Mechanics in Motion

Role Playing game systems have always been my personal favorite type of game design. They are, however, huge elaborate game systems with many interconnected sub systems, taking quite a bit of time to get right and fully realize. The downside of doing this sort of design is that while other designers have a regular stream of small games to show, the RPG and MMO system designer only produces one every few years. My latest project, the AIR Steampunk MMORPG, has just reached its first year of design, and is coming along nicely. Because I have the honor of working with an absolutely brilliant team of writers, this is the first RPG project where I have gotten to truly focus primarily on the system design and its integration into a storyworld being created in parallel. What follows is a summary of what the team has been up to.

We began with analysis of the steampunk aesthetic and then developed a conceptual approach for applying it the AIR Steampunk MMORPG. We decided very early on that we did not want to overemphasize combat (as in many MMORPGs), instead giving roughly equal value to four aspects of game play: combat, crafting, socializing, and exploration. The air story world is rich in content and history, and we really wanted to emphasize the unique aspect of each nation and faction, tying it integrally into game play and character development. From this we developed the core statement for the game, which has evolved over time into this:

“AIR is a game of adventure and intrigue where players explore, travel and make choices to build their reputation, fame and fortunes among dynamic young nations vying for power in a world of Victorian science fiction. Gameplay supports this through four primary game systems: exploration, social engagement, crafting and combat.”

We also decided early on to go with a skill centric system over a class based one, a decision that is inherently more risky for an MMORPG, but that we believe will create much more interesting and dynamic characters. Skill systems are tricky and much more difficult to balance than class systems, and we really wanted to make sure that every skill have an actual game mechanics usefulness, but at the same time present the skills in a way that could be easily digested by players.

Over the course of many months, one by one we hashed out the four game systems and created the rules and algorithms for play. We broke the skills into four main categories and paralleled their development with each of the four systems. To make the skills more manageable and accessible to the player, we broke them into 48 different professions. We implemented a skill buying system driven by profession and faction, allowing players to choose priority of skill costs.

We are now in the phase of building test characters to see how they will perform. Each of the four systems is also in further development, as well as tight integration of the skills into characters build system as relates to the nations and factions of the game world. That’s about all I can say for now, and for those looking forward to AIR, sorry I had to be so vague, and look out for future updates.