Transitioning from a concept to a final product is no easy task. Let alone a country-wide game that is played by 10-40 people everyday (peak active players were around 100). What we’re looking at is 2-7 sessions everyday, that means 2-7 GMs that need to be briefed in advance. It also requires those players having their characters ready and possibly a session tailored to their tastes. That doesn’t sound like an impossible feat right? Well it isn’t, provided that we are discussing a finished product.
After 2.5 years the game is still in development, with parts of it being redesigned every couple of weeks and new features still rolling out. Game design, web application development, class balancing, GM briefing, loot handing, character leveling bonuses, feedback receiving, session managing, group moderating, bug squashing and so many more are required for the game to operate smoothly. I am not trying to make it sound harder than it actually is. It is hard! Especially for a single person to pull all that off!
The game’s owner/designer/master admin that will from now on be reffered to as “A.” wanted to make it happen all by himself. And by “all” I mean everything that he believed wasn’t straight out of the question for him (i.e. programming). So take another look at the above requirements without wondering anymore why “web application development” was striken through. And no, that’s not one less job for A. because mister A. will now also need to communicate with the web developer, graphics designer and suddenly we’re back to square one. Read more …