The canonical book is Richard Bartle's Designing Virtual Worlds. The first essay is from him, and a classic known by all MMO developers. The next three are an academic essay by Bartle on virtual economies, and a two-part essay by Radu Privantu on the day-to-day practicalities. The last is also by Privantu, a ~5000 word post mortem on the genesis, growth and maturity of Eternal Lands, a simple but moderately successful fantasy MUD.
There's about a full day's worth of reading here (or two if you read it carefully), but it will pay for itself many times over if you are ever thinking seriously of starting or joining the dev team of an MMO.
Many of the lessons therein could easily be extrapolated to other online contexts, especially those built around a persistent social model.
http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm http://www.themis-group.com/uploads/Pitfalls%20of%20Virtual%... http://eternal-lands.blogspot.com/2008/03/mmorpgs-economy.ht... http://eternal-lands.blogspot.com/2008/03/mmorpgs-economy-pa... http://www.devmaster.net/articles/mmorpg-postmortem/part1.ph...
The canonical book is Richard Bartle's Designing Virtual Worlds. The first essay is from him, and a classic known by all MMO developers. The next three are an academic essay by Bartle on virtual economies, and a two-part essay by Radu Privantu on the day-to-day practicalities. The last is also by Privantu, a ~5000 word post mortem on the genesis, growth and maturity of Eternal Lands, a simple but moderately successful fantasy MUD.
There's about a full day's worth of reading here (or two if you read it carefully), but it will pay for itself many times over if you are ever thinking seriously of starting or joining the dev team of an MMO.
Many of the lessons therein could easily be extrapolated to other online contexts, especially those built around a persistent social model.