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The Number One Educational Resource for the Game Industry

Session Name: Designing Tabula Rasa: Lessons from the World of MMOs
Speaker(s): Richard Garriott
Company Name(s): Ncsoft
Track / Format: Game Design

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Overview: Making games is a challenge. Over the years, game development processes have become more and more complex, creating new challenges to overcome. This is especially true in the world of MMP's. Crafting a new and unique Intellectual Property from scratch is yet another difficult endeavor. I can say from experience that undertaking all of these challenges at the same time is nearly impossible.

Most people would agree that the measure of a successful title ultimately comes down to sales, and quite simply: profit. Behind the scenes, the process is not nearly as simple. A great idea might live or die by critical mistakes made along the way. Unfortunately, I've always been prone to making mistakes, but the mistakes themselves are secondary to the real challenge: does your development team have the talent, drive and focus that it takes to identify those mistakes early and find effective solutions.

As Tabula Rasa enters each new stage of development, our experienced development team takes the time to look back and attempt to gain insight into the challenges we faced and the steps we took to overcome them. Some of those challenges we took head-on and had amazing success, but others were such that we were forced to spend countless hours (and brain cells) working through them bit by bit. And then there were those certain challenges that we look back on, shake our heads, and wish we had avoided THAT particular challenge althogether.

My latest project, Tabula Rasa, has often challenged our team in many different ways--and while it has at times been difficult, we've got a lot of great stories to tell about our journey. I look forward to sharing with you a few of our trials and tribulations, and in doing so, lend insight into the latest in game development process.

GDC 2006

Richard Garriott

Ncsoft

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Game Design

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