Dungeons and Dragons Online Interview at CVG

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(Originally posted by chevalier)

Computer and Video Games have posted an interview with Ken Troop, lead designer for Turbine's Dungeons and Dragons Online project. Here's an excerpt:

What valuable lessons have you learned from developing and launching Asheron's Call's one and two, and how will/do these influence your work on Dungeons & Dragons Online?

Troop: Too many to list, but I'll pick a couple of the big ones. One lesson that has shaped our dev philosophy extensively is that we need to provide fun that isn't strictly tied to achievement.

Achievement is fun on its own. But if the means of achievement isn't fun, you've only made half a game. A lot of massively multiplayer games have fallen into that trap.

With D&D Online we're trying to make a game that will be fun to play, even if at the end of the night you didn't score a huge pile of loot or a new level. Just playing needs to be worth it.

The second has more to do with our process of making games. We really pushed ourselves to get a playable version of the game much earlier than we have done in the past, and to iterate on it.

The result is that we've been able to see and assess the changes we make, rather than debating about abstractions on sheets of paper. We've got a long way to go, but the game today is already feeling like a game, and we think it's a fun one.

Read the whole thing at CVG.