Level Design Study: FPS vs MMO Design Philosophy

This personal project was looking to answer the difference in core level design between FPS and MMORPGs.

Project overview

DOWNLOAD and experience! (.ZIP)
Level Design case study
Focus: Differences Between FPS and MMORPG Level Design
2 versions, 1 area

Project Details

I have always been interested in the level design of FPS and MMORPGs, so I took this opportunity to delve deeper in the design differences between the two.

Methodology:
Create two versions of the same area set in their respective genres, and see where they were different. Since levels needs to fit the game’s mechanics, I had to come up with some mechanics each of the two games would have. I did this by analyzing the most popular games in the FPS and MMO genre at the time. From there I took the most frequently seen mechanics in each genre, and applied those to my fake FPS and fake MMORPG.

With a Generic FPS and a Generic MMO ready, I used that to base my two levels on. This allowed me to create a map flow for each map with their own NPC locations, spawn zones and more. I made sure to make each map as similar as possible to eachother, and then try to fit both genre’s elements in there. This forced me to dive extremely deep into what makes each genre tick, and where the two differ.

Story

Halvita is a city torn apart by its royal family, dividing the rich and the poor with huge walls. Since the king sees magic as a threat to his power, anyone with magic powers will get arrested and never heard of again. While in the MMORPG version an uprising seems to be happening soon, the FPS is set at the moment of the uprising. Under the leadership of a few resistance leaders with magic powers, the poor people blew a hole in one of the walls. This was the start of the revolution. This slight change in narrative allowed for more creative options when it came to the level design.
(For the in-depth analysis download the ZIP at the top)