Stargate Worlds: Stargate Worlds Diary #2 -IGN

IGN RPG Vault featured its second Stargate Worlds Developer Diary, written by Creative Director Chris Klug. Klug explains the concept of 'beats' and sequences within the MMO and how they are implementing it:

In the MMO business, of course, we don't write scenes. We create encounters, missions and tasks for the player to do. We call these small sequences of events 'beats'. We spend a great deal of time constructing the order within them. We can't always control the order in which the player chooses to do each beat, the order within any one, and what the beats are... and we worry about this quite a bit.

Why would we spend so much time doing this? For an answer, let's take a closer look at the last master item scenes must do above, "evoke an emotional response in the audience." Dramatic structure is the artful sequencing of scenes; the order is designed to evoke the most intense emotional reactions from the audience. When the progression is correct, audiences are like puppets. They will do what you want them to do - laugh, cry, get an adrenalin rush, scream in fright, etc. All these emotions are evoked in an audience because of the sequencing of the events.

Check out the exclusive screenshots and article on IGN RPG Vault.