R.A. Salvatore Believes MMOs Should Have Clear Death Penalties

One of the most interesting future projects in the world of MMOs is the Copernicus development handled by 38 Studios, which has a team of veterans working with well known fantasy novel writer R.A. Salvatore, the man behind the success of character Drizzt Do'Urden. And some details related to how Copernicus is shaping up could be gleaned from a presentation the novelist gave at the GDC.

Salvatore told an audience that “If you take out of a world two things: the pain of losing, it will diminish the accomplishment of winning. And if you take the element of chance of out it, I won't enjoy it. You need that in games. It's harder to do that in a computer game, because your phone lines will light up. Never listen to your customer service guys when you're designing a game.”

He then recounted how he complete a quest, got his character killed and then spent a good chunk of time re-leveling his avatar. The author said that there was frustration linked with the experience but that it would not have been memorable otherwise.

Speaking about world building for MMOs, Salvatore reveals that creating believable civilizations, which have a clear structure and goals, is crucial to provide a good experience for the player. And with videogames becoming the next big medium when it comes to storytelling, actual writers need to get to know the inner working of games and adapt their stories to them.

For the Copernicus game world, Salvatore says that he and the team at 38 Studios have created a history of the world that goes back no less than 10,000 years, creating the civilizations and the concepts, which will then shape the experience of players entering it. The entire world needs to be deep and offer context behind every action in order to lead to a suspension of disbelief on the part of the gamer.