A World at War
Building the virtual world of World at War was one of the most enjoyable things about writing Black Wolf. Like many video games in real life, World at War took many elements of tried and true concepts, and mixed them together to create something with it's own unique flair. There was a lot to put into the book, and there's quite a bit of stuff that didn't make the cut this time around. Many of those elements will be expanded on in further novels.
The first decision I had to make was where the game would be set. I eventually decided to set the game in a post-apocalyptic version of the real world, scaled to a quarter of its normal size. Log Horizon had a similar concept, where the world was set in a post-apocalyptic Japan scaled to half size, but I though the setting was appropriate for several reasons. First, the post-apocalyptic setting was important to the feel of the game, so setting it in the real world would add to the sense of breakdown and decay. Second, it would be easier for people to connect with locations that they could find in the real world, even if they were so wildly different as to be unrecognizable. Third, the concept of hubs also made the choice appealing. Since different regions would begin in different hubs, it made sense to make them correspond to their real world locations; a player in Seattle would be closer to a player in Chicago than a player in Miami.
The second decision was how to create a battle system. I toyed around with a few concepts; making only small areas available to player versus player battles was one, making fights self-contained was another. In the end, I decided on a system heavily influenced by EVE Online. The hub cities would be safe zones, while everything around them would be lawless. Players would have to band together in order to survive in the harsh world. It would be a difficult game to get into, but it would be extremely rewarding as well. There are also plenty of safety nets for new players that I didn't elaborate on. You may notice that I mentioned NPC quests at the beginning of the book, and then never say another thing about them. This is mostly due to the fact that the main characters go off the rails and never bother with them. They're still present, and they're an important part of the world, but they don't influence the course of the novel.
One of the most important aspects of an MMORPG is equipment and loot, and I had to decide how I wanted to implement that. I felt that the schematic system fit within the confines of a post-apocalyptic world, and it introduced many interesting scenarios to the mix. To me, one of the most interesting parts of EVE Online was large-scale economic warfare, which also plays a significant part in Black Wolf's plot. It also gave the characters room to grow and build themselves in the games world.
Inventing World at War was a long process, and it's nowhere near finished yet. As more is written about it, the world will continue to grow.
The virtual world is one of the most critical aspects of the story, but it's not the only aspect. Many philosophical elements became a part of the story as I wrote, and I'll detail them in the next post.
The first decision I had to make was where the game would be set. I eventually decided to set the game in a post-apocalyptic version of the real world, scaled to a quarter of its normal size. Log Horizon had a similar concept, where the world was set in a post-apocalyptic Japan scaled to half size, but I though the setting was appropriate for several reasons. First, the post-apocalyptic setting was important to the feel of the game, so setting it in the real world would add to the sense of breakdown and decay. Second, it would be easier for people to connect with locations that they could find in the real world, even if they were so wildly different as to be unrecognizable. Third, the concept of hubs also made the choice appealing. Since different regions would begin in different hubs, it made sense to make them correspond to their real world locations; a player in Seattle would be closer to a player in Chicago than a player in Miami.
The second decision was how to create a battle system. I toyed around with a few concepts; making only small areas available to player versus player battles was one, making fights self-contained was another. In the end, I decided on a system heavily influenced by EVE Online. The hub cities would be safe zones, while everything around them would be lawless. Players would have to band together in order to survive in the harsh world. It would be a difficult game to get into, but it would be extremely rewarding as well. There are also plenty of safety nets for new players that I didn't elaborate on. You may notice that I mentioned NPC quests at the beginning of the book, and then never say another thing about them. This is mostly due to the fact that the main characters go off the rails and never bother with them. They're still present, and they're an important part of the world, but they don't influence the course of the novel.
One of the most important aspects of an MMORPG is equipment and loot, and I had to decide how I wanted to implement that. I felt that the schematic system fit within the confines of a post-apocalyptic world, and it introduced many interesting scenarios to the mix. To me, one of the most interesting parts of EVE Online was large-scale economic warfare, which also plays a significant part in Black Wolf's plot. It also gave the characters room to grow and build themselves in the games world.
Inventing World at War was a long process, and it's nowhere near finished yet. As more is written about it, the world will continue to grow.
The virtual world is one of the most critical aspects of the story, but it's not the only aspect. Many philosophical elements became a part of the story as I wrote, and I'll detail them in the next post.
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