Unofficial Stars Reach Wiki - User contributions [en]

Playable Species

2025-04-24T09:02:47Z

Hooby: hansians, hyugons and fae added

= Playable Species =

''[[Stars Reach]]'' will offer a selection of playable species at character creation. While no official details have been released yet on racial bonuses or abilities, developers have hinted that the game’s deep environmental simulation could eventually mean each species may adapt differently to various climates. Final specifics are subject to change as the game develops.

Below are the species spotted so far in official trailers, screenshots, and concept art.

== Terran ==
[[File:Humans.jpg|300px]]

Regular humans, with no special features. Depicted with slightly exaggerated proportions: large hands, wide shoulders on males, and wide hips on females.

== Elioni ==
[[File:Cat-species.jpg|300px]]

Cat-like humanoids featuring cat ears, a bushy tail, very large eyes, and a slightly snout-like nose.

== Skwatchi ==
[[File:Ape-species.jpg|300px]]

Ape-like humanoids of large build, with bushy hair, an ape-like snout, and large tusks. They also possess long, thick arms.

== Gertan ==
[[File:Demon-species.jpg|300px]]

Demon-like humanoids with prominent horns, bright yellow irises, and black sclera. They also sport a hooked, reptilian tail.

== Hansians ==

The Hansians are a branch of humanity that evolved to thrive on a watery homeworld, adapting over generations with iridescent skin, gills, and webbed fingers and toes.

== Hyugons ==

Inspired by classic sci-fi, Hyugons feature large black eyes, green skin, and distinctive antennae. Their designs balance alien and human-like elements while ensuring a unique, recognizable silhouette.

Hyugons love to experiment and push the boundaries of knowledge - whether it’s designing cutting-edge technology or testing questionable ingredient combinations. Unfortunately, their enthusiasm for Science! has led to some explosive mistakes... like the black hole that devoured half a continent.

Fun fact: Hyugons played a key role in pioneering math rock! Their mathematical minds and creative nature helped shape some of the earliest forms of the genre known to humanity.

== Fae ==

The Fae are not just "space elves". They are tricksters, wanderers, and survivors, shaped by ancient myth and a lost homeworld. Rooted in Celtic lore, they bring a science-fantasy flavor to Stars Reach that makes them stand apart.

The Fae have no known homeworld. Some believe they came from Tír na nÓg, a lost paradise where their wings worked and magic once existed. The rest of the Transplanetary League basically considers this to be a religious belief.

Over time, the Fae have split into two groups:

* Space Fae ~ that lived aboard Servitor ships, hiding in the nooks and crannies, scavenging for survival.
* Ground Fae ~ that snuck aboard descending Servitors, escaping to the untamed wilderness of various planets.

Many Fae perished as a result of the Servitors’ indifference before the founding of the Transplanetary League, but today they are recognized as the first spacefaring species and the only one without a known homeworld.

= References =
* Developer interviews suggesting species variety and potential environmental adaptations
* Official ''[[Playable Worlds]]'' blog and announcements for future reveals

File:Demon-species.jpg

2025-04-24T08:53:11Z

Hooby: Hooby uploaded a new version of File:Demon-species.jpg

== Summary ==
Demon-like species, as seen in the announcement trailer

File:Ape-species.jpg

2025-04-24T08:50:24Z

Hooby: Hooby uploaded a new version of File:Ape-species.jpg

== Summary ==
Ape-like species, as seen in the announcement trailer

File:Cat-species.jpg

2025-04-24T08:47:01Z

Hooby: Hooby uploaded a new version of File:Cat-species.jpg

== Summary ==
Cat-like species, as seen in the announcement trailer

File:Humans.jpg

2025-04-24T08:43:12Z

Hooby: Hooby uploaded a new version of File:Humans.jpg

== Summary ==
Human player species, as they appear in the announcement trailer

Playable Species

2025-04-24T08:37:56Z

Hooby: /* Gertan */

Playable Species

2025-04-24T08:37:30Z

Hooby: /* Skwatchi */

Playable Species

2025-04-24T08:37:05Z

Hooby: /* Elioni */

Playable Species

2025-04-24T08:36:35Z

Hooby: /* Terran */

Playable Species

2025-04-24T08:33:01Z

Hooby: /* Elioni */

Playable Species

2025-04-24T08:32:44Z

Hooby: /* Terran */

Playable Species

2024-09-16T19:19:11Z

Hooby: added the actual ingame names

[[Stars Reach]] will have a number of species the player can choose from at character creation.

The following playable species have been spotted in trailers, screenshots and artwork so far.

=Terran=
[[File:Humans.jpg|300px|thumb|right|alt=human species|Humans as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Regular humans, with no special features. Depicted with slightly exaggerated proportions: large hands, wide shoulders on male, wide hips on female.

=Elioni=
[[File:Cat-species.jpg|150px|thumb|right|alt=cat person|Cat-person as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Cat-like humans with cat-ears, a bushy tail, very large eyes and a slightly snout-like nose.

=Skwatchi=
[[File:Ape-species.jpg|250px|thumb|right|alt=ape person|Ape-person as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Ape-like humans of large build, with bushy hair, an ape-like snout, and large tusks. They also sport long, thick arms.

=Gertan=
[[File:Demon-species.jpg|150px|thumb|right|alt=demon person|Demon-person as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Demon-like humans with large horns, bright yellow irises and black sclera. They also have a reptilian-like, hooked tail.

=Other species=

[[Playable Worlds]] staff have confirmed that more species will be revealed over time.

=References=

Pre-announcement Discord

2024-08-12T16:18:22Z

Hooby: 2020

== 2020 ==

— 02/19/2020 5:04 PM

Do extrinsic rewards hurt intrinsic motivation to play?
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/FabianFischer/20200218/357192/Reward_Fatigue.php

Raph Koster:
The science is pretty clear in giving a resounding "yes" to that question.

— 03/03/2020 1:28 AM

But they were always the top Raiders

It's fine by me if only those ambitious guilds get to be top raiders.
I just wish that cozy guilds wouldn't just get stuck completely with no chance of ever progressing further.

Raph Koster:
Raids require high trust teams and therefore high commitment, because of the nature of the game challenge offered: a very large coordination problem with lots of "blind passes."

This by definition makes it a less accessible way to play, and limits the audience.

I very much dislike the way in which the actual game has become prologue, and favor elder games which are driven by lower trust dynamics.

(This reply written in the context of https://www.raphkoster.com/2018/03/16/the-trust-spectrum/)

— 05/16/2020 7:41 AM

Imho the question is, how much you can split the community up, without stopping to be an MMO. What makes Ryzom Ring stand out to me is that you could travel from world to world with a single character, that character progression would carry over, and that players from all those different worlds still participated in one shared economy.

Raph Koster:
The risk there has always been that character transfers and the ability to mod would imply that one server can destroy the balance of another. One server with a mod where the admins enjoyed Monty Haul gameplay could create dupe bugs or infinite gold or whatever, and then it spreads to the others. One where they enjoy different gameplay could add an item which makes other worlds easy... and so on. And that's the benign version.

In designing more metaversy stuff, this was always at the forefront. Second Life had lots of problems with "gray goo" attacks from sim to sim, early on, and of course, the whole flying penises thing made possible by robust creative tools.

Blockchain worlds have had similar challenges, where they bump up against the fact that their distributed trust models means you can basically inject code into someone else's server... which might be anything. Saying "it's up to the destination to police things" is a failed model.

In Metaplace, we locked character stuff and currency stuff to central control, but allowed modding everything else. This allowed you to move freely between worlds. But it also meant you couldn't move objects from place to place unless they were part of the master, authoritative set.

— 06/06/2020 2:16 AM

i dunno if you will ever compel "machines" (i call them that beause they blow through games like machines and then get bored and move on) to slow down and "smell the immersion." i live with one, so ill ask

Raph Koster:
I don't think it is about slowing down the goal-oriented players. It's about them not always dragging the "smell the roses" types along through peer pressure, level separation, and so on.

— 06/10/2020 5:43 PM

Doesn't Camelot unchained have a system sort of like what you're suggesting? I'm pretty sure crafters can sell their wears to their respective factions to help their side. FF14 also has the Ishgardian restoration event where crafters and gatherers were rewarded for contributing their items.

I think both are pretty neat idea's. I don't think i'd want to go anything beyond that though, I think player run economies like Albion Online has are much more fun personally. If I know a new dungeon is coming out and there's fire in it, I can mass create fire potions. It kind of fills that PvE crafting experience you're talking about lethality, only it's people not robots.

Raph Koster:
I do want to say that AI buying goods is where MUDs started.

It basically kills a free market economy, because it is effectively government subsidy -- it means we mint money into the system on demand when players craft and sell to the NPC, and the NPC price for purchase is effectively a price floor for the good, which means that there is a guaranteed buyer with a minimum price. This results in prices never crashing from oversupply, and leads to more grinding not less

We tried things like having floating prices based on supply in UO, but then players griped about betrayed expectations -- when the shopkeepers started to refuse to buy the grinded useless items, the players got very upset and filed it as bugs.

[...]

So... yes,if we managed to build AI economic actions that acted just like players, it would work. But the other choice (and what, say, EVE and SWG picked) is instead to REMOVE the NPC actors.

Since making AI that acts human is a huge unsolved problem, but getting humans to act like humans is easy... it also means that you give more ways to play to the humans. Back when there were NPC shopkeepers, there were no human shopkeepers, crafters, delivery people, businesspeople, etc. The AI took all that Gameplay.

— 07/17/2020 3:56 AM

Raph Koster:
You will all be glad to know we just had a major breakthrough with a crucial significant feature that I am not going to tell you about. But we are all signing off from work all psyched up today.

Well, we managed to get [redacted] to export [redacted] in a format that the [redacted] could read, and now we can [redacted] in [redacted], and it, like, totally validates a crucial game pillar and proves a bunch of experimental technology.

— 07/29/2020 2:15 AM

I have been looking for something as daring as UO and SWG ever since and most game developers of today seem to just follow a boring risk free pattern. I am rooting for you to break out of this.

Raph Koster:
I think it is safe to say that you will see many elements from UO and SWG in the new game.

— 07/29/2020 10:50 PM

What do you think about including professions that need real life hard skills? Let's say you have a world that has a lot of ruins, ruins from an ancient civilization (think dwemer in elder scrolls or whaatever). You might be able to learn something from those ruins. Let's say there are some kind of stone tablets with notes on them, like hieroglyphs or whatever. Now to read them, you'd have to translate them. You could do that by "clicking on it and analyizing it with a specific skill" or you could just let the player figure it out on his own. Like we did with the real hieroglyphs.(Maybe even some kind of "long time hardcore puzzle like cicada 3301 - but ingame) Another example might be astronomy. Let's say there are planets and you could craft some equipment to observe them. Maybe you know from ancient text that if the planets align, that you get a buff. You could now try to observe them and calculate their distance (think of Aristarchus of Samos) - so you would actually write stuff down in real life and try to calculate stuff. Kind of like you'd do with theory crafting for stats but this time you hunt knwoledge about the world. I think you get the idea - did you ever experiment with something along this line?

Raph Koster:
Yes, we did some of that as event stuff in SWG. I think the answer is a mix. Any time you have real world skill as a requirement for something, you are trading away audience. Of course, almost everything requires SOME real world skill -- it's a question of how big a barrier. Tab targeting has a lower barrier than action targeting, in terms of twitch skills... but it's actually less accessible to the average player (since the average player these days uses a phone or a console)... those are both kinds of skill, kinds of prior knowledge

with a sandboxy world, you can have some activities call for one sort of skill, and some call for another

[...]

Yeah, the kind of thing I was getting at was about real world skill versus RPG skill. RPG skill lets you do things that you have no ability to do in the real world, it's all dice rolls and stats. Systems that call for real world skill gate out those who don't have it.

Even RPG systems have SOME skill needed -- at least the better ones -- but there are always real questions of balancing real skill versus fulfilling a player's fantasy.
[7:19 PM]
A classic example of this is crafting systems, players have often disliked very active crafting because the type of player who likes crafting uses those systems as meditative breaks, peaceful low stress play. Active crafting works against that some.

— 09/26/2020 2:24 AM

Its old news but there is a weird connection between
Playable Worlds
Singularity 6
and Build A Rocket Boy
Companies. They are all creating this MMO environment but have something in common which is allowing broad number of players to choose what they want to be or who they want to affiliate themselves with. @Raph Koster What’s goin on Raph ?

Raph Koster:
Basically: the whole industry is moving towards games as a service, and lots of companies are taking notice. A lot of the established companies don't know how to do it. Retention is king in that world, and devs who have only made consumable content don't know how to design for that. MMOs are "hot" again for investment because investors know they are the original GaaS.

As part of that, "Metaverse" talk has bubbled up again, so there are investors who are interested in things that point towards that too... that's part of why you see people putting money into Manticore, for example.

Sandboxes in particular drive interest because people see that the casual and mobile market has hugely expanded games. So lots of folks are thinking that maybe sandboxes had the right idea, 20 years ago, to have more ways to play.

So, not as much about datamining, per se. But very much about long term industry trends.

— 10/24/2020 4:14 AM

Also what's the benefit of cloud when local computing may do something like this if I'm not mistaken? [link to UE5 demo]

Raph Koster:
Cloud computing architecture is built around a few ideas that are a little different from just "host a server"

The biggest is launching and shutting down servers on demand, enabling what is called "elastic compute." Basically, it lets you add or remove computing power on the fly.

Devs currently mostly use this to add or remove individual game servers

But it gets more interesting when you pair it with other cloud features

One of the biggest is "microservices" -- the idea that instead of a monolithic server, you instead have smaller, more dedicated servers that do different thigns

Say, an AI microservice which handles the AI, can spin up more AI processes when needed, shut them down when not\

A related thing is that there are cloud hosts that are better at memory, others better at raw CPU, others which are basically GPUs in the cloud

Historically, game servers are built as one blob

If you architect your game to be cloud native, that means trying to take advantage of all this

That does not mean better graphics. The VAST majoreity of that UE5 demo is about graphics

Instead, it means better server capability

AI. Proc gen. Dynamic worlds. Persistence so that what players do matters.

Basically, doing things that were the daydreams of games 20 years ago but which have mostly not shown up

[...]

Scale of people in one place is ONE way to try to use the cloud. It's frankly the most boring and pointless way

[...]

Well... think of it this way. Back in 1997, with UO, I tried to make a parallel world. Every creature was going to get hungry, seek out shelter, have loves and hates. We couldn't afford it Players could build homes tile by tile, and a single house had -- HAS -- more interactive objects than the entirety of a Bttlefield or Fortnite match. But they couldn't chop a tree down, because we couldn't track that much data. Players could craft, but they couldn't customize what they made that much, because of the memory load. It had basic RPG combat instead of something more complex and active, because latency was bad. You couldn't dig in the ground, and mch of the world was static because it shipped on CD.

Today, the average online game is 100% static. Nothing saves. You can't build. You can't drop things on the ground, even. The creatures are just fodder. It's not an alternate world.

— 11/05/2020 2:09 AM

Having a formal, regular point of contact with the community like DE's devstreams would be amazing

Raph Koster:
Our plan is to be very open, including posting up design docs and stuff for you to pick apart

I mean, we are making our idea, but we want it to be something you actually want, so we want you to vet it all

[...]

It is how I have always run my games

In UO we had weekly IRC meetings with the player base, we had every new feature go up in advance in "In Design" for discussion

In SWG we had weekly article updates on features, dev interviews, and players picked as reps for every class/role in the game

Nobody remembers these days, but UO basically invented "community management"

- 11/20/2020 2:22 AM

at some point you’re just recreating real life, then. wheres the game?

Raph Koster:
The fact that people can play in different ways doesn’t mean each way needs to be tedious.

[...]

The key part that we see as crucially important is that people come to value the importance of the different ways to play. The warrior ought to value that crafter who makes their great weapons. The crafter should hold in high esteem the explorer who finds rare materials etc.

— 11/22/2020 12:36 AM

i'm not familiar with the backstory of the changes that made death less catastrophic in UO (maybe @Raph Koster was in favor of them?)

Raph Koster:
UO actually had very NON-catastrophic death. Because items were relatively easy-come-easy-go, loss of gear wasn't crippling. Because UO allowed near instant travel all over the map, it wasn't that big a deal to be far away, either, not once you had a decent rune library.

What UO had was emotionally abusive murder which is not the same thing. Death itself was mild. It was the emotional attachment of having a griefer dance on your corpse or turn your pets into pies while you watched that caused so many of the problems. Dark Age of Camelot got pretty far simply by blocking chat between killer and target in RvR combat.

I didn't favor the way in which playerkilling was removed in UO -- I thought that a flagging system could continue to evolve and handle it. And eventually, SWG's and then WoW's (which is nearly identical to SWG's) did in fact do OK with the issue. By the standards of MMOs during the EQ era, WoW IS a "full PK" game.

— 12/11/2020 8:09 PM

That probably depends on what you consider a great MMO in the first place

Raph Koster:
You don't ask easy questions eh?

A virtual world is a place. We put games in it. So first, a great place, I think.

Next, the games people like depend a lot on who they are. Very subjective.

But to my mind, that means offering a spread of things for people who play different ways.

These people may not realize it, but the world is better with different types of players in it.

The world needs to bring people together,. not drive them apart --not forced, but naturally, as people realize that we are better together, just like in the real world.

So it needs to not get in the way of that, basically.

Lastly... it's an alternate world, not our reality. People go there to be people they can't be, somewhere they cannot actually go, to do things they cannot actually do, with other people.

So it needs to find ways to enable people to reach for those other selves and other experiences

I think there are a lot of ways to accomplish the above... but it's funny how many games lose sight of some of those principles, I think

Excessive grind, no focus on fun, too much focus on numbers, too much emphasis on separating people, too narrow a play range, too boring a world... it easy to fall into some of those traps

And some player desires contradict others, of course

Bottom line, for me, though, it that it needs to feel like another world you fall into. Not just a game.

— 12/11/2020 8:23 PM

how do you feel about NPCs? What should their role be in a virtual world that's primarily intended to be player run?

Raph Koster:
On LegendMUD, we lovingly handcrafted every NPC.

On UO, we built as robust a broad AI as we could to make them generic.

On SWG, we avoided having them at all if we could.

I think they historically serve two needs: one, to make the world come alive; and two, to give quests and tasks for players.

If the world is alive enough in other ways, SWG showed you can go really far without needing them as much. But I think the quest terminals replacing the quests were a fail.

Too dry, basically.

These days, it's been shown plausible to have players giving each other missions, so that opens new areas to explore

We also have much more capability to do large scale AI a la UO, so that opens other, different doors

The one thing that has clearly gotten less and less tenable is lovingly handcrafting them. Some pull it off, but it's obvious it costs a mountainous fortune

List of Links

2024-07-31T18:39:04Z

Hooby: /* Stars Reach Game Pillars */ - added new links

Various videos and blog posts that help better understand the game and the design philosophy behind it.

== By Playable Worlds ==

=== Teaser and Trailer Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjstnAJ2KwU Announcement Trailer], June 28, 2024

=== Dev Vlog Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoJUeNgTWBs Raph's Vision], June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UzWbHa0bCY Announcement Q&A], June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeY4ERLhNjc The Living World], July 3, 2024

=== Riffs by Raph ===

These articles were posted in several waves, during the years before the game announcement. They don't contain any concrete details on the game, but a lot on the ambitions and design philosophy behind it.

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-player-driven-economies/ Player Driven Economies], April 1, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-designing-for-social-play/ Designing for Social Play], April 8, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-thinking-long-term/ Thinking Long-term], April 15, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-what-does-cloud-native-even-mean/ What does Cloud-Native even mean?], April 22, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-online-world-or-metaverse/ Online World or Metaverse?], September 2, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-revealing-our-technology/ Revealing our Technology], September 9, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-but-first-the-game/ But First, the Game], September 16, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-1/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 1], September 23, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-2/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 2], September 30, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-3/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 3], October 7, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-4/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 4], October 14, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-5/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 5], October 21, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-sandbox-versus-themepark/ Sandbox versus Themepark], September 1, 2022
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/what-drives-retention/ What Drives Retention], March 7, 2023

=== Blogs and Articles by Raph ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/the-future-of-online-worlds/ The Future of Online Worlds], March 25, 2021
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/games/laws-of-online-world-design/the-laws-of-online-world-design/ The Laws of Online World Design], April, 2016
* [https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3582932 From Online World to Metaverse: The Future of Online Games and Games Research], March 12, 2023

=== Stars Reach Game Pillars & More ===

These were posted in the weeks directly following the game announcement, and contain information on what they plan the game to be:

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-one/ Part One: simulation, persistent state, player community & interdpendence], July 10, 2024
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/07/10/stars-reach-pillars/ Addendum to part one], July 10, 2024
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-two/ Part Two: easy and intuitive controls + interfaces, deep and proven game mechanics], July 17, 2024
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/07/18/sr-pillars-part-2-easy-surface-much-depth/ Addendum to part two, on time commitment in MMORPGs], July 18, 2024
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-three/ Part Three: Hope, optimism, and fun in science-fiction], July 24, 2024
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/07/24/sr-pillars-three-the-vibe/ Addendum to part three], July 24, 2024

* [https://starsreach.com/what-is-stars-reach-about/ What is Stars Reach About?], July 31, 2024
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/2014/01/15/a-vision-exercise/ Addendum: A vision exercise], July 24, 2024

=== How Games Get Made, by Greg Costikyan ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-1/ Part 1], August 3, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-2/ Part 2], August 17, 2021

== Third Party ==

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with Raph ===

Mostly unrelated, but contain a few mentions of the new company and the new game being worked on.

* [https://www.gamesindustry.biz/playable-worlds-has-a-different-mindset-on-engagement Playable Worlds has a 'different mindset' on engagement], October 4, 2019
* [https://thenextweb.com/news/gaming-industry-veteran-services-store-wars-weighs-in Gaming industry veteran on how the Store Wars will end], October 19, 2019
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20191212151654/https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/352451/Welcome_Back_Koster_Why_an_MMORPG_vet_is_back_building_a_new_virtual_world.php Welcome Back, Koster: Why an MMORPG vet is back building a new virtual world], October 25, 2019
* [https://open.spotify.com/episode/46sJ9rN3MjfUit5DAHmpxH Countdown to Classic], December 2019 (Podcast - starting at 37:20)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbhC6wokNGc The Metaverse is Coming], April 28, 2020 (Video, YoutTube)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhIgJKJptbk&t=7276s Was haben MMOs alles geändert?], June 5, 2020 (live-stream, German hosts speak accented English)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/building-a-game-that-keeps-players-engaged-for-years-and-deserves-to-be-subscribed-to/ Building a game that keeps players engaged for years — and deserves to be subscribed to], August 24, 2020 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/metaverse-startups-must-heed-the-mistakes-of-the-past-40-years-of-virtual-worlds/ Metaverse startups must heed the mistakes of the past 40 years of virtual worlds], January 28, 2021 (Video)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfyif5a3PyI Building the Metaverse], October 6, 2021 (Video)
* [https://vimeo.com/670516756 Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 26, 2022 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/raph-kosters-real-talk-about-a-real-metaverse/ Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 27, 2022 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoJOzdJaWBs Club Metaverse Podcast], March 20, 2023 (Video)
* [https://gdcvault.com/play/1034162/Game-Design-Career-Fireside-with Game Design Career Fireside], July 25, 2023
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtj3lltPXyQ The Fourth Curtain], August 24, 2023 (Podcast)
* [https://www.gamedaily.biz/raph-koster-talks-metaverse-design/ Raph Koster talks metaverse design], September 25, 2023 (Text)
* [https://fieldnotesfromthemetaverse.com/2024/02/21/interview-with-raph-koster-the-declaration-of-rights-of-avatars/ The Declaration of Rights of Avatars], February 21, 2024 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InkCFcCyUoA AWS for Games], May 24, 2024 (Video)

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with others ===

* [https://www.elitegamedevelopers.com/egd-088-eric-goldberg-on-investing-and-the-future-of-gaming/ Eric Goldberg on investing and the future of gaming], May 31, 2021
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDStRDwenaA The Here's Waldo Podcast interviews Gordon Walton], December 12, 2023

=== Youtube, Post-Announcement ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2g-j2ikx80 Rommi Noodles], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcbpbiHGB_4 Redbeardflynn], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fwP-4FmBuo Kid Lee], July 1, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa_0MUAvpOk Kazhamania], July 1, 2024 (French)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSz0MyVyroo Controlled Chaos Gaming], July 3, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36YNM0y3LU Napyet Gaming], July 14, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ip8ZxXA0vo Perzival], July 16, 2024

Game Announcement

2024-07-27T07:40:23Z

Hooby: /* Facebook */ fix typo

[[Stars Reach]] was announced on June 28, 2024 - nearly 5 years after the initial unveiling of the company. The announcement happened via a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjstnAJ2KwU game trailer], accompanied by a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UzWbHa0bCY Q&A video] and another video on the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoJUeNgTWBs design vision].

Reception was mainly positive, especially among fans of Raph and his previous games but there also was significant criticism about the unpolished pre-alpha graphics and the colorful, stylized art-style. Comments along the lines of "this looks like a mobile game for little kids" were not uncommon.

[[Playable Worlds|The developers]] have said that the game is still very early pre-alpha, and that the graphics are work in progress. Shaders, animations, post processing, etc. are all still due for multiple improvements and overhauls - possibly including Global Illumination. But the stylized, colorful look is intentional and here to stay. They are ultimately aiming for a visual style somewhere between [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Breath_of_the_Wild Breath of the Wild] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genshin%20Impact Genshin Impact].

== Pre-Announcement ARG Puzzle ==

The game announcement was hyped up by a ten day countdown of revealing questions posted on social media. The questions themselves do tell you something about the kind of game that '''Stars Reach''' does aim to be - but each image also contained a bar of black and white boxes, which - if combined in the right order - revealed a pixelated version of the game logo with two hands reaching for a star.

Despite getting pretty close, the early community was not able to solve the puzzle in time for the game announcement.

=== Facebook ===

* 10 What if... you could actually invent new things in an MMO?
* 9 What if... there was a way to discover secrets in an MMO -- and no easy wiki holding all the answers?
* 8 What if... it rained, creating puddles that froze overnight?
* 7 What if... bad weather meant travelling through the mud?
* 6 What if... there were places with lower gravity?
* 5 What if... you could write quests and make contracts for one another?
* 4 What if... you could chop down forests and grow them back?
* 3 What if... you could shout "You shall not pass!" and collapse a rock bridge?
* 3 What if... strawberries were sometimes in season?
* 2 What if... the creatures in the world actually had feelings you could see?
* 2 What if... icy cliffs were actually treacherously slippery?
* 1 What if... you could choose to make a new life for yourself on a new planet?
* 1 What if... you could pick your style of combat in an MMO?

=== Instagram ===

* 10 What if... MMOS actually had fulfilled the dreams we once had for them?
* 9 What if... exploring actually mattered (to you and others) in an MMO?
* 8 What if... walking through the grass carved a trail if you did it often enough?
* 7 What if... the season actually mattered?
* 6 What if... you could search and discover entirely new planets?
* 5 What if... you had to decipher ancient languages?
* 4 What if... sometimes the monsters invaded ''you''?
* 3 What if... monsters didn't respawn in the same place always?
* 3 What if... you could build a city?
* 2 What if... you could actually get snowed in at a tavern, like in the fantasy novels?
* 2 What if... you could run your own tavern in an MMO?
* 1 What if... you could have fun in an MMO in a five minute session?
* 1 What if... you missed your target and accidentially burned down the forest?

=== X (Twitter) ===

* 10 What if... you could easily change your mind about who your character is?
* 9 What if... you could be admired and famous in an MMO for more than just your character level or raid skills?
* 8 What if... the game also rewarded you for playing peacefully?
* 7 What if... an MMO let you reshape the landscape?
* 6 What if... you and your friends could govern an entire planet in your MMO?
* 5 What if... even the devs didn't know what was hidden out there in the worlds?
* 4 What if... you could actually irrigate your farm?
* 4 What if... there were ways for everyone in an MMO to have their own house?
* 3 What if... you could be swept away by the current of a raging river?
* 3 What if... you could freeze the poison gas midair and watch it form a puddle?
* 2 What if... it mattered if you accidentially drove a creature extinct?
* 2 What if... you could collapse a cliff onto your enemies?
* 1 What if... you could build a space station?
* 1 What if... you could live your life on a space station or a starship and just visit planets when you wanted?

Design Pillars

2024-07-27T07:31:04Z

Hooby: /* The game will be driven by player community and interdependence */ - initial version

The design of [[Stars Reach]] is guided by three sets of game pillars.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
| These are the defining philosophies that animate everything in the game design.
|}

== First Set: Alive Online World ==
([https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-one/ Source])

"Alive" includes both what the players do, and what the world does (and how they interact).

The idea here is to make the game behave and react in believable ways. Water runs down a hill, snow can pile up, dry sand is soft and will not hold a shape, hard rock can be carved, things can be molten, frozen, set on fire, collapsed, washed away, and so on.

=== The game will run off simulation ===

Most games typically rely on scripted events, hand-crafted cut-scenes, carefully prepared set-pieces and pre-written dialogue to show what is happening in the world. Every player gets to see exactly the same happenings, whenever they are at the right place in the storyline and trigger them happening. Or in classical themepark MMOs you often don't even see it happening - but rather an NPCs just tells players what happened. Sometimes you get branching paths - where the player can decide to do either A or B - and the game will then play out accordingly.

In Stars Reach, happenings actually emerge from interactions. The underlying world simulation is operated by simple rules that roughly approximate physical and chemical effects, plant growth and animal behavior. The economic simulation operates on simple rules like limited supply (raw materials on a planet run out eventually), transport costs, production costs, player demand (item degradation causes regular need for replacements) and other things. And on top of that sits a layer of real social interactions (not simulated ones) of real people, that's supported through social structures like friends-lists, player organisations, player cities and planet governments.

And these simple systems and rules can interact with each other in very complicated ways - and that leads to complex, emergent bevahior. An oft mentioned example for complex player behavior emerging from very simple rules (a single infectious debuff), is the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident Corrupted Blood incident] in WoW, which was caused by an unintended bug - but led to observed player behavior that actually sparked academic scientific interest.

Stars Reach isn't trying for such drastic, shocking effects - but using the same underlying principles to have layers of many smaller, more subtle things going on constantly and influencing each other. This can result in complex, dynamic behavior - and since the underlying rules are meant to mimic the real world, the resulting behavior should appear logical and natural. Predators hunting prey, prices going up when demand soars and supply dwindles - and going down again, when the marked gets flooded with a new material found on a new planet. Animals becoming friendly (or even tame), when you feed them and tread them well. Fire spreading to nearby flammable materials. Water dousing the fire. A break in a dam causing the water level to drop, and the downstream area to flood. And so on, and so forth.

And while the simulation rules will mimic the real world in order to create intuitive results - they will be tweaked to be fun and interesting, rather than realistic and scientifically accurate. The main goal is to simulate things that are interesting for the players to interact with - and anything that does not result in providing gameplay, is probably not worth simulating in the first place.

=== The game will be a true persistent state world ===

A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_world persistent (state) world] is a virtual world which - as defined by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bartle Richard Bartle] - "continues to exist and develop internally even when there are no people interacting with it."

In the case of Stars Reach the simulation on planets will actually be paused when no players are there - but as soon as a player arrives, the simulation will secretly fast-forward through everything that would have happened in the player's absence - and thus the world will appear to the players as if it just had kept on going during all that time.

The internal state of the game world will always be saved and advanced forward in time. It will never be reset, nor be static. The world will change and evolve according to the game rules - and how the players interact with them.

This pillar does overlap quite a bit with the previous one. The Simulation is what makes the game continue to exist and develop internally even without players, and the persistent state of the world, is the data which that simulation operates upon. Obviously the Corrupted Blood incidence did not rely on a persistent state world (which WoW doesn't have) - but it did attach to persistent character states instead (or character pet state, in this case).

=== The game will be driven by player community and interdependence ===

This pillar ties strongly into what has been explained in a previous 'Riffs by Raph' article: [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-designing-for-social-play/ Designing for Social Play].

The friendships, feeling of community and social ties that we experience in a game, are some of the biggest reasons that we keep coming back and playing more. And Stars Reach wants to support and foster that, through various means, like for example allowing players to be members of multiple different guilds/clans/organisations at once.

But interdepence between players is what ties it all together, and even makes solo players part of the fold. In Stars Reach, everyone is going to depend on others, in some form or fashion. Every crafter is going to have a chain of suppliers, every player is going to have their favorite playershops to buy their items and get them repaired, everyone is gonna have their favorite watering hole/saloon/cantina/whatever to get their buffs, everyone is gonna have their favorite planet or city for gearing up before as well as regrouping after a fight. Every one is gonna have their buyers and fences for the materials they loot/mine/farm/harvest/extract...

Players are going to depend on each other for goods, services and support. Some more, some less - but nobody is going to be an island. Everyone will at least partake in the economy, which is entirely player-driven. There are no NPC vendors that will turn crap into credits, or sell basic items at an unchanging base-price. To sell your stuff, some other player has to actually want to buy it. And that also means, that there probably wont be any trash loot in the game - everything will have a purpose and be useful to someone.

== Second Set: Ease Meets Depth ==

=== The game will be deep: a set of proven game mechanics brought together in one universe. ===

=== Controls and interfaces will be intuitive and simple and familiar. ===

=== We will support varied clients so that players can play on whatever device they choose. ===

== Third Set: Optimistic, Retro Sci-Fantasy ==

=== Stars Reach is a game about hope and optimism ===

=== The game will have deep lore ===

=== The game will be welcoming and fun and beautiful ===

=== The game will constantly generate new content ===

Design Pillars

2024-07-27T07:17:41Z

Hooby: /* First Set: Alive Online World */ added source link

The design of [[Stars Reach]] is guided by three sets of game pillars.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
| These are the defining philosophies that animate everything in the game design.
|}

== First Set: Alive Online World ==
([https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-one/ Source])

"Alive" includes both what the players do, and what the world does (and how they interact).

The idea here is to make the game behave and react in believable ways. Water runs down a hill, snow can pile up, dry sand is soft and will not hold a shape, hard rock can be carved, things can be molten, frozen, set on fire, collapsed, washed away, and so on.

=== The game will run off simulation ===

Most games typically rely on scripted events, hand-crafted cut-scenes, carefully prepared set-pieces and pre-written dialogue to show what is happening in the world. Every player gets to see exactly the same happenings, whenever they are at the right place in the storyline and trigger them happening. Or in classical themepark MMOs you often don't even see it happening - but rather an NPCs just tells players what happened. Sometimes you get branching paths - where the player can decide to do either A or B - and the game will then play out accordingly.

In Stars Reach, happenings actually emerge from interactions. The underlying world simulation is operated by simple rules that roughly approximate physical and chemical effects, plant growth and animal behavior. The economic simulation operates on simple rules like limited supply (raw materials on a planet run out eventually), transport costs, production costs, player demand (item degradation causes regular need for replacements) and other things. And on top of that sits a layer of real social interactions (not simulated ones) of real people, that's supported through social structures like friends-lists, player organisations, player cities and planet governments.

And these simple systems and rules can interact with each other in very complicated ways - and that leads to complex, emergent bevahior. An oft mentioned example for complex player behavior emerging from very simple rules (a single infectious debuff), is the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident Corrupted Blood incident] in WoW, which was caused by an unintended bug - but led to observed player behavior that actually sparked academic scientific interest.

Stars Reach isn't trying for such drastic, shocking effects - but using the same underlying principles to have layers of many smaller, more subtle things going on constantly and influencing each other. This can result in complex, dynamic behavior - and since the underlying rules are meant to mimic the real world, the resulting behavior should appear logical and natural. Predators hunting prey, prices going up when demand soars and supply dwindles - and going down again, when the marked gets flooded with a new material found on a new planet. Animals becoming friendly (or even tame), when you feed them and tread them well. Fire spreading to nearby flammable materials. Water dousing the fire. A break in a dam causing the water level to drop, and the downstream area to flood. And so on, and so forth.

And while the simulation rules will mimic the real world in order to create intuitive results - they will be tweaked to be fun and interesting, rather than realistic and scientifically accurate. The main goal is to simulate things that are interesting for the players to interact with - and anything that does not result in providing gameplay, is probably not worth simulating in the first place.

=== The game will be a true persistent state world ===

A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_world persistent (state) world] is a virtual world which - as defined by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bartle Richard Bartle] - "continues to exist and develop internally even when there are no people interacting with it."

In the case of Stars Reach the simulation on planets will actually be paused when no players are there - but as soon as a player arrives, the simulation will secretly fast-forward through everything that would have happened in the player's absence - and thus the world will appear to the players as if it just had kept on going during all that time.

The internal state of the game world will always be saved and advanced forward in time. It will never be reset, nor be static. The world will change and evolve according to the game rules - and how the players interact with them.

This pillar does overlap quite a bit with the previous one. The Simulation is what makes the game continue to exist and develop internally even without players, and the persistent state of the world, is the data which that simulation operates upon. Obviously the Corrupted Blood incidence did not rely on a persistent state world (which WoW doesn't have) - but it did attach to persistent character states instead (or character pet state, in this case).

=== The game will be driven by player community and interdependence ===

TODO

== Second Set: Ease Meets Depth ==

=== The game will be deep: a set of proven game mechanics brought together in one universe. ===

=== Controls and interfaces will be intuitive and simple and familiar. ===

=== We will support varied clients so that players can play on whatever device they choose. ===

== Third Set: Optimistic, Retro Sci-Fantasy ==

=== Stars Reach is a game about hope and optimism ===

=== The game will have deep lore ===

=== The game will be welcoming and fun and beautiful ===

=== The game will constantly generate new content ===

Design Pillars

2024-07-27T07:14:43Z

Hooby: /* The game will be a true persistent state world */ - added paragraphs

The design of [[Stars Reach]] is guided by three sets of game pillars.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
| These are the defining philosophies that animate everything in the game design.
|}

== First Set: Alive Online World ==
"Alive" includes both what the players do, and what the world does (and how they interact).

The idea here is to make the game behave and react in believable ways. Water runs down a hill, snow can pile up, dry sand is soft and will not hold a shape, hard rock can be carved, things can be molten, frozen, set on fire, collapsed, washed away, and so on.

=== The game will run off simulation ===

Most games typically rely on scripted events, hand-crafted cut-scenes, carefully prepared set-pieces and pre-written dialogue to show what is happening in the world. Every player gets to see exactly the same happenings, whenever they are at the right place in the storyline and trigger them happening. Or in classical themepark MMOs you often don't even see it happening - but rather an NPCs just tells players what happened. Sometimes you get branching paths - where the player can decide to do either A or B - and the game will then play out accordingly.

In Stars Reach, happenings actually emerge from interactions. The underlying world simulation is operated by simple rules that roughly approximate physical and chemical effects, plant growth and animal behavior. The economic simulation operates on simple rules like limited supply (raw materials on a planet run out eventually), transport costs, production costs, player demand (item degradation causes regular need for replacements) and other things. And on top of that sits a layer of real social interactions (not simulated ones) of real people, that's supported through social structures like friends-lists, player organisations, player cities and planet governments.

And these simple systems and rules can interact with each other in very complicated ways - and that leads to complex, emergent bevahior. An oft mentioned example for complex player behavior emerging from very simple rules (a single infectious debuff), is the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident Corrupted Blood incident] in WoW, which was caused by an unintended bug - but led to observed player behavior that actually sparked academic scientific interest.

Stars Reach isn't trying for such drastic, shocking effects - but using the same underlying principles to have layers of many smaller, more subtle things going on constantly and influencing each other. This can result in complex, dynamic behavior - and since the underlying rules are meant to mimic the real world, the resulting behavior should appear logical and natural. Predators hunting prey, prices going up when demand soars and supply dwindles - and going down again, when the marked gets flooded with a new material found on a new planet. Animals becoming friendly (or even tame), when you feed them and tread them well. Fire spreading to nearby flammable materials. Water dousing the fire. A break in a dam causing the water level to drop, and the downstream area to flood. And so on, and so forth.

And while the simulation rules will mimic the real world in order to create intuitive results - they will be tweaked to be fun and interesting, rather than realistic and scientifically accurate. The main goal is to simulate things that are interesting for the players to interact with - and anything that does not result in providing gameplay, is probably not worth simulating in the first place.

=== The game will be a true persistent state world ===

A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_world persistent (state) world] is a virtual world which - as defined by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bartle Richard Bartle] - "continues to exist and develop internally even when there are no people interacting with it."

In the case of Stars Reach the simulation on planets will actually be paused when no players are there - but as soon as a player arrives, the simulation will secretly fast-forward through everything that would have happened in the player's absence - and thus the world will appear to the players as if it just had kept on going during all that time.

The internal state of the game world will always be saved and advanced forward in time. It will never be reset, nor be static. The world will change and evolve according to the game rules - and how the players interact with them.

This pillar does overlap quite a bit with the previous one. The Simulation is what makes the game continue to exist and develop internally even without players, and the persistent state of the world, is the data which that simulation operates upon. Obviously the Corrupted Blood incidence did not rely on a persistent state world (which WoW doesn't have) - but it did attach to persistent character states instead (or character pet state, in this case).

=== The game will be driven by player community and interdependence ===

TODO

== Second Set: Ease Meets Depth ==

=== The game will be deep: a set of proven game mechanics brought together in one universe. ===

=== Controls and interfaces will be intuitive and simple and familiar. ===

=== We will support varied clients so that players can play on whatever device they choose. ===

== Third Set: Optimistic, Retro Sci-Fantasy ==

=== Stars Reach is a game about hope and optimism ===

=== The game will have deep lore ===

=== The game will be welcoming and fun and beautiful ===

=== The game will constantly generate new content ===

List of Links

2024-07-27T06:17:34Z

Hooby: added controlled chaos gaming yt video

Various videos and blog posts that help better understand the game and the design philosophy behind it.

== By Playable Worlds ==

=== Teaser and Trailer Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjstnAJ2KwU Announcement Trailer], June 28, 2024

=== Dev Vlog Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoJUeNgTWBs Raph's Vision], June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UzWbHa0bCY Announcement Q&A], June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeY4ERLhNjc The Living World], July 3, 2024

=== Riffs by Raph ===

These articles were posted in several waves, during the years before the game announcement. They don't contain any concrete details on the game, but a lot on the ambitions and design philosophy behind it.

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-player-driven-economies/ Player Driven Economies], April 1, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-designing-for-social-play/ Designing for Social Play], April 8, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-thinking-long-term/ Thinking Long-term], April 15, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-what-does-cloud-native-even-mean/ What does Cloud-Native even mean?], April 22, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-online-world-or-metaverse/ Online World or Metaverse?], September 2, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-revealing-our-technology/ Revealing our Technology], September 9, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-but-first-the-game/ But First, the Game], September 16, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-1/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 1], September 23, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-2/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 2], September 30, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-3/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 3], October 7, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-4/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 4], October 14, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-5/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 5], October 21, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-sandbox-versus-themepark/ Sandbox versus Themepark], September 1, 2022
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/what-drives-retention/ What Drives Retention], March 7, 2023

=== Blogs and Articles by Raph ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/the-future-of-online-worlds/ The Future of Online Worlds], March 25, 2021
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/games/laws-of-online-world-design/the-laws-of-online-world-design/ The Laws of Online World Design], April, 2016
* [https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3582932 From Online World to Metaverse: The Future of Online Games and Games Research], March 12, 2023

=== Stars Reach Game Pillars ===

These were posted in the weeks directly following the game announcement, and contain information on what they plan the game to be:

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-one/ Part One: simulation, persistent state, player community & interdpendence], July 10, 2024
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/07/10/stars-reach-pillars/ Addendum to part one], July 10, 2024
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-two/ Part Two: easy and intuitive controls + interfaces, deep and proven game mechanics], July 17, 2024
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/07/18/sr-pillars-part-2-easy-surface-much-depth/ Addendum to part two, on time commitment in MMORPGs], July 18, 2024
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-three/ Part Three: Hope, optimism, and fun in science-fiction], July 24, 2024
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/07/24/sr-pillars-three-the-vibe/ Addendum to part three], July 24, 2024

=== How Games Get Made, by Greg Costikyan ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-1/ Part 1], August 3, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-2/ Part 2], August 17, 2021

== Third Party ==

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with Raph ===

Mostly unrelated, but contain a few mentions of the new company and the new game being worked on.

* [https://www.gamesindustry.biz/playable-worlds-has-a-different-mindset-on-engagement Playable Worlds has a 'different mindset' on engagement], October 4, 2019
* [https://thenextweb.com/news/gaming-industry-veteran-services-store-wars-weighs-in Gaming industry veteran on how the Store Wars will end], October 19, 2019
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20191212151654/https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/352451/Welcome_Back_Koster_Why_an_MMORPG_vet_is_back_building_a_new_virtual_world.php Welcome Back, Koster: Why an MMORPG vet is back building a new virtual world], October 25, 2019
* [https://open.spotify.com/episode/46sJ9rN3MjfUit5DAHmpxH Countdown to Classic], December 2019 (Podcast - starting at 37:20)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbhC6wokNGc The Metaverse is Coming], April 28, 2020 (Video, YoutTube)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhIgJKJptbk&t=7276s Was haben MMOs alles geändert?], June 5, 2020 (live-stream, German hosts speak accented English)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/building-a-game-that-keeps-players-engaged-for-years-and-deserves-to-be-subscribed-to/ Building a game that keeps players engaged for years — and deserves to be subscribed to], August 24, 2020 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/metaverse-startups-must-heed-the-mistakes-of-the-past-40-years-of-virtual-worlds/ Metaverse startups must heed the mistakes of the past 40 years of virtual worlds], January 28, 2021 (Video)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfyif5a3PyI Building the Metaverse], October 6, 2021 (Video)
* [https://vimeo.com/670516756 Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 26, 2022 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/raph-kosters-real-talk-about-a-real-metaverse/ Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 27, 2022 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoJOzdJaWBs Club Metaverse Podcast], March 20, 2023 (Video)
* [https://gdcvault.com/play/1034162/Game-Design-Career-Fireside-with Game Design Career Fireside], July 25, 2023
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtj3lltPXyQ The Fourth Curtain], August 24, 2023 (Podcast)
* [https://www.gamedaily.biz/raph-koster-talks-metaverse-design/ Raph Koster talks metaverse design], September 25, 2023 (Text)
* [https://fieldnotesfromthemetaverse.com/2024/02/21/interview-with-raph-koster-the-declaration-of-rights-of-avatars/ The Declaration of Rights of Avatars], February 21, 2024 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InkCFcCyUoA AWS for Games], May 24, 2024 (Video)

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with others ===

* [https://www.elitegamedevelopers.com/egd-088-eric-goldberg-on-investing-and-the-future-of-gaming/ Eric Goldberg on investing and the future of gaming], May 31, 2021
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDStRDwenaA The Here's Waldo Podcast interviews Gordon Walton], December 12, 2023

=== Youtube, Post-Announcement ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2g-j2ikx80 Rommi Noodles], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcbpbiHGB_4 Redbeardflynn], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fwP-4FmBuo Kid Lee], July 1, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa_0MUAvpOk Kazhamania], July 1, 2024 (French)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSz0MyVyroo Controlled Chaos Gaming], July 3, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36YNM0y3LU Napyet Gaming], July 14, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ip8ZxXA0vo Perzival], July 16, 2024

Main Page

2024-07-26T12:17:47Z

Hooby: added game pillars link

[[File:SR_Logo_3D_NEW_V2.webp|200px|right|link=|alt=]]
Welcome to the '''{{SITENAME}}''', a central repository of all things related to [https://starsreach.com/ Stars Reach], an upcoming [[Sandbox MMORPG|social sandbox MMORPG]] set in a science-fantasy universe.

'''Stars Reach''' was [[Game Announcement|announced]] on Friday, June 28th, 2024, and is being developed by [[Playable Worlds]]. It is a spiritual successor to both Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies.

This wiki is a community effort created and maintained by volunteers.

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Pages on this wiki (so far):
|-
| [[Playable Worlds]] || [[Sandbox MMORPG]] || [[Game Announcement]]
|-
| [[Character progression]] || [[Playable Species]] || [[List of Links]]
|-
| [[Game Pillars]] || ||
|}

This wiki is still in it's early days - but it will grow and expand over time. You are hereby invited to join and help write it's pages!

Design Pillars

2024-07-26T12:15:56Z

Hooby: initial version

The design of [[Stars Reach]] is guided by three sets of game pillars.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
| These are the defining philosophies that animate everything in the game design.
|}

== First Set: Alive Online World ==
"Alive" includes both what the players do, and what the world does (and how they interact).

The idea here is to make the game behave and react in believable ways. Water runs down a hill, snow can pile up, dry sand is soft and will not hold a shape, hard rock can be carved, things can be molten, frozen, set on fire, collapsed, washed away, and so on.

=== The game will run off simulation ===

Most games typically rely on scripted events, hand-crafted cut-scenes, carefully prepared set-pieces and pre-written dialogue to show what is happening in the world. Every player gets to see exactly the same happenings, whenever they are at the right place in the storyline and trigger them happening. Or in classical themepark MMOs you often don't even see it happening - but rather an NPCs just tells players what happened. Sometimes you get branching paths - where the player can decide to do either A or B - and the game will then play out accordingly.

In Stars Reach, happenings actually emerge from interactions. The underlying world simulation is operated by simple rules that roughly approximate physical and chemical effects, plant growth and animal behavior. The economic simulation operates on simple rules like limited supply (raw materials on a planet run out eventually), transport costs, production costs, player demand (item degradation causes regular need for replacements) and other things. And on top of that sits a layer of real social interactions (not simulated ones) of real people, that's supported through social structures like friends-lists, player organisations, player cities and planet governments.

And these simple systems and rules can interact with each other in very complicated ways - and that leads to complex, emergent bevahior. An oft mentioned example for complex player behavior emerging from very simple rules (a single infectious debuff), is the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident Corrupted Blood incident] in WoW, which was caused by an unintended bug - but led to observed player behavior that actually sparked academic scientific interest.

Stars Reach isn't trying for such drastic, shocking effects - but using the same underlying principles to have layers of many smaller, more subtle things going on constantly and influencing each other. This can result in complex, dynamic behavior - and since the underlying rules are meant to mimic the real world, the resulting behavior should appear logical and natural. Predators hunting prey, prices going up when demand soars and supply dwindles - and going down again, when the marked gets flooded with a new material found on a new planet. Animals becoming friendly (or even tame), when you feed them and tread them well. Fire spreading to nearby flammable materials. Water dousing the fire. A break in a dam causing the water level to drop, and the downstream area to flood. And so on, and so forth.

And while the simulation rules will mimic the real world in order to create intuitive results - they will be tweaked to be fun and interesting, rather than realistic and scientifically accurate. The main goal is to simulate things that are interesting for the players to interact with - and anything that does not result in providing gameplay, is probably not worth simulating in the first place.

=== The game will be a true persistent state world ===

A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_world persistent (state) world] is a virtual world which - as defined by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bartle Richard Bartle] - "continues to exist and develop internally even when there are no people interacting with it."

In the case of Stars Reach the simulation on planets will actually be paused when no players are there - but as soon as a player arrives, the simulation will secretly fast-forward through everything that would have happened in the player's absence - and thus the world will appear to the players as if it just had kept on going during all that time.

The internal state of the game world will always be saved and advanced forward in time. It will never be reset, nor be static. The world will change and evolve according to the game rules - and how the players interact with them.

=== The game will be driven by player community and interdependence ===

TODO

== Second Set: Ease Meets Depth ==

=== The game will be deep: a set of proven game mechanics brought together in one universe. ===

=== Controls and interfaces will be intuitive and simple and familiar. ===

=== We will support varied clients so that players can play on whatever device they choose. ===

== Third Set: Optimistic, Retro Sci-Fantasy ==

=== Stars Reach is a game about hope and optimism ===

=== The game will have deep lore ===

=== The game will be welcoming and fun and beautiful ===

=== The game will constantly generate new content ===

Main Page

2024-07-20T07:16:12Z

Hooby: added table of pages / index

[[File:SR_Logo_3D_NEW_V2.webp|200px|right|link=|alt=]]
Welcome to the '''{{SITENAME}}''', a central repository of all things related to [https://starsreach.com/ Stars Reach], an upcoming [[Sandbox MMORPG|social sandbox MMORPG]] set in a science-fantasy universe.

'''Stars Reach''' was [[Game Announcement|announced]] on Friday, June 28th, 2024, and is being developed by [[Playable Worlds]]. It is a spiritual successor to both Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies.

This wiki is a community effort created and maintained by volunteers.

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Pages on this wiki (so far):
|-
| [[Playable Worlds]] || [[Sandbox MMORPG]] || [[Game Announcement]]
|-
| [[Character progression]] || [[Playable Species]] || [[List of Links]]
|}
This wiki is still in it's early days - but it will grow and exand over time.

Character Progression

2024-07-20T07:10:14Z

Hooby: initial version

In [[Stars Reach]] character progression will be skill based. There will be no character levels or level ups, and no classes to choose from at character creation. (The will be some [[Playable Species]] to pick from though).

[[File:Macroeconomy Diagram.jpg|300px|thumb|right|alt=macroeconomy diagram|This blurry economy graph is the first image ever released by Playable Worlds]]

Instead, you get to mix and match a certain number of skills you want to train, chosen from a full list over 40 possible skill trees. Within those trees, skill can be dependent on each other - that means you can only learn a subsequent skill, after having learned the prerequesite one. The image to the right shows a diagram of the economy. All skill-trees will (including combat and service-based skills) be able to participate in the [[player-driven economy]] in some way.

The primary method of training skills is by using them - but there can be other methods of training for individual skills as well. For example crafting skills are going to earn (additional?) training when the crafted items are being actively used by other players. There might be more special training options like this.

There is a limit to how many skills you can learn at once - but how exactly that is going to work and what that number is going to be, is not yet known. You can disable learned skills though, they call that "putting it out of practice", thus opening slots for new skills to learn. If you later want to switch a disabled skill back on, you can put it in practice again. You will not loose any training in the process - your re-enabled skill will be at exactly the same level it was when you disabled it. The process of re-enabling a skill will some time though. How much exactly is still to be determined, but developers have mentioned "a week" as a preliminary value.

File:Macroeconomy Diagram.jpg

2024-07-20T07:06:11Z

Hooby:

This blurry economy graph is the first picture ever released by Playable Worlds

List of Links

2024-07-19T16:44:44Z

Hooby: /* Youtube, Post-Announcement */

Various videos and blog posts that help better understand the game and the design philosophy behind it.

== By Playable Worlds ==

=== Teaser and Trailer Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjstnAJ2KwU Announcement Trailer], June 28, 2024

=== Dev Vlog Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoJUeNgTWBs Raph's Vision], June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UzWbHa0bCY Announcement Q&A], June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeY4ERLhNjc The Living World], July 3, 2024

=== Riffs by Raph ===

These articles were posted in several waves, during the years before the game announcement. They don't contain any concrete details on the game, but a lot on the ambitions and design philosophy behind it.

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-player-driven-economies/ Player Driven Economies], April 1, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-designing-for-social-play/ Designing for Social Play], April 8, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-thinking-long-term/ Thinking Long-term], April 15, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-what-does-cloud-native-even-mean/ What does Cloud-Native even mean?], April 22, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-online-world-or-metaverse/ Online World or Metaverse?], September 2, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-revealing-our-technology/ Revealing our Technology], September 9, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-but-first-the-game/ But First, the Game], September 16, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-1/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 1], September 23, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-2/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 2], September 30, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-3/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 3], October 7, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-4/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 4], October 14, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-5/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 5], October 21, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-sandbox-versus-themepark/ Sandbox versus Themepark], September 1, 2022
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/what-drives-retention/ What Drives Retention], March 7, 2023

=== Blogs and Articles by Raph ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/the-future-of-online-worlds/ The Future of Online Worlds], March 25, 2021
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/games/laws-of-online-world-design/the-laws-of-online-world-design/ The Laws of Online World Design], April, 2016
* [https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3582932 From Online World to Metaverse: The Future of Online Games and Games Research], March 12, 2023

=== Stars Reach Game Pillars ===

These were posted in the weeks directly following the game announcement, and contain information on what they plan the game to be:

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-one/ Part One: simulation, persistent state, player community & interdpendence], July 10, 2024
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/07/10/stars-reach-pillars/ Addendum to part one], July 10, 2024
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-two/ Part Two: easy and intuitive controls + interfaces, deep and proven game mechanics], July 17, 2024
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/07/18/sr-pillars-part-2-easy-surface-much-depth/ Addendum to part two, on time commitment in MMORPGs], July 18, 2024

=== How Games Get Made, by Greg Costikyan ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-1/ Part 1], August 3, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-2/ Part 2], August 17, 2021

== Third Party ==

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with Raph ===

Mostly unrelated, but contain a few mentions of the new company and the new game being worked on.

* [https://www.gamesindustry.biz/playable-worlds-has-a-different-mindset-on-engagement Playable Worlds has a 'different mindset' on engagement], October 4, 2019
* [https://thenextweb.com/news/gaming-industry-veteran-services-store-wars-weighs-in Gaming industry veteran on how the Store Wars will end], October 19, 2019
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20191212151654/https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/352451/Welcome_Back_Koster_Why_an_MMORPG_vet_is_back_building_a_new_virtual_world.php Welcome Back, Koster: Why an MMORPG vet is back building a new virtual world], October 25, 2019
* [https://open.spotify.com/episode/46sJ9rN3MjfUit5DAHmpxH Countdown to Classic], December 2019 (Podcast - starting at 37:20)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbhC6wokNGc The Metaverse is Coming], April 28, 2020 (Video, YoutTube)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhIgJKJptbk&t=7276s Was haben MMOs alles geändert?], June 5, 2020 (live-stream, German hosts speak accented English)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/building-a-game-that-keeps-players-engaged-for-years-and-deserves-to-be-subscribed-to/ Building a game that keeps players engaged for years — and deserves to be subscribed to], August 24, 2020 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/metaverse-startups-must-heed-the-mistakes-of-the-past-40-years-of-virtual-worlds/ Metaverse startups must heed the mistakes of the past 40 years of virtual worlds], January 28, 2021 (Video)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfyif5a3PyI Building the Metaverse], October 6, 2021 (Video)
* [https://vimeo.com/670516756 Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 26, 2022 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/raph-kosters-real-talk-about-a-real-metaverse/ Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 27, 2022 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoJOzdJaWBs Club Metaverse Podcast], March 20, 2023 (Video)
* [https://gdcvault.com/play/1034162/Game-Design-Career-Fireside-with Game Design Career Fireside], July 25, 2023
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtj3lltPXyQ The Fourth Curtain], August 24, 2023 (Podcast)
* [https://www.gamedaily.biz/raph-koster-talks-metaverse-design/ Raph Koster talks metaverse design], September 25, 2023 (Text)
* [https://fieldnotesfromthemetaverse.com/2024/02/21/interview-with-raph-koster-the-declaration-of-rights-of-avatars/ The Declaration of Rights of Avatars], February 21, 2024 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InkCFcCyUoA AWS for Games], May 24, 2024 (Video)

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with others ===

* [https://www.elitegamedevelopers.com/egd-088-eric-goldberg-on-investing-and-the-future-of-gaming/ Eric Goldberg on investing and the future of gaming], May 31, 2021
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDStRDwenaA The Here's Waldo Podcast interviews Gordon Walton], December 12, 2023

=== Youtube, Post-Announcement ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2g-j2ikx80 Rommi Noodles], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcbpbiHGB_4 Redbeardflynn], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fwP-4FmBuo Kid Lee], July 1, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa_0MUAvpOk Kazhamania], July 1, 2024 (French)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36YNM0y3LU Napyet Gaming], July 14, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ip8ZxXA0vo Perzival], July 16, 2024

List of Links

2024-07-19T16:43:30Z

Hooby: added Kazhamania

Various videos and blog posts that help better understand the game and the design philosophy behind it.

== By Playable Worlds ==

=== Teaser and Trailer Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjstnAJ2KwU Announcement Trailer], June 28, 2024

=== Dev Vlog Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoJUeNgTWBs Raph's Vision], June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UzWbHa0bCY Announcement Q&A], June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeY4ERLhNjc The Living World], July 3, 2024

=== Riffs by Raph ===

These articles were posted in several waves, during the years before the game announcement. They don't contain any concrete details on the game, but a lot on the ambitions and design philosophy behind it.

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-player-driven-economies/ Player Driven Economies], April 1, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-designing-for-social-play/ Designing for Social Play], April 8, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-thinking-long-term/ Thinking Long-term], April 15, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-what-does-cloud-native-even-mean/ What does Cloud-Native even mean?], April 22, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-online-world-or-metaverse/ Online World or Metaverse?], September 2, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-revealing-our-technology/ Revealing our Technology], September 9, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-but-first-the-game/ But First, the Game], September 16, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-1/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 1], September 23, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-2/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 2], September 30, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-3/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 3], October 7, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-4/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 4], October 14, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-5/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 5], October 21, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-sandbox-versus-themepark/ Sandbox versus Themepark], September 1, 2022
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/what-drives-retention/ What Drives Retention], March 7, 2023

=== Blogs and Articles by Raph ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/the-future-of-online-worlds/ The Future of Online Worlds], March 25, 2021
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/games/laws-of-online-world-design/the-laws-of-online-world-design/ The Laws of Online World Design], April, 2016
* [https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3582932 From Online World to Metaverse: The Future of Online Games and Games Research], March 12, 2023

=== Stars Reach Game Pillars ===

These were posted in the weeks directly following the game announcement, and contain information on what they plan the game to be:

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-one/ Part One: simulation, persistent state, player community & interdpendence], July 10, 2024
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/07/10/stars-reach-pillars/ Addendum to part one], July 10, 2024
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-two/ Part Two: easy and intuitive controls + interfaces, deep and proven game mechanics], July 17, 2024
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/07/18/sr-pillars-part-2-easy-surface-much-depth/ Addendum to part two, on time commitment in MMORPGs], July 18, 2024

=== How Games Get Made, by Greg Costikyan ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-1/ Part 1], August 3, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-2/ Part 2], August 17, 2021

== Third Party ==

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with Raph ===

Mostly unrelated, but contain a few mentions of the new company and the new game being worked on.

* [https://www.gamesindustry.biz/playable-worlds-has-a-different-mindset-on-engagement Playable Worlds has a 'different mindset' on engagement], October 4, 2019
* [https://thenextweb.com/news/gaming-industry-veteran-services-store-wars-weighs-in Gaming industry veteran on how the Store Wars will end], October 19, 2019
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20191212151654/https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/352451/Welcome_Back_Koster_Why_an_MMORPG_vet_is_back_building_a_new_virtual_world.php Welcome Back, Koster: Why an MMORPG vet is back building a new virtual world], October 25, 2019
* [https://open.spotify.com/episode/46sJ9rN3MjfUit5DAHmpxH Countdown to Classic], December 2019 (Podcast - starting at 37:20)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbhC6wokNGc The Metaverse is Coming], April 28, 2020 (Video, YoutTube)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhIgJKJptbk&t=7276s Was haben MMOs alles geändert?], June 5, 2020 (live-stream, German hosts speak accented English)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/building-a-game-that-keeps-players-engaged-for-years-and-deserves-to-be-subscribed-to/ Building a game that keeps players engaged for years — and deserves to be subscribed to], August 24, 2020 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/metaverse-startups-must-heed-the-mistakes-of-the-past-40-years-of-virtual-worlds/ Metaverse startups must heed the mistakes of the past 40 years of virtual worlds], January 28, 2021 (Video)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfyif5a3PyI Building the Metaverse], October 6, 2021 (Video)
* [https://vimeo.com/670516756 Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 26, 2022 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/raph-kosters-real-talk-about-a-real-metaverse/ Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 27, 2022 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoJOzdJaWBs Club Metaverse Podcast], March 20, 2023 (Video)
* [https://gdcvault.com/play/1034162/Game-Design-Career-Fireside-with Game Design Career Fireside], July 25, 2023
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtj3lltPXyQ The Fourth Curtain], August 24, 2023 (Podcast)
* [https://www.gamedaily.biz/raph-koster-talks-metaverse-design/ Raph Koster talks metaverse design], September 25, 2023 (Text)
* [https://fieldnotesfromthemetaverse.com/2024/02/21/interview-with-raph-koster-the-declaration-of-rights-of-avatars/ The Declaration of Rights of Avatars], February 21, 2024 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InkCFcCyUoA AWS for Games], May 24, 2024 (Video)

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with others ===

* [https://www.elitegamedevelopers.com/egd-088-eric-goldberg-on-investing-and-the-future-of-gaming/ Eric Goldberg on investing and the future of gaming], May 31, 2021
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDStRDwenaA The Here's Waldo Podcast interviews Gordon Walton], December 12, 2023

=== Youtube, Post-Announcement ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2g-j2ikx80 Rommi Noodles], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcbpbiHGB_4 Redbeardflynn], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fwP-4FmBuo Kid Lee], July 1, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa_0MUAvpOk Kazhamania], July 1, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36YNM0y3LU Napyet Gaming], July 14, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ip8ZxXA0vo Perzival], July 16, 2024

List of Links

2024-07-19T15:59:13Z

Hooby: added the other pillars addendum as well

Various videos and blog posts that help better understand the game and the design philosophy behind it.

== By Playable Worlds ==

=== Teaser and Trailer Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjstnAJ2KwU Announcement Trailer], June 28, 2024

=== Dev Vlog Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoJUeNgTWBs Raph's Vision], June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UzWbHa0bCY Announcement Q&A], June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeY4ERLhNjc The Living World], July 3, 2024

=== Riffs by Raph ===

These articles were posted in several waves, during the years before the game announcement. They don't contain any concrete details on the game, but a lot on the ambitions and design philosophy behind it.

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-player-driven-economies/ Player Driven Economies], April 1, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-designing-for-social-play/ Designing for Social Play], April 8, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-thinking-long-term/ Thinking Long-term], April 15, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-what-does-cloud-native-even-mean/ What does Cloud-Native even mean?], April 22, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-online-world-or-metaverse/ Online World or Metaverse?], September 2, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-revealing-our-technology/ Revealing our Technology], September 9, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-but-first-the-game/ But First, the Game], September 16, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-1/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 1], September 23, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-2/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 2], September 30, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-3/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 3], October 7, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-4/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 4], October 14, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-5/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 5], October 21, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-sandbox-versus-themepark/ Sandbox versus Themepark], September 1, 2022
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/what-drives-retention/ What Drives Retention], March 7, 2023

=== Blogs and Articles by Raph ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/the-future-of-online-worlds/ The Future of Online Worlds], March 25, 2021
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/games/laws-of-online-world-design/the-laws-of-online-world-design/ The Laws of Online World Design], April, 2016
* [https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3582932 From Online World to Metaverse: The Future of Online Games and Games Research], March 12, 2023

=== Stars Reach Game Pillars ===

These were posted in the weeks directly following the game announcement, and contain information on what they plan the game to be:

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-one/ Part One: simulation, persistent state, player community & interdpendence], July 10, 2024
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/07/10/stars-reach-pillars/ Addendum to part one], July 10, 2024
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-two/ Part Two: easy and intuitive controls + interfaces, deep and proven game mechanics], July 17, 2024
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/07/18/sr-pillars-part-2-easy-surface-much-depth/ Addendum to part two, on time commitment in MMORPGs], July 18, 2024

=== How Games Get Made, by Greg Costikyan ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-1/ Part 1], August 3, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-2/ Part 2], August 17, 2021

== Third Party ==

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with Raph ===

Mostly unrelated, but contain a few mentions of the new company and the new game being worked on.

* [https://www.gamesindustry.biz/playable-worlds-has-a-different-mindset-on-engagement Playable Worlds has a 'different mindset' on engagement], October 4, 2019
* [https://thenextweb.com/news/gaming-industry-veteran-services-store-wars-weighs-in Gaming industry veteran on how the Store Wars will end], October 19, 2019
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20191212151654/https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/352451/Welcome_Back_Koster_Why_an_MMORPG_vet_is_back_building_a_new_virtual_world.php Welcome Back, Koster: Why an MMORPG vet is back building a new virtual world], October 25, 2019
* [https://open.spotify.com/episode/46sJ9rN3MjfUit5DAHmpxH Countdown to Classic], December 2019 (Podcast - starting at 37:20)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbhC6wokNGc The Metaverse is Coming], April 28, 2020 (Video, YoutTube)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhIgJKJptbk&t=7276s Was haben MMOs alles geändert?], June 5, 2020 (live-stream, German hosts speak accented English)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/building-a-game-that-keeps-players-engaged-for-years-and-deserves-to-be-subscribed-to/ Building a game that keeps players engaged for years — and deserves to be subscribed to], August 24, 2020 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/metaverse-startups-must-heed-the-mistakes-of-the-past-40-years-of-virtual-worlds/ Metaverse startups must heed the mistakes of the past 40 years of virtual worlds], January 28, 2021 (Video)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfyif5a3PyI Building the Metaverse], October 6, 2021 (Video)
* [https://vimeo.com/670516756 Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 26, 2022 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/raph-kosters-real-talk-about-a-real-metaverse/ Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 27, 2022 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoJOzdJaWBs Club Metaverse Podcast], March 20, 2023 (Video)
* [https://gdcvault.com/play/1034162/Game-Design-Career-Fireside-with Game Design Career Fireside], July 25, 2023
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtj3lltPXyQ The Fourth Curtain], August 24, 2023 (Podcast)
* [https://www.gamedaily.biz/raph-koster-talks-metaverse-design/ Raph Koster talks metaverse design], September 25, 2023 (Text)
* [https://fieldnotesfromthemetaverse.com/2024/02/21/interview-with-raph-koster-the-declaration-of-rights-of-avatars/ The Declaration of Rights of Avatars], February 21, 2024 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InkCFcCyUoA AWS for Games], May 24, 2024 (Video)

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with others ===

* [https://www.elitegamedevelopers.com/egd-088-eric-goldberg-on-investing-and-the-future-of-gaming/ Eric Goldberg on investing and the future of gaming], May 31, 2021
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDStRDwenaA The Here's Waldo Podcast interviews Gordon Walton], December 12, 2023

=== Youtube, Post-Announcement ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2g-j2ikx80 Rommi Noodles], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcbpbiHGB_4 Readbeardflynn], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fwP-4FmBuo Kid Lee], July 1, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36YNM0y3LU Napyet Gaming], July 14, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ip8ZxXA0vo Perzival], July 16, 2024

Playable Species

2024-07-19T13:56:21Z

Hooby: links added

[[Stars Reach]] will have a number of species the player can choose from at character creation.

The following playable species have been spotted in trailers, screenshots and artwork so far.

== Humans ==

[[File:Humans.jpg|300px|thumb|right|alt=human species|Humans as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Note: the in-lore name of this species is not yet known!

Regular humans, with no special features. Depicted with slightly exaggerated proportions: large hands, wide shoulders on male, wide hips on female.

== Cat-People ==

[[File:Cat-species.jpg|150px|thumb|right|alt=cat person|Cat-person as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Note: the in-lore name of this species is not yet known!

Cat-like humans with cat-ears, a bushy tail, very large eyes and a slightly snout-like nose.

== Ape-people ==

[[File:Ape-species.jpg|250px|thumb|right|alt=ape person|Ape-person as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Note: the in-lore name of this species is not yet known!

Ape-like humans of large build, with bushy hair, an ape-like snout, and large tusks. They also sport long, thick arms.

== Demon-people ==

[[File:Demon-species.jpg|150px|thumb|right|alt=demon person|Demon-person as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Note: the in-lore name of this species is not yet known!

Demon-like humans with large horns, bright yellow irises and black sclera. They also have a reptilian-like, hooked tail.

== Other species ==

[[Playable Worlds]] staff have confirmed that more species will be revealed over time.

Main Page

2024-07-19T13:54:44Z

Hooby: add link to game announcement

Game Announcement

2024-07-19T13:51:59Z

Hooby: initial version

[[Stars Reach]] was announced on June 28, 2024 - nearly 5 years after the initial unveiling of the company. The announcement happened via a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjstnAJ2KwU game trailer], accompanied by a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UzWbHa0bCY Q&A video] and another video on the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoJUeNgTWBs design vision].

Reception was mainly positive, especially among fans of Raph and his previous games but there also was significant criticism about the unpolished pre-alpha graphics and the colorful, stylized art-style. Comments along the lines of "this looks like a mobile game for little kids" were not uncommon.

[[Playable Worlds|The developers]] have said that the game is still very early pre-alpha, and that the graphics are work in progress. Shaders, animations, post processing, etc. are all still due for multiple improvements and overhauls - possibly including Global Illumination. But the stylized, colorful look is intentional and here to stay. They are ultimately aiming for a visual style somewhere between [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Breath_of_the_Wild Breath of the Wild] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genshin%20Impact Genshin Impact].

== Pre-Announcement ARG Puzzle ==

The game announcement was hyped up by a ten day countdown of revealing questions posted on social media. The questions themselves do tell you something about the kind of game that '''Stars Reach''' does aim to be - but each image also contained a bar of black and white boxes, which - if combined in the right order - revealed a pixelated version of the game logo with two hands reaching for a star.

Despite getting pretty close, the early community was not able to solve the puzzle in time for the game announcement.

=== Facebook ===

* 10 What if... you could actually invent new things in an MMO?
* 9 What if... there was a way to discover secrets in an MMO -- and no esay wiki holding all the answers?
* 8 What if... it rained, creating puddles that froze overnight?
* 7 What if... bad weather meant travelling through the mud?
* 6 What if... there were places with lower gravity?
* 5 What if... you could write quests and make contracts for one another?
* 4 What if... you could chop down forests and grow them back?
* 3 What if... you could shout "You shall not pass!" and collapse a rock bridge?
* 3 What if... strawberries were sometimes in season?
* 2 What if... the creatures in the world actually had feelings you could see?
* 2 What if... icy cliffs were actually treacherously slippery?
* 1 What if... you could choose to make a new life for yourself on a new planet?
* 1 What if... you could pick your style of combat in an MMO?

=== Instagram ===

* 10 What if... MMOS actually had fulfilled the dreams we once had for them?
* 9 What if... exploring actually mattered (to you and others) in an MMO?
* 8 What if... walking through the grass carved a trail if you did it often enough?
* 7 What if... the season actually mattered?
* 6 What if... you could search and discover entirely new planets?
* 5 What if... you had to decipher ancient languages?
* 4 What if... sometimes the monsters invaded ''you''?
* 3 What if... monsters didn't respawn in the same place always?
* 3 What if... you could build a city?
* 2 What if... you could actually get snowed in at a tavern, like in the fantasy novels?
* 2 What if... you could run your own tavern in an MMO?
* 1 What if... you could have fun in an MMO in a five minute session?
* 1 What if... you missed your target and accidentially burned down the forest?

=== X (Twitter) ===

* 10 What if... you could easily change your mind about who your character is?
* 9 What if... you could be admired and famous in an MMO for more than just your character level or raid skills?
* 8 What if... the game also rewarded you for playing peacefully?
* 7 What if... an MMO let you reshape the landscape?
* 6 What if... you and your friends could govern an entire planet in your MMO?
* 5 What if... even the devs didn't know what was hidden out there in the worlds?
* 4 What if... you could actually irrigate your farm?
* 4 What if... there were ways for everyone in an MMO to have their own house?
* 3 What if... you could be swept away by the current of a raging river?
* 3 What if... you could freeze the poison gas midair and watch it form a puddle?
* 2 What if... it mattered if you accidentially drove a creature extinct?
* 2 What if... you could collapse a cliff onto your enemies?
* 1 What if... you could build a space station?
* 1 What if... you could live your life on a space station or a starship and just visit planets when you wanted?

Main Page

2024-07-19T13:06:47Z

Hooby:

Stars Reach

2024-07-19T13:05:07Z

Hooby: Changed redirect target from Main page to Main Page

#REDIRECT [[Main Page]]

Stars Reach

2024-07-19T13:04:31Z

Hooby: Redirected page to Main page

#REDIRECT [[Main page]]

Sandbox MMORPG

2024-07-19T13:03:38Z

Hooby: Stars Reach is a social sandbox MMORPG similar to (but an evolution of) UO and SWG

[[Stars Reach]] is a '''social sandbox MMORPG''' in the vein of games like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Online Ultima Online] or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star%20Wars%20Galaxies Star Wars Galaxies].

== History of the Term MMORPG ==

Back in the day of UO and SWG, the term MMORPG was still defined as
{| class="wikitable"
| Massive(ly) multiplayer online role-playing games or MMORPGs are '''virtual persistent worlds''' located on the Internet. They are a specific subset of massive(ly) multiplayer online games in which players interact with each other through avatars, that is, graphical representations of the characters they play.
|}
''Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Massively%20multiplayer%20online%20role-playing%20game&oldid=6399115 Wikipedia, 2004 and before]'' (emphasis added)

or
{| class="wikitable"
| A massively (or massive) multiplayer online role-playing game or MMORPG is a multiplayer computer role-playing game that enables thousands of players to play in an '''evolving virtual world''' at the same time over the Internet. MMORPGs are a specific type of massively multiplayer online game (MMOG).
|}
''Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game&oldid=19417224 Wikipedia, 2005]'' (emphasis added)

With persistent worlds to this day being defined as:
{| class="wikitable"
| A persistent world or persistent state world (PSW) is a virtual world which, by the definition by Richard Bartle, '''"continues to exist and develop internally even when there are no people interacting with it"'''.
|}
''Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_world Wikipedia]'' (emphasis added)

That definition then changed, as themeparks with entirely static worlds that were neither persistent nor evolving, became the predominant form of MMORPG. These worlds couldn't change even if players interacted with them, and were often subjected to weekly resets, to make absolutely sure nothing could persist.

If we look further back to text-based [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD1 MUD]s (multi-user dungeons) though, we find that themeparks are based on the older type of "Diku-MUD" where everything was hardcoded, and gameplay was very focused on just numbers-go-up and bragging rights. The predecessors of those early sandbox MMORPGs were actually later MUDs that evolved from Dikus - attempting to make things more dynamic and less hard-coded, and also taking ideas from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSH MUSH]es and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOO MOO]s.

'''Stars Reach''' subscribes to that vision of evolving, persistent, virtual worlds. And to that of players socially interacting with each other through their avatars - instead of just playing next to each other.

In '''Stars Reach''', any changes made to the virtual worlds will persist and be visible to other players, and influence the world simulation. The world simulation may get paused when there are no players around, but will then fast-forward through everything that would have happened in the absence of players, so that effectively the world does continue in to evolve in the absence of players.

Advances in computer hardware and internet infrastructure allow for persistent worlds to be far more dynamic and better simulated than ever before. '''Stars Reach''' is trying to push the envelope on what can be done with persistent worlds.

== Social Play ==

[[File:Social-graph.jpg|300px|thumb|right|alt=social graph|Example of a social graph]]

In a social graph, people are often shown as circles or "nodes", and the connections between them as lines or "edges".

'''Stars Reach''' tries to design for social play, by optimizing this graph for ingame characters to a desired density, where players are connected to other players in many ways - including asynchronous weak bonds through gameplay interdepencies, supply chains and player contracts (missions, work requests) - but where already large nodes are also stopped from becoming too dominant or forming a (partial) monopoly. This includes making goods transport slow to allow for regional markets and regional pricing as well as arbitrage.

Another important factor is not to pull players apart - be it through server boundaries or power-gaps caused by one outleveling the other. Stars Reach will be single-sharded, which means there will be no separate servers, but everyone will play together in the same shared universe (except for maybe a US/EU/Asia separation - that's still undecided). And there will be no character levels. Instead of gaining level ups, [[character progression]] is skill based, where characters can train a few of various skills trees (over 40 of them are currently planned). This allows players to grow more skilled and to specialize, without growing hit points and damage numbers to where it's impossible to play together.

And finally, they aim to let players fullfill the fantasy of becoming a tavern owner, or a master artisan, or owner of a cozy mom-and-pop shop, or a famed mercenary, or a politician running a city or even a planet.

See [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-designing-for-social-play/ Riffs by Raph: Designing for Social Play] for more information.

== Sandbox ==

When it comes to MMOs, the term '''sandbox''' implies games that allow for a broad range of different playstyles to not just coexist with the same world, but interact and cooperate with and depend on each other.

'''Stars Reach''' tries to push this further, by not just supporting a very wide range of playstyles - both combat and non-combat ones - through more than 40 planned skill trees, but also by offering a [[player contract system]] through wich other activities - both ingame and out of game - can be integrated to the economy. Bascially through contracts you can hire (and pay) another player to do whatever you come up with.

Further, '''sandbox''' also means, that gameplay will be more "simulationist" in nature, and less "stagecraft". Those are the terms Raph applies to activities where players just try to influence the game world, economy and virtual society in some ways (think EvE Online) as opposed to the premade "rides" of instanced dungeons and raids that themeparks offer.

'''Stars Reach''' has currently no plans of using any instancing at all, except for maybe the very initial starter tutorial. All the rest of the gameplay will take place on [[procedurally generated planets]], which are shared open worlds, accessible to anyone who knows of them. These worlds run a [[cellular automata based simulation]] that players can influence and play with in various ways. There seem to be no plans for NPCs that hand out quest-chains, or anything of that sort.

Also see:
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-sandbox-versus-themepark/ Riffs by Raph - Themepark vs. Sandbox]
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/games/snippets/simulationism/ Raph's Blog - Simulationism]
for more information.

File:Social-graph.jpg

2024-07-19T11:41:25Z

Hooby:

CC licensed by user Festys on Wikimedia.org

Playable Species

2024-07-18T18:54:41Z

Hooby:

Stars Reach will have a number of species the player can choose from at character creation.

The following playable species have been spotted in trailers, screenshots and artwork so far.

== Humans ==

[[File:Humans.jpg|300px|thumb|right|alt=human species|Humans as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Note: the in-lore name of this species is not yet known!

Regular humans, with no special features. Depicted with slightly exaggerated proportions: large hands, wide shoulders on male, wide hips on female.

== Cat-People ==

[[File:Cat-species.jpg|150px|thumb|right|alt=cat person|Cat-person as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Note: the in-lore name of this species is not yet known!

Cat-like humans with cat-ears, a bushy tail, very large eyes and a slightly snout-like nose.

== Ape-people ==

[[File:Ape-species.jpg|250px|thumb|right|alt=ape person|Ape-person as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Note: the in-lore name of this species is not yet known!

Ape-like humans of large build, with bushy hair, an ape-like snout, and large tusks. They also sport long, thick arms.

== Demon-people ==

[[File:Demon-species.jpg|150px|thumb|right|alt=demon person|Demon-person as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Note: the in-lore name of this species is not yet known!

Demon-like humans with large horns, bright yellow irises and black sclera. They also have a reptilian-like, hooked tail.

== Other species ==

Playable Worlds staff have confirmed that more species will be revealed over time.

Playable Species

2024-07-18T18:53:09Z

Hooby: /* Cat-People */

Stars Reach will have a number of species the player can choose from at character creation.

The following playable species have been spotted in trailers, screenshots and artwork so far.

== Humans ==

[[File:Humans.jpg|300px|thumb|right|alt=human species|Humans as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Note: the in-lore name of this species is not yet known!

Regular humans, with no special features. Depicted with slightly exaggerated proportions: large hands, wide shoulders on male, wide hips on female.

== Cat-People ==

[[File:Cat-species.jpg|150px|thumb|left|alt=cat person|Cat-person as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Note: the in-lore name of this species is not yet known!

Cat-like humans with cat-ears, a bushy tail, very large eyes and a slightly snout-like nose.

== Ape-people ==

[[File:Ape-species.jpg|250px|thumb|right|alt=ape person|Ape-person as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Note: the in-lore name of this species is not yet known!

Ape-like humans of large build, with bushy hair, an ape-like snout, and large tusks. They also sport long, thick arms.

== Demon-people ==

[[File:Demon-species.jpg|150px|thumb|right|alt=demon person|Demon-person as seen in the Announcement Trailer]]

Note: the in-lore name of this species is not yet known!

Demon-like humans with large horns, bright yellow irises and black sclera. They also have a reptilian-like, hooked tail.

== Other species ==

Playable Worlds staff have confirmed that more species will be revealed over time.

Playable Species

2024-07-18T18:52:50Z

Hooby: /* Humans */

Playable Species

2024-07-18T18:52:37Z

Hooby: Stars Reach will have a number of species the player can choose from at character creation.

File:Demon-species.jpg

2024-07-18T18:35:46Z

Hooby: Demon-like species, as seen in the announcement trailer

== Summary ==
Demon-like species, as seen in the announcement trailer

File:Humans.jpg

2024-07-18T18:33:36Z

Hooby: Hooby uploaded a new version of File:Humans.jpg

== Summary ==
Human player species, as they appear in the announcement trailer

File:Ape-species.jpg

2024-07-18T18:29:56Z

Hooby: Ape-like species, as seen in the announcement trailer

== Summary ==
Ape-like species, as seen in the announcement trailer

File:Cat-species.jpg

2024-07-18T18:26:29Z

Hooby: Cat-like species, as seen in the announcement trailer

== Summary ==
Cat-like species, as seen in the announcement trailer

File:Humans.jpg

2024-07-18T18:15:48Z

Hooby: Human player species, as they appear in the announcement trailer

== Summary ==
Human player species, as they appear in the announcement trailer

Playable Worlds

2024-07-18T17:55:31Z

Hooby: link text expanded

'''Playable Worlds''' is a game developer studio co-founded by [[Raph Koster]] and [[Eric Goldberg]]. They are currently working on their first game, [[Main Page|Stars Reach]], which is going to be a social, [[sandbox MMORPG]] with a [[living world]] and a fully [[player-driven economy]]. Raph, known for his previous games, Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies as well as Metaplace, is trying to fulfill his livelong ambitions of creating a truly alive online world, now that technology seems finally capable of doing so.

== The Team ==
as of July, 2024, according to the Playable Worlds website.

* Raph Koster, CEO
* Eric Goldberg, President
* Aaron Hamilton, Senior Environment Artist
* Arthur Littlefield, Client Engineer
* Brandon Hooks, Technical Animator
* Brian Youn, Lead Concept Artist
* Damon Osgood, Technical Architect
* David Georgeson, Game Director
* John Brown, Principal Animator
* Johnny Ow, Principal VFX Artist
* Justin Strefling, HR Manager
* Kurt Larson, Lead Sound Effects Designer
* Light Bates, Technical Designer
* Magnus Hollmo, Art Director
* Majick Robinson, Finance/Remote Office Manager
* Meghann Bledsoe, Designer/World Builder
* Nataly Moreno, Senior Tools Engineer
* Nick Hand, Senior Character Artist
* Niina Fujioka, Director of Business Operations
* Rick Reynolds, Marketing Director
* Rodney Haza, Producer
* Samuel Corbin, Lead Gameplay Engineer
* Sean Weeden, Graphic Designer
* Yvette Han, UI/UX Designer

== Company Announcement ==

The company was founded in secrecy in 2018. They went out of hiding and [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-worlds-raises-2-7m-to-create-a-new-sandbox-mmorpg-led-by-raph-koster-designer-of-ultima-online-and-star-wars-galaxies/ announced their existence] on October 3, 2019, when they received $2.7M in seed funding and started hiring and growing their team.

At the moment of announcement, [http://web.archive.org/web/20191225083022/https://www.playableworlds.com/about the team] also included:

* Raph Koster (CEO & co-founder)
* Eric Goldberg (head of business, strategy, and corporate development & co-founder)
* Dorian Ouer (CTO)
* Mat Broome (Studio Art Director)
* Brian Crowder (Lead Server Enginer)
* Greg Costikyan (Lead Game Designer)
* Stacey McMahon (Director of HR and Business Operations)
* Michael Seare (Lead Client Engineer)
* Patrick Ferland, (Lead Gameplay Engineer)

And the company was [http://web.archive.org/web/20191207192311/https://www.playableworlds.com/jobs looking to hire]:
* Tools Engineer
* Gameplay Engineer
* Technical Animator

Interestingly, several of these Job posting mention "Experience with behavior-driven artificial intelligence and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automaton cellular automata]-based world simulations" as a desired qualification. the last job offer mentions experience with "Unreal, Unity, or similar high-performance game engines".

== Additional Funding Rounds ==

Playable Worlds received several rounds of venture capital:

October 3, 2019 - at the unveiling of the company - they announced a [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-worlds-raises-2-7m-to-create-a-new-sandbox-mmorpg-led-by-raph-koster-designer-of-ultima-online-and-star-wars-galaxies/ $2.7m seed round].

On June 11, 2020, Playable Worlds announced receiving [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-worlds-raises-10m-for-the-creation-of-its-cloud-native-sandbox-mmo/ $10m in Series A funding].

On April 20, 2022, they announcet a [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-worlds-raises-over-25m-series-b-with-strategic-investment-from-kakao-games-2/ $25m Series B].

== Later hires with special mention on the website ==

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-profile-light/ Light Bates] (Prototyper)
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-profile-abby/ Abby Suarez] (Senior Gameplay Engineer)
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-worlds-hires-gordon-walton-as-executive-producer-and-chief-product-officer/ Gordon Walton] (Executive Producer & Chief Product Officer)
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/a-conversation-about-sandbox-mmorpgs-with-david-georgeson/ David Georgeson] (Game Director)

== Location ==

Playable Worlds originally had an office located in San Marcos, Califiornia - but ever since the pandemic they are working remotely, with yearly company-meetups in person.

== Rumors ==

The seed investment round was lead by "BITKRAFT esports ventures", who were also investing in Crypto projects at that time. This led to some people mistakenly believing that the game Playable Worlds was working on might have something to do with esports and/or crypto. This has been publicly denied by PW team members multiple times. There will be neither esports nor crypto in the game.

Playable Worlds

2024-07-18T17:55:05Z

Hooby: typo

'''Playable Worlds''' is a game developer studio co-founded by [[Raph Koster]] and [[Eric Goldberg]]. They are currently working on their first game, [[Main Page|Stars Reach]], which is going to be a social, [[sandbox MMORPG]] with a [[living world]] and a fully [[player-driven economy]]. Raph, known for his previous games, Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies as well as Metaplace, is trying to fulfill his livelong ambitions of creating a truly alive online world, now that technology seems finally capable of doing so.

== The Team ==
as of July, 2024, according to the Playable Worlds website.

* Raph Koster, CEO
* Eric Goldberg, President
* Aaron Hamilton, Senior Environment Artist
* Arthur Littlefield, Client Engineer
* Brandon Hooks, Technical Animator
* Brian Youn, Lead Concept Artist
* Damon Osgood, Technical Architect
* David Georgeson, Game Director
* John Brown, Principal Animator
* Johnny Ow, Principal VFX Artist
* Justin Strefling, HR Manager
* Kurt Larson, Lead Sound Effects Designer
* Light Bates, Technical Designer
* Magnus Hollmo, Art Director
* Majick Robinson, Finance/Remote Office Manager
* Meghann Bledsoe, Designer/World Builder
* Nataly Moreno, Senior Tools Engineer
* Nick Hand, Senior Character Artist
* Niina Fujioka, Director of Business Operations
* Rick Reynolds, Marketing Director
* Rodney Haza, Producer
* Samuel Corbin, Lead Gameplay Engineer
* Sean Weeden, Graphic Designer
* Yvette Han, UI/UX Designer

== Company Announcement ==

The company was founded in secrecy in 2018. They went out of hiding and [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-worlds-raises-2-7m-to-create-a-new-sandbox-mmorpg-led-by-raph-koster-designer-of-ultima-online-and-star-wars-galaxies/ announced their existence] on October 3, 2019, when they received $2.7M in seed funding and started hiring and growing their team.

At the moment of announcement, [http://web.archive.org/web/20191225083022/https://www.playableworlds.com/about the team] also included:

* Raph Koster (CEO & co-founder)
* Eric Goldberg (head of business, strategy, and corporate development & co-founder)
* Dorian Ouer (CTO)
* Mat Broome (Studio Art Director)
* Brian Crowder (Lead Server Enginer)
* Greg Costikyan (Lead Game Designer)
* Stacey McMahon (Director of HR and Business Operations)
* Michael Seare (Lead Client Engineer)
* Patrick Ferland, (Lead Gameplay Engineer)

And the company was [http://web.archive.org/web/20191207192311/https://www.playableworlds.com/jobs looking to hire]:
* Tools Engineer
* Gameplay Engineer
* Technical Animator

Interestingly, several of these Job posting mention "Experience with behavior-driven artificial intelligence and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automaton cellular automata]-based world simulations" as a desired qualification. the last job offer mentions experience with "Unreal, Unity, or similar high-performance game engines".

== Additional Funding Rounds ==

Playable Worlds received several rounds of venture capital:

October 3, 2019 - at the unveiling of the company - they announced a [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-worlds-raises-2-7m-to-create-a-new-sandbox-mmorpg-led-by-raph-koster-designer-of-ultima-online-and-star-wars-galaxies/ $2.7m] seed round.

On June 11, 2020, Playable Worlds announced receiving [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-worlds-raises-10m-for-the-creation-of-its-cloud-native-sandbox-mmo/ $10m in Series A funding].

On April 20, 2022, they announcet a [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-worlds-raises-over-25m-series-b-with-strategic-investment-from-kakao-games-2/ $25m Series B].

== Later hires with special mention on the website ==

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-profile-light/ Light Bates] (Prototyper)
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-profile-abby/ Abby Suarez] (Senior Gameplay Engineer)
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/playable-worlds-hires-gordon-walton-as-executive-producer-and-chief-product-officer/ Gordon Walton] (Executive Producer & Chief Product Officer)
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/a-conversation-about-sandbox-mmorpgs-with-david-georgeson/ David Georgeson] (Game Director)

== Location ==

Playable Worlds originally had an office located in San Marcos, Califiornia - but ever since the pandemic they are working remotely, with yearly company-meetups in person.

== Rumors ==

The seed investment round was lead by "BITKRAFT esports ventures", who were also investing in Crypto projects at that time. This led to some people mistakenly believing that the game Playable Worlds was working on might have something to do with esports and/or crypto. This has been publicly denied by PW team members multiple times. There will be neither esports nor crypto in the game.

Main Page

2024-07-18T17:52:47Z

Hooby: added list of links

[[File:SR_Logo_3D_NEW_V2.webp|200px|right|link=|alt=]]
Welcome to the '''{{SITENAME}}''', a central repository of all things related to [https://starsreach.com/ Stars Reach], an upcoming sandbox science-fantasy [[:wikipedia:Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game|MMORPG]].

'''Stars Reach''' was announced on Friday, June 28th, 2024, and is being developed by [[Playable Worlds]]. It is a spiritual successor to both Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies.

This wiki is a community effort created and maintained by volunteers.

For more information on the game and the design philosophy behind it, see our: [[List of Links]]

List of Links

2024-07-18T17:48:34Z

Hooby: /* How Games Get Made, by Greg costikyan */

Various videos and blog posts that help better understand the game and the design philosophy behind it.

== By Playable Worlds ==

=== Teaser and Trailer Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjstnAJ2KwU Announcement Trailer], June 28, 2024

=== Dev Vlog Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoJUeNgTWBs Raph's Vision], June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UzWbHa0bCY Announcement Q&A], 28 June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeY4ERLhNjc The Living World], July 3, 2024

=== Riffs by Raph ===

These articles were posted in several waves, during the years before the game announcement. They don't contain any concrete details on the game, but a lot on the ambitions and design philosophy behind it.

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-player-driven-economies/ Player Driven Economies], April 1, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-designing-for-social-play/ Designing for Social Play], April 8, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-thinking-long-term/ Thinking Long-term], April 15, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-what-does-cloud-native-even-mean/ What does Cloud-Native even mean?], April 22, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-online-world-or-metaverse/ Online World or Metaverse?], September 2, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-revealing-our-technology/ Revealing our Technology], September 9, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-but-first-the-game/ But First, the Game], September 16, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-1/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 1], September 23, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-2/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 2], September 30, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-3/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 3], October 7, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-4/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 4], October 14, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-5/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 5], October 21, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-sandbox-versus-themepark/ Sandbox versus Themepark], September 1, 2022
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/what-drives-retention/ What Drives Retention], March 7, 2023

=== Blogs and Articles by Raph ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/the-future-of-online-worlds/ The Future of Online Worlds], March 25, 2021
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/games/laws-of-online-world-design/the-laws-of-online-world-design/ The Laws of Online World Design], April, 2016
* [https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3582932 From Online World to Metaverse: The Future of Online Games and Games Research], March 12, 2023

=== Stars Reach Game Pillars ===

These were posted in the weeks directly following the game announcement, and contain information on what they plan the game to be:

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-one/ Part One: simulation, persistent state, player community & interdpendence], July 10, 2024
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-two/ Part Two: easy and intuitive controls + interfaces, deep and proven game mechanics], July 17, 2024

=== How Games Get Made, by Greg Costikyan ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-1/ Part 1], August 3, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-2/ Part 2], August 17, 2021

== Third Party ==

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with Raph ===

Mostly unrelated, but contain a few mentions of the new company and the new game being worked on.

* [https://www.gamesindustry.biz/playable-worlds-has-a-different-mindset-on-engagement Playable Worlds has a 'different mindset' on engagement], October 4, 2019
* [https://thenextweb.com/news/gaming-industry-veteran-services-store-wars-weighs-in Gaming industry veteran on how the Store Wars will end], October 19, 2019
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20191212151654/https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/352451/Welcome_Back_Koster_Why_an_MMORPG_vet_is_back_building_a_new_virtual_world.php Welcome Back, Koster: Why an MMORPG vet is back building a new virtual world], October 25, 2019
* [https://open.spotify.com/episode/46sJ9rN3MjfUit5DAHmpxH Countdown to Classic], December 2019 (Podcast - starting at 37:20)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbhC6wokNGc The Metaverse is Coming], April 28, 2020 (Video, YoutTube)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhIgJKJptbk&t=7276s Was haben MMOs alles geändert?], June 5, 2020 (live-stream, German hosts speak accented English)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/building-a-game-that-keeps-players-engaged-for-years-and-deserves-to-be-subscribed-to/ Building a game that keeps players engaged for years — and deserves to be subscribed to], August 24, 2020 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/metaverse-startups-must-heed-the-mistakes-of-the-past-40-years-of-virtual-worlds/ Metaverse startups must heed the mistakes of the past 40 years of virtual worlds], January 28, 2021 (Video)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfyif5a3PyI Building the Metaverse], October 6, 2021 (Video)
* [https://vimeo.com/670516756 Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 26, 2022 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/raph-kosters-real-talk-about-a-real-metaverse/ Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 27, 2022 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoJOzdJaWBs Club Metaverse Podcast], March 20, 2023 (Video)
* [https://gdcvault.com/play/1034162/Game-Design-Career-Fireside-with Game Design Career Fireside], July 25, 2023
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtj3lltPXyQ The Fourth Curtain], August 24, 2023 (Podcast)
* [https://www.gamedaily.biz/raph-koster-talks-metaverse-design/ Raph Koster talks metaverse design], September 25, 2023 (Text)
* [https://fieldnotesfromthemetaverse.com/2024/02/21/interview-with-raph-koster-the-declaration-of-rights-of-avatars/ The Declaration of Rights of Avatars], February 21, 2024 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InkCFcCyUoA AWS for Games], May 24, 2024 (Video)

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with others ===

* [https://www.elitegamedevelopers.com/egd-088-eric-goldberg-on-investing-and-the-future-of-gaming/ Eric Goldberg on investing and the future of gaming], May 31, 2021
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDStRDwenaA The Here's Waldo Podcast interviews Gordon Walton], December 12, 2023

=== Youtube, Post-Announcement ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2g-j2ikx80 Rommi Noodles], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcbpbiHGB_4 Readbeardflynn], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fwP-4FmBuo Kid Lee], July 1, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36YNM0y3LU Napyet Gaming], July 14, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ip8ZxXA0vo Perzival], July 16, 2024

List of Links

2024-07-18T17:46:35Z

Hooby: Various videos and blog posts that help better understand the game and the design philosophy behind it.

Various videos and blog posts that help better understand the game and the design philosophy behind it.

== By Playable Worlds ==

=== Teaser and Trailer Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjstnAJ2KwU Announcement Trailer], June 28, 2024

=== Dev Vlog Videos ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoJUeNgTWBs Raph's Vision], June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UzWbHa0bCY Announcement Q&A], 28 June 28, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeY4ERLhNjc The Living World], July 3, 2024

=== Riffs by Raph ===

These articles were posted in several waves, during the years before the game announcement. They don't contain any concrete details on the game, but a lot on the ambitions and design philosophy behind it.

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-player-driven-economies/ Player Driven Economies], April 1, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-designing-for-social-play/ Designing for Social Play], April 8, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-thinking-long-term/ Thinking Long-term], April 15, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-what-does-cloud-native-even-mean/ What does Cloud-Native even mean?], April 22, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-online-world-or-metaverse/ Online World or Metaverse?], September 2, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-revealing-our-technology/ Revealing our Technology], September 9, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-but-first-the-game/ But First, the Game], September 16, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-1/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 1], September 23, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-2/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 2], September 30, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-3/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 3], October 7, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-4/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 4], October 14, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-how-virtual-worlds-work-part-5/ How Virtual Worlds Work – Part 5], October 21, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/riffs-by-raph-sandbox-versus-themepark/ Sandbox versus Themepark], September 1, 2022
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/what-drives-retention/ What Drives Retention], March 7, 2023

=== Blogs and Articles by Raph ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/the-future-of-online-worlds/ The Future of Online Worlds], March 25, 2021
* [https://www.raphkoster.com/games/laws-of-online-world-design/the-laws-of-online-world-design/ The Laws of Online World Design], April, 2016
* [https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3582932 From Online World to Metaverse: The Future of Online Games and Games Research], March 12, 2023

=== Stars Reach Game Pillars ===

These were posted in the weeks directly following the game announcement, and contain information on what they plan the game to be:

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-one/ Part One: simulation, persistent state, player community & interdpendence], July 10, 2024
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/stars-reach-game-pillars-part-two/ Part Two: easy and intuitive controls + interfaces, deep and proven game mechanics], July 17, 2024

=== How Games Get Made, by Greg costikyan ===

* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-1/ Part 1], August 3, 2021
* [https://www.playableworlds.com/how-games-get-made-part-2/ Part 2], August 17, 2021

== Third Party ==

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with Raph ===

Mostly unrelated, but contain a few mentions of the new company and the new game being worked on.

* [https://www.gamesindustry.biz/playable-worlds-has-a-different-mindset-on-engagement Playable Worlds has a 'different mindset' on engagement], October 4, 2019
* [https://thenextweb.com/news/gaming-industry-veteran-services-store-wars-weighs-in Gaming industry veteran on how the Store Wars will end], October 19, 2019
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20191212151654/https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/352451/Welcome_Back_Koster_Why_an_MMORPG_vet_is_back_building_a_new_virtual_world.php Welcome Back, Koster: Why an MMORPG vet is back building a new virtual world], October 25, 2019
* [https://open.spotify.com/episode/46sJ9rN3MjfUit5DAHmpxH Countdown to Classic], December 2019 (Podcast - starting at 37:20)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbhC6wokNGc The Metaverse is Coming], April 28, 2020 (Video, YoutTube)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhIgJKJptbk&t=7276s Was haben MMOs alles geändert?], June 5, 2020 (live-stream, German hosts speak accented English)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/building-a-game-that-keeps-players-engaged-for-years-and-deserves-to-be-subscribed-to/ Building a game that keeps players engaged for years — and deserves to be subscribed to], August 24, 2020 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/metaverse-startups-must-heed-the-mistakes-of-the-past-40-years-of-virtual-worlds/ Metaverse startups must heed the mistakes of the past 40 years of virtual worlds], January 28, 2021 (Video)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfyif5a3PyI Building the Metaverse], October 6, 2021 (Video)
* [https://vimeo.com/670516756 Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 26, 2022 (Video)
* [https://venturebeat.com/games/raph-kosters-real-talk-about-a-real-metaverse/ Real Talk About a Real Metaverse], January 27, 2022 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoJOzdJaWBs Club Metaverse Podcast], March 20, 2023 (Video)
* [https://gdcvault.com/play/1034162/Game-Design-Career-Fireside-with Game Design Career Fireside], July 25, 2023
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtj3lltPXyQ The Fourth Curtain], August 24, 2023 (Podcast)
* [https://www.gamedaily.biz/raph-koster-talks-metaverse-design/ Raph Koster talks metaverse design], September 25, 2023 (Text)
* [https://fieldnotesfromthemetaverse.com/2024/02/21/interview-with-raph-koster-the-declaration-of-rights-of-avatars/ The Declaration of Rights of Avatars], February 21, 2024 (Text)
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InkCFcCyUoA AWS for Games], May 24, 2024 (Video)

=== Pre-Announcement Interviews with others ===

* [https://www.elitegamedevelopers.com/egd-088-eric-goldberg-on-investing-and-the-future-of-gaming/ Eric Goldberg on investing and the future of gaming], May 31, 2021
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDStRDwenaA The Here's Waldo Podcast interviews Gordon Walton], December 12, 2023

=== Youtube, Post-Announcement ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2g-j2ikx80 Rommi Noodles], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcbpbiHGB_4 Readbeardflynn], June 29, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fwP-4FmBuo Kid Lee], July 1, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36YNM0y3LU Napyet Gaming], July 14, 2024
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ip8ZxXA0vo Perzival], July 16, 2024

Main Page

2024-07-18T16:09:59Z

Hooby:

[[File:SR_Logo_3D_NEW_V2.webp|200px|right|link=|alt=]]
Welcome to the '''{{SITENAME}}''', a central repository of all things related to [https://starsreach.com/ Stars Reach], an upcoming sandbox science-fantasy [[:wikipedia:Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game|MMORPG]].

'''Stars Reach''' was announced on Friday, June 28th, 2024, and is being developed by [[Playable Worlds]]. It is a spiritual successor to both Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies.

This wiki is a community effort created and maintained by volunteers.