I’m a big fan of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I’ve always liked the longer LOTR type of fantasy novel. I was very sorry to read the following:
I wanted to wish Jim Rigney (Robert Jordan is his pen name) a speedy recovery. He’s got a tough fight ahead of him, and as I write this he’s likely in the middle of some pretty harsh chemo treatment.
In a weird way it got me thinking about MMOs and how different creating a virtual world is from an author writing a story, especially one as long and detailed as the Wheel of Time series. In that series we get a very vivid look at the world through Robert Jordan's writing. Being faced with his mortality makes us realize that without him that story just doesn't continue (although in this case it sounds like he's planning on finishing it sooner rather than later, just in case).
That's a really different process from what the people in our industry do. Over the 10 years I've been involved with the EverQuest franchise (three years of development and seven years live), many people involved with the creation and maintenance of the game have come and gone from SOE, and yet Norrath lives on. Although the design team who created this world is no longer working on EQ, an entirely new and talented group of people have been working on the game since its launch. It is no longer about any one person. Norrath has a life all its own, and many new stories are still to be written. The current (and future) teams working on the game have a rich history to build upon, but they will also contribute to that history. This collaborative effort is pretty amazing when you think about it. Certainly, there are plenty of great examples in literature (LOTR for example) of authors writing about a place in such a way that we can almost picture ourselves there, but we depend upon that one writer to place us in his world, and if he doesn’t write, we can’t imagine. In an MMO, many people collaborate to create a world over time, one that is touched by millions of people who help to give it a life of its own. In an MMO, this imaginative world can live on indefinitely, as long as there are designers with great ideas and players to give it life!
Smed
