Book description
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.
Table of contents
- Copyright
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- About the Technical Reviewers
- Tell Us What You Think
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1. Introduction to Virtual Worlds
- 2. How to Make Virtual Worlds
-
3. Players
- Who Are These People and What Do They Want?
- Player Types
- Other Categorizations
- The Celebration of Identity
- Anonymity
- Role-Playing
- Masquerading
- Community
- Influence Through Design
- 4. World Design
-
5. Life in the Virtual World
- Advancement
- Character Generation
- The Virtual Body
- Groups
-
Combat
- How Combat Works
- Enhanced Combat Systems
- Problems with Combat
- Opposition
- Consequences
- Permanent Death
- Approaches to Permanent Death
- Alternatives to Permanent Death
- The Unfortunate Consequences of Permanent Death
- The Unfortunate Consequences of Non-Permanent Death
- Why Permanent Death?
- The Hero's Journey
- Attitudes to Permanent Death
- Crafting
- The Elder Game
- The Whole Picture
- 6. It's Not a Game, It's a…
- 7. Towards a Critical Aesthetic
- 8. Coda: Ethical Considerations
Product information
- Title: Designing Virtual Worlds
- Author(s):
- Release date: July 2003
- Publisher(s): New Riders
- ISBN: 0131018167
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