Raph Koster On Sony Online's MMO Plans, Hopes

Posted by simoniker on Monday February 2, 2004 @11:54AM from the man-has-a-plan dept.

Thanks to Warcry for its interview with Sony Online's chief creative officer, Raph Koster, as he discusses his relatively new job ("My job is primarily to help the teams make their games better, not to have them make my game. I know a lot of folks have been wondering if I'm here to change EverQuest to be more like Ultima Online or Star Wars Galaxies, and the answer is no"), the evolution of the MMO ("I see a little bit of a backlash here and there against the MMORPG in its classic form. There's maybe a sense that we haven't advanced the genre fast enough. My main answer to that one is 'it takes three years to make one of these things, give us a break, we haven't actually gotten to iterate very much yet'"), and why it's not just about designing the game ("I've been reading more and more in psychology and anthropology and sociology... Game design is only one facet of online world design, frankly.")

1 of 48 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Raph's Website by ru-486 · 2004-02-02 14:21 · Score: 2, Informative

This guy has been around for a while and he really knows his stuff. There's always going to be conflict among casual gamers, hardcore gamers, role players and the developers. If anyone has the experience and is qualified to at least make an educated ATTEMPT to resolve those conflicts it's Raph. For a better understanding of the guy check out his page . In particular, click the gaming link and read some of his essays. -ru