins. Decisions that seem trivial may have a lasting impact on the world once it is populated with players. Today I’ll discuss issues of zone design, flow, and the effects of those decisions on players.

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Beyond a choice of setting, the most fundamental decision that you can make about a virtual world is the level of persistence that the world will use. By persistence, I refer to the level of continuity that the world exhibits. In the real world, a broken vase is forever broken. Not so in many virtual worlds. In fact, epic life events in the lives of NPCs are often repeated…daily. Yesterday, in Qeynos Hills I was hanging out with my pal Martin Sayer. I returned to him his son, taken by the gnoll Lord Elgnub. In return he gave me the powerful sword Gnoll Slayer, which he’d been hanging on to for years. I was leaving the smithy Sayer runs when I heard, behind me, another player … returning Sayer his son. The Gnoll Slayer may be no-drop, but it is not unique. Today, I’m discussing continuity within virtual worlds, and the level of persistence they exhibit.

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