Persistent Worlds
A game, as we defined it earlier, is a contest with rules and a winner. However, a good many online “games” are not really games at all. Asheron's Call, EverQuest, Anarchy Online, and so on are actually persistent worlds: permanent environments that players can play in, retaining the state of their avatar from one session to another. Persistent worlds have a number of special problems and design requirements, which we discuss here.
The Origins of Persistent-World Gaming
Persistent worlds have been around for much longer than the graphical MMORPGs that are so popular right now. Since 1978, a small but dedicated community of developers has been building, playing, and studying text-based persistent worlds called MUDs (multi-user ...
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