Library

This is an annotated version of my 2012 GDC presentation.

In the days of single-player games each crash would inconvenience one player. Now 5000 get kicked from the server when a crash occurs. To maintain the same frequency of crashes we have to write software that is 5000 times more reliable. That's why reliability is critical.

This is an annotated version of my 2010 GDC presentation.

There are people who want to destroy your online game for fun or profit. Our job is prevent those hackers and griefers from destroying the experience for the rest of our players.

Renowned game industry developer Casey Muratori interviews me about multiplayer game systems and network architecture.

We discuss the complexities of building online games, and discuss the server architecture and implementation of Guild Wars, and the game design tradeoffs we made to create a persistent MMORPG with no monthly fee.

Ed Park (@taugrim) interviews me about the complexity of bringing Tera, a Korean MMORPG game, to the West.

Bringing a game developed in Asia and publishing it in North America is a complex endeavor. Player sensibilities are different, so design considerations abound. And building a publishing organization requires staffing for design, production, public relations, community, marketing, customer support, analytics, security, finance, HR, localization, and more.