How to design MMO character customization correctly (according to someone who is not a game dev lol)

Tags

customization, game design, game dev, MMO, mmo character, mmo character customization, mmo characters, mmorpg, mmorpgs, mmos, probably bad ideas

This post was inspired by a question posed by Mark Yetter, the director of Riot Games’ developing Runeterra MMO, and on the face of it the question sounds a little silly. In the tweet, Yetter ponders “what can be done to encourage players to try new things and differentiate their looks,” eliciting a bunch of people referencing systems already done by various other games as well as some concern that Yetter has never seen the inside of an MMORPG. That said, I’m not sure that’s what he’s asking for here. I think what was intended is ways to incentivize and reward creativity. So that’s what I’m going to try and focus on in this post.

Blaugust Day 11 – A Skyplot Full of Dreams

Tags

building, customization, house, housing, personal house, skyplot, wildstar

I had done a “Through Wolfy’s Eyes” write-up of WildStar as one of my first entries–something of a “signature” way of me writing a review that I tried to tie specifically with my blog.  However, I do intend to create new write-ups for MMO’s, especially since they are always changing.

That said, there was one part of WildStar that really deserves its own blog post. And that part is its housing.  It’s not only one of the signature features that this game has gotten correct right from the very start, but it has been a repeated source of both delight and frustration for me.