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Designing Virtual Worlds is the most comprehensive treatment of virtual world design to-date from one of the true pioneers and most sought-after design consultants. It's a tour de force of VW design, stunning in intellectual scope, spanning the literary, economic, sociological, psychological, physical, technological, and ethical underpinnings of design, while providing the reader with a deep, well-grounded understanding of VW design principles. It covers everything from MUDs to MOOs to MMORPGs, from text-based to graphical VWs.
Designing Virtual Worlds brings a rich, well-developed approach to the design concepts behind virtual worlds. It is grounded in the earliest approaches to such designs, but the examples discussed in the book run the gamut from the earliest MUDs to the present-day MMORPG games mentioned above. It teaches the reader the actual, underlying design principles that many designers do not understand when they borrow or build from previous games. There is no other design book on the market in the area of online games and virtual worlds that provides the rich detail, historical context, and conceptual depth of Designing Virtual Worlds.
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Designing Virtual Worlds is the most comprehensive treatment of virtual world design to-date from one of the true pioneers and most sought-after design consultants. It's a tour de force of VW design, stunning in intellectual scope, spanning the literary, economic, sociological, psychological, physical, technological, and ethical underpinnings of design, while providing the reader with a deep, well-grounded understanding of VW design principles. It covers everything from MUDs to MOOs to MMORPGs, from text-based to graphical VWs.
Designing Virtual Worlds brings a rich, well-developed approach to the design concepts behind virtual worlds. It is grounded in the earliest approaches to such designs, but the examples discussed in the book run the gamut from the earliest MUDs to the present-day MMORPG games mentioned above. It teaches the reader the actual, underlying design principles that many designers do not understand when they borrow or build from previous games. There is no other design book on the market in the area of online games and virtual worlds that provides the rich detail, historical context, and conceptual depth of Designing Virtual Worlds.
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Much of the book is a detailed analysis of each aspect of a virtual world - ways to classify player types, how to model objects and their properties, ethical considerations, skill systems vs. class systems, and so on. Dr Bartle's semi-formal style works well, being neither a lofty pronouncement shouted down from an ivory tower or a populist rant from a jaded and biased player, but a considered middle ground from someone who has 'been there' and hopes to improve the status quo. Most of the observations ring true, and unlike the naive "why don't games just do XYZ?" suggestions that constantly plague online forums, they also carry the weight of practicality. Amusing footnotes make the book a pleasure to read, and also provide many valuable links to external sources for further research.
Where this book falls down however, is where the author lets his personal bias show through. He espouses strong opinions on what virtual worlds actually are and why players enter them, and then continues to use these definitions to refute the opinions of others, as if his assertions were indisputable fact. Another way in which the bias shows is in the amount of detail regarding the various subject areas: fewer than 20 pages are devoted to combat - arguably one of the most important aspects to many world designers - compared to 30 pages on how Gender Studies relates to virtual worlds. In one section, Dr Bartle warns designers of the dangers of 'selective depth', where parts of the game are made to appear too important by the designers having spent too much time adding to detail pertaining to that aspect, neglecting others. It can be argued that he has made this very mistake with this book.
So in summary, if you are looking for a tome that covers all kinds of virtual worlds, and forces you to look at both the deeper and wider issues regarding them, this is the book for you. However, if you are just looking to start up a new MMORPG and wanted some hints on the gameplay detail, this book will still help you, but probably not in the way you had hoped for.
Even for those who are primarily players, not designers, this is a great read. Bartle's often witty and clearly-written text makes the book accessible to those with little technical expertise, and he manages to be both entertaining and informative.
Anyone studying virtual worlds from an academic -- rather than a commercial -- perspective will find chapter 7 ("Towards a Critical Aesthetic") very helpful; Bartle goes through a number of different disciplines (literary theory, psychology, education) and explains how virtual worlds could fit into them.
I'd recommend this as an essential text for anyone involved in designing commercial MMORPGs -- having a good grasp of underlying design concepts is surely worth many times the price of the book. However, it would also be a really interesting read for many players, particularly those with a view towards designing their own games, or those keen to examine virtual worlds in an academic light.
There isn't any code, but Mr. Bartle covers the entire spectrum of the online Virtual World from start to finish. The style of the book is very philosophical in nature, discussing and detailing a problem, then offering what seems to be all possible solutions... and the problems those solutions are likely to spawn. In the final analysis, you have to make the decision as to which solution you will implement. Some of these decisions are not easy at all.
I'm an experienced MUD player and programmer, and I had my own ideas regarding the direction I wanted to go to create the "ultimate" MUD using my own super-duper ideas. This book uncovered numerous flaws in my design that I had not fully considered, and literallly saved me hundreds of hours in time by detailing WHY my ill-considered ideas would certainly cause the MUD to fail.
Every aspect of VW's are explored in detail from all angles. Sometimes this exploration process made the journey a bit tedious, because I wanted the best solution to the problem being discussed... now... and be done with it.
Unfortunatly, that's not easy to do when you're presented with problems that have no perfect solutions, and the requirement is to make a decision... and live with the consequences. Now or later, you WILL decide how you'll deal with this or that design problem. If you don't sort it out, your MUD will never exist, or it will fail to survive. Mr. Bartle is courteous enough to tell you why.
If you're planning a MUD, you MUST consider all the topics he explores in this book, and begin the difficult process of making your design decisions.
An incomplete list of topics covered: virtual world history, the codebases and how they determine what style of VW is created, how to orgainize the design team and what their responsibilities are, the server and client architecture, the people who are drawn to these VW's, who they are, what they're looking for, their styles of play, the problems some of them cause, player participation in the design and content process, considerations about skills, levels, caps, long term players, newbies, character appearances, groups and clans, combat, crafting, NPC services, the economy, Player killing, Player vs Player, Permanent Death and Non-Permanent death, sociology, psychology, RPG theory, story theory, quests and adventures, geography, aesthetics, ethical considerations such as censorship, allowing virtual children, etc, wizzes, the live team, content, real life religeous conflicts, and finally... addiction, and mental illnesses of some of the players.
Have you considered all angles of all that (and more)?
I am totally, and completely, impressed with the breadth and depth of the coverage of all those and many more topics in this book.
Before you begin the design process, and certainly before you write one line of code, this book must be digested. It'll save you countless hours of work, God knows how many headaches, and will prepare you for the trying journey ahead.
5 stars and a must have for the MUD designer's bookshelf.
- Alleyrat
It's hard to think of anything on the subject that Bartle does not at least touch on (providing extensive, scholarly quality references to a wealth of further on- and offline materials), from the deepest metaphysical philosophy to the daily squabbles between users and administrators on virtual worlds large and small. Bartle does not in general provide cut-and-dried solutions to the world design issues, but he gives an extensive discussion of approaches attempted and how they succeeded and failed.
My only reservation with this otherwise excellent book was that I found some of the discussion a bit overly extensive. I would have preferred a book maybe 200 pages shorter, especially towards the final chapters of the book.
If you're planning on designing a virtual world, buying this book is more than just a good idea: Failing to do so would border on criminal negligence.
The book starts out with chapters on the history of virtual worlds and the cultural influences that affected their characteristics. Next, there is a fly-over view of the "production line" of building a virtual world. Bartle then turns his attention to the players - who they are, what they want, and how a virtual world can meet their needs. World design is examined from the standpoint of virtual geography, virtual world citizens, and finally the physics required to implement your world. Chapter 5 is about the specific sociology and physiology of the virtual world - skill levels, individual characteristics, how virtual inhabitants divide themselves into groups, combat, and even the meaning of death in the virtual world. The final three chapters are very philisophical in nature. Chapter 6 is basically a liberal arts syllabus through the prism of virtual world design. The last chapter, on ethical considerations, talks about censorship, and also looks at the player as a person and how game playing in virtual worlds can hurt more than help some kinds of people, particularly those prone to addiction.
Bartle's social commentaries may be a bit long-winded for some people, although I found them interesting. Some readers may also be somewhat frustrated by the fact that the book talks more about what can go wrong in the design of a virtual world - overly complex and static story arcs, characters that players do not get invested in, characters in which players get too invested, etc - than what can go right. I really enjoyed the book, mainly because it moves the focus of the potential virtual world designer from the artistic and technical viewpoint to the player's viewpoint - why they plays games, and why a player would pick your game versus someone else's game.
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