I was hoping some one in the business could shed some light on how things are developed and what roles take on what tasks on a game development team? Who determines how a game's combat system works? Who determines what items are in a game and what they do? What about experience and leveling systems, crafting systems? Who creates all the NPCs and enemies? Who writes plot lines and quests? Some things seem pretty clear, there are level designers and art directors, and probably dedicated writers, but some things don't seem to fit so neatly. To be clear, I'm wondering about pro companies and not indie teams which I'd expect to vary far more.

Designers design them/Engineers make them work:    Who determines how a game's combat system works?    Who determines what items are in a game and what they do?    What about experience and leveling systems, crafting systems?Engineers/Artists/(Tuned & Placed by design)    Who creates all the NPCs and enemies?Designers have concepts/Writers make the words pretty:    Who writes plot lines and quests?

-me

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Original post by JasRonq Who determines how a game's combat system works?

- Game Mechanic Designer*

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Original post by JasRonq Who determines what items are in a game and what they do?

- Game Mechanic Designer*

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Original post by JasRonq What about experience and leveling systems, crafting systems?

- Game Mechanic Designer*

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Original post by JasRonq Who creates all the NPCs and enemies?

Game Mechanics of Them:
- Game Mechanic Designer*

Art of Them:
- Concept artist
- 3D Modeller + Texturer / Spriter

Programming of Them:
- Programmer

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Original post by JasRonq Who writes plot lines and quests?

- Lore/Fiction Writer
- Dialogue Writer


Individuals may have multiple roles in professional companies as well.

(*=Commonly abbreviated to "Game Designer")


I am not in any professional game company.

It depends on the studio and the size of team and the type of game.

Some small studios will just have programmers, artists and a producer who also acts as a designer.

One MMO studio I know of and have quite a few friends working at has a few lead programmers and a few lead artists and just refers to all the less senior programmers and artists as designers.

Some studios will insist that their designers are also scripting programmers. Others will insist that Level designers are also artists.

More frequently larger studios are starting to outsource some of this stuff to other smaller dedicated companies.

This is why things don't fit so neatly.

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Original post by JasRonq Who determines how a game's combat system works? Who determines what items are in a game and what they do? What about experience and leveling systems, crafting systems? Who creates all the NPCs and enemies? Who writes plot lines and quests?

As you can gather from the other posts, it varies wildly based on team size and composition. All of the things you listed fall into the domain of a game designer (generally). However, things like how a combat system works is the result of discussions with multiple departments - producers, designers, and programmers. Items would be largely figured out my a designer, but other people on the team, even QA, will throw in suggestions. Leveling and crafting system would be the same as with the combat system. Depending on team size you'll have dedicated designers who are focused on each of them, or you might have one designer who has to try to over see all of it. Plot lines and quests would be handled by a designer, or if writers are on the team, they'll be talked with about storyline along with again, the producer.

That was a long block of text basically just saying "it depends". There is never a single person who decides everything. On top of that, you always have the publisher throwing in seemingly random dictations because their marketing department feels it'll help the game sell better.

Well it varies greatly between studio and between the types of projects they're working on. Based on your questions it appears that you're only or mostly intrested in joining a team that works on MMO's or RPG's.

Since the studio I work at has focussed their efforts on FPS games for the last few projects the types of positions we have filled are going to be much different than the team at Blizzard working on WoW.

For your first three questions the person responsible for those types of tasks is typically a designer, though they may have some unique identifier appended to their title such as Multiplayer Design Lead, Sandbox Design Lead, Mission Designer, or Level Designer.

NPC's, and enemies are created by concept artists, character modelers, riggers, and animators. Additionally, there are designers who are also responsible for determining the attributes of the characters. Overall it's a very organic process and there's a lot of back and forth discussion between different disciplines within the studio.

I work at a large enough studio that we actually have dedicated writers. We also have individuals who are responsible for working with the writers and integrating the main story into cinematics and gameplay.

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Original post by zer0wolf Plot lines and quests would be handled by a designer, or if writers are on the team, they'll be talked with about storyline along with again, the producer.

Oh and yeah, of course game mechanic designers would compose the game mechanics of the quests. I guess I forgot to mention that because of the way the original poster refereed to quest creation ("writing the quests").