--- title: MMO Pioneer Raph Koster on Stars Reach and Sandbox MMO... description: Raph Koster, lead designer of Ultima Online and creative director of Star Wars Galaxies, discusses his new MMO Stars Reach and the philosophy behind it. He... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/mmo-pioneer-raph-koster-on-stars-reach-and-sandbox-mmo-game-design-ujbaurybq twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: MMO Pioneer Raph Koster on Stars Reach and Sandbox MMO Game Design | daily.dev og:description: Raph Koster, lead designer of Ultima Online and creative director of Star Wars Galaxies, discusses his new MMO Stars Reach and the philosophy behind it. He... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/mmo-pioneer-raph-koster-on-stars-reach-and-sandbox-mmo-game-design-ujbaurybq og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/UjBaURybq.png og:image:alt: MMO Pioneer Raph Koster on Stars Reach and Sandbox MMO Game Design og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # MMO Pioneer Raph Koster on Stars Reach and Sandbox MMO Game Design **[80 LEVEL](https://daily.dev/sources/80lv)** · 10 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Raph Koster, lead designer of Ultima Online and creative director of Star Wars Galaxies, discusses his new MMO Stars Reach and the philosophy behind it. He explains how cloud-native technology enables a truly persistent, fully modifiable world with no resets, where every object is streamed from the server and can change permanently. Koster reflects on what MMOs have lost since the World of Warcraft era — particularly the unique combination of large player populations and persistent worlds — and how Stars Reach aims to recapture that through ecosystem simulation, player-driven economies, flexible classless progression, and prosocial design. He also shares lessons from past games, including how wealth concentration in Star Wars Galaxies informed economic design decisions, and why scaling up in Stars Reach should increase risk rather than reduce it. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What makes Stars Reach's world persistence different from traditional MMO servers? Every object in Stars Reach is streamed down from the server rather than baked into a static mesh, meaning objects can change, disappear, or gain new behaviors at any time. Terrain is fully modifiable and persistent with no resets, so even something as small as a fence post could run behaviors like a monster in other games, enabling castle sieges, forest fires, and dynamic ecosystem changes. _daily.dev surfaces deep dives like this for developers curious about persistent, streaming game world architecture._ ### How does Stars Reach prevent players from monopolizing the in-game economy like they did in Star Wars Galaxies? Stars Reach increases risk and overhead as players scale up, so owning too many shops or mines raises the chance of losing everything, treating expansion like a push-your-luck game. This directly addresses a Star Wars Galaxies problem where a few dominant players locked up markets and controlled server economies unchecked. _developers designing player-driven economies can find similar systems-design breakdowns on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - ["As more people play games, even the tiniest niches find a bigger audience" – Why Matt Webster is convinced people want Star Wars: Galactic Racer](https://daily.dev/posts/as-more-people-play-games-even-the-tiniest-niches-find-a-bigger-audience-why-matt-webster-is-co-tayrapuf7) · GamesIndustry.biz · 3 upvotes · 1 comments - [EA hopes Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes lasts 37 years](https://daily.dev/posts/ea-hopes-star-wars-galaxy-of-heroes-lasts-37-years-noekpeshh) · Game Developer · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How This Indie Is Building a Fully Simulated Sandbox RPG in Valorborn](https://daily.dev/posts/how-this-indie-is-building-a-fully-simulated-sandbox-rpg-in-valorborn-eyfbscgsw) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - ["People want MMOs, and the sales of New World proved it" – Cryptic Studios head Jack Emmert on why MMOs are ripe for reinvention](https://daily.dev/posts/people-want-mmos-and-the-sales-of-new-world-proved-it-cryptic-studios-head-jack-emmert-on-why-m-f7c3ztloh) · GamesIndustry.biz · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#cloud-native](https://daily.dev/tags/cloud-native), [#game-design](https://daily.dev/tags/game-design), [#mmorpg](https://daily.dev/tags/mmorpg) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/mmo-pioneer-raph-koster-on-stars-reach-and-sandbox-mmo-game-design-ujbaurybq) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"MMO Pioneer Raph Koster on Stars Reach and Sandbox MMO Game Design","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/mmo-pioneer-raph-koster-on-stars-reach-and-sandbox-mmo-game-design-ujbaurybq","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/mmo-pioneer-raph-koster-on-stars-reach-and-sandbox-mmo-game-design-ujbaurybq"},"datePublished":"2026-07-20T20:14:12.501Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T21:42:25.869Z","description":"Raph Koster, lead designer of Ultima Online and creative director of Star Wars Galaxies, discusses his new MMO Stars Reach and the philosophy behind it. 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