Persistent vs. Instantiated Spaces: The Great Online Game Debate

Presenters Moderator: Panelists: Starr Long (Producer, NCsoft) Raph Koster (CCO Sony Online Entertainment) Anthony Castoro (Online Studio Director Electronic Arts) Mark Jacobs (President and CEO Mythic Entertainment) Jack Emmert (Creative Director Cryptic Studios)

Persistent Spaces Definition: Examples: Game state persists over time Game state is always “moving forward” in time Space is usually a public/shared space for all users Usually a “sand box” of game rules Examples: MUDs Ultima Online Everquest Dark Age of Camelot Lineage

Persistent Spaces Questions for Panel: What are the benefits of persistent spaces? What are the drawbacks of persistent spaces? What is the biggest challenge associated with persistent spaces? Is there an advantage to keeping the game exclusively persistent? How do you address the lack of guidance in open persistent spaces?

Instantiated Spaces Definition: Examples Game State is reset each time spaces are instantiated Spaces are usually private for single player or small player group Space can be shared Examples Ancestry outside MMP: Diablo & FPS Anarchy Online ToonTown Star Wars Galaxies Guild Wars City of Heroes Tabula Rasa World of Warcraft

Instantiated Spaces Questions for Panel: Are there valuable lessons to learn from the ancestral instantiation games like Diablo, Real Time Strategy, First person shooters, etc.? What are the benefits of instantiated spaces? What are the drawbacks of instantiated spaces? How do you incorporate instantiated spaces with persistent spaces? What is the biggest challenge associated with instantiated spaces? How do you generate enough instantiated content? Can randomly generated spaces solve the content creation problem without losing the guidance that instantiations provide?

Instantiated Spaces Questions for Panel (cont.): Is there an advantage to having only instantiated spaces? If you are mixing persistent and instantiated spaces how do you determine the percentage of each? How scripted do you make the instantiated spaces? How random do you make the instantiated spaces? Can you do matchmaking? Can player property be instantiated? How do you do player vs. player in instantiated spaces? How well do multiple instantiations run on a server?