Shanda’s “World Zero” Looks Cool, But How Will it Play?

It’s no secret that customizability and interactivity are the hallmarks of the Web 2.0 era. Outside China, this trend began to bleed into gaming several years ago, with major titles like LittleBigPlanet and ModNation Racers offering users a full-fledged game along with robust creation tools that allowed them to make their own levels and share them with others.

Shanda, one of China’s biggest developers, is bringing this idea to China in a major way with their upcoming World Zero. According to the game’s website, World Zero will be a free-to-play MMO development platform that allows users to easily create and share MMO-style worlds. Sound exciting?

Supposedly, the game offers incredibly robust creation tools that allow users to create playable characters, NPCs, levels, and maps. It includes “easy-to-use” script and mission editors and will allow players to fully design, develop, and ultimately release their own MMOs through the World Zero platform.

Of course, as any gamer will tell you, the extent to which a game like this catches on very much depends on how “easy-to-use” it actually is. Modders have been using design tools to make their own games for years on a number of platforms (most popularly, the Half Life 2 engine and various Blizzard games). But these tools require a technical knowledge that forms a high barrier for entry, and most users don’t take advantage of them. What will make or break World Zero is whether or not they’re able to hit the tiny target that makes creation games like this one explode: easy and intuitive for beginning users, but robust enough to hold the attention of more advanced gamers too.

World Zero promises “standardized” tools that will make development easy, but at present their official site doesn’t offer much more than platitudes and that cool video. There are no screenshots, no demo, and no release date, although the video suggests it will come out sometime in 2011 and the company said at ChinaJoy that they would have “a big announcement” sometime this October. Until then, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. It’s a fascinating, very unique concept for a game, but in the web 2.0 era, it’s all about the execution.

[Image: Technode]