LotRO dev diary, "Solving Problems and Making Friends, Part II" live
Earlier this week Matt "Scenario" Elliott posted part 2 of his "Solving Problems and Making Friends" dev diary on the Lord of the Rings Online official site. Right after Mines of Moria released, Elliott took a break from management and returned to the design trenches for a month. The second installment picks up in the fourth week of his life as a live designer.
It's a short read, but an interesting one for anyone interested in how a design goes from concept to execution on a live MMOG. At one point, Elliot admits that time management is as important as the idea itself: "Nearly everything we dream up has to be scaled down to fit realistically within our schedules," he wrote. "In my case, I had a couple of ideas that either fell on the floor during planning or were cut due to the unnecessary complexity they added."
