Stars Reach is an upcoming sandbox sim just unveiled by legendary game designer Raph Koster and his startup Playable Worlds. And while it's very much an MMORPG, Raph tells me fans of open virtual worlds like Second Life and VRChat should find it appealing:
"It is a game, not a pure social world," as he puts it. "But the fact that we let players control planets to a decent degree means that there could be some overlap."
To go by the trailer, it looks like an unlikely hybrid of Dual Universe and Palia, the comfy social MMO. But as Raph explains on this /Reddit AMA, the simulation aspect runs quite deep:
This is the game I have wanted to make for nearly thirty years. It is the spiritual sequel to Ultima Online and to Star Wars Galaxies. It has in it all the lessons of all these decades of online game development -- and it looks forward, not back, to reinvent what an online world can be.
Stars Reach uses simulation to a degree never seen in an MMO before. We know the temperature, the humidity, the materials, for every cubic meter of every planet. Our water actually flows downhill and puddles. It freezes overnight or during the winter. It evaporates and turns to steam when heated up.
And not just our water -- everything does this.
One aspect of Stars Reach also worth pointing out (and this came up during our chat at Gamesbeat) is it's a first step in Playable Worlds' metaverse strategy -- as I explain in my book's online afterword:
Playable Worlds: Founded and led by venerable game designer Raph Koster, his new startup is built on his experience with Metaplace, his web-based virtual world platform which failed to get traction and closed in 2009 -- after which, his team recycled the world’s content into some successful Facebook games. So Playable will launch with a “games first” approach: The primary goal will be to roll out a successful sci-fi MMO, and once that's out, gradually release ever more UGC tools/features so that players can sustain and build on that activity.
It's a smart approach, and I hope they succeed. I am concerned that sci-fi-themed MMOs rarely gain mass usage. I believe the upper limit was reached by Star Wars: The Old Republic, gaining 1 million subscribers at launch -- which is not bad, but not WoW/ESO numbers. (We'd actually expect many more players for a Star Wars-themed MMO.)
All that to one side, let's hope Stars Reach can reach a strong user base. (Sorry.)
Please support posts like these by buying Making a Metaverse That Matters and joining my Patreon!
Comments