Now that the holidays have concluded and I'm seeing some semblance of available time returning, I'm able to get back into the code of our project. I spent quite a bit of time over the holidays considering how users generally interact with the world. One of the fundamentals to a good user interface is simplicity and access. It should take a player no more then 2 distinct actions to get to their goal. When you have nested menus under further menus, you quickly turn playing the game into tedium of cycling through various interfaces to get to their goal of actually playing.

In recent years that I've engaged myself in MMOs, I've found that a lot of the time you are so over powered with the sheer number of skills you can use at any one given time seems to drown the player in useless or superficial things to click on. I think each skill should have a logical and easy to understand benefit. It's something to remember and keep in mind while you are working with skills and what they mean to a character. Don't just write a skill because it adds fluff.

I've always been a big fan of RPGs, especially table top games. I feel like when I sit down at table with friends and our imaginations take over, that almost anything is possible. The collaboration of people interested in participating in the same story has always had a massive appeal to me. When players jump into a game, they want to participate in that imagination and lose themselves to it. Even if it's on their on terms. Some may take it seriously and some may take it with jokes in mind, but they all really want the same thing: to live out the life of the character and participate.