2. Who Am I?

5. Why Are We Here?

6. The State of Things

9. The Belied Promise of MMOs
Things We Haven’t Achieved
Massive Stories
Player Driven Stories
Meaningful Stories

10. A Brief Audience Interaction Interlude!

11. Story 3
OMG…
Shut down the servers
We’re all going to die
I haven’t seen my wife in three weeks
Story 3
Story 2
Story 1
Story 2
Story 3
Story 3

12. The Content Side Problem
Choosing what content to build is easy
Letting other people choose what content you build is hard
Letting lots of other people choose lots of different types of content for you to build simultaneously for an ever fracturing and branching storyline is a good way to learn a lot about bankruptcy court
There was a much better graphical representation here. Remember to rebuild it.

13. Unsharding: The Solution

14. How to Unshard… Interactors participate in a shared story space
This does not mean that they participate in a shared world space

15. How Can Unsharding Be Accomplished?

16. Eve Online Video

17. Cart Rider Video

18. Battle Tech 3025 Video

19. Player Driven Story in an Unsharded Environment

20. Giving Agency Back to the Players
Real Choices
Real Consequences
Less Restrictions

21. Giving Agency Back to the Players
Voting by Action
All Votes are NOT Equal
Vote Equal to Level of Participation, not Power

22. Rules for Massive Choice Events
Grand Scale (should effect everyone)
Universal Participation (everyone effected should be able to influence the outcome)
Be Willing to Accept the Result (and make sure you’re ready to patch for it…)
Notify your players of your events!

23. Corollaries to the Rules for Writing Massive Choice Events
Make Massive Choice Events as Cheap as Possible to Produce
Make the Outcome as Easy to Anticipate as Possible
Make Patching for the Outcome as Cheap as Possible
Notify your players of your events!

24. Writing Massive Choice Events
Refactor Existing Content
When You Have to Create Content Try to Make it Reusable (your content team will love you)
Ignore What I Said Above: Don’t Be Afraid to use One Offs for Big Calumniating Events

25. Writing Massive Choice Events
Learn from ARGs
Utilize All Aspects of Your World
Simple Entry Points, Complex Interactions
Reward Knowledge of the Game Lore

26. Patching According to Events
When to Patch?
How Many Patches Can You Stretch the Result Over?
What to Do About the Unexpected…

27. GMs and DMs

28. Real DMs?
In an Unsharded World, a Limited Number of DMs Become Cost Effective
Should You Hire a DM?
DM Tools are the Key (Keep this in mind through the next few slides…)

29. The Role of The DM DM as DM DM as NPC DM as Mob
DM as Realtime World Builder

30. Writing for Player Politics

31. Writing to Shape Player Politics
Incentivize Player Politics
Allow Player Interaction to Effect the Storyline and the World
Stir Up Trouble

32. Factions and Guilds Force Players to Choose Sides
Give People Something to Associate With and Something to Root For
Create Common Enemies to Bring Groups Together and Mix Up the Political Landscape.

33. A Brief Recap

34. Questions?