Three Mavericks of MMO Design

Today, writers across the TenTonHammer network will examine the key developer personalities that drive the innovation and fun in the MMORPGs they love.

There remains a few big names that aren't currently working with MMORPGs (at least, ones we currently cover with our TenTonHammer community sites), but these wildcards - I prefer the term "mavericks" for the free-spirited innovation each brought to the genre - are to some degree doing what they love best, but are doing so off the beaten path. We salute these "movers and shakers" with a brief background piece highlighting their accomplishments.

"The remoteness of Bartle's hometown of Hornsea (a small North Sea coastal town in the mid of England) fueled the creative drive of Bartle and his brother, who designed several "informal" pen and paper games when they were growing up in the 60s and early 70s. Bartle formed a magazine to play games over the mail, a publication which ran nationally in the two years before Bartle went to University. Around that time, a small group of Hornsea gamers (including the Bartle family) succumbed to the mid 1970s Dungeons & Dragons craze. When computers came to Hornsea, Bartle took full advantage, learning programming and soon publishing a sort-of single-player automated "Choose Your Own Adventure book" style program (Bartle elucidates: "if you wish to open the door immediately, go to 19C; to knock first, go to 7F; to run like hell, go to 24A")."

Read more about these Mavericks of MMO Design right here at TenTonHammer - Main.