Worlds in Time (video game)

Doctor Who: Worlds in Time was a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) developed by Three Rings and published by BBC Worldwide. It was the first multiplayer online game in the history of the Doctor Who franchise. It was also the first game developed by an American company, and the first to be financially supported through micropayments.

Announced on 24 February 2011, after enjoying a lengthy public preview period which began on 20 December 2011, the game officially was released on 13 March 2012.

It was announced on 14 January 2014 that the game would be discontinued on 3 March of the same year. The game's services lasted to the end of the Eleventh Doctor's era, the Doctor central to its story, and closed not long after the debut of the Twelfth Doctor.

Synopsis
The players follow in the Doctor's footsteps, travelling through time and space, exploring alien worlds, encountering various species, and helping the Doctor save civilised cultures from various threats.

Plot
A temporal event has caused time itself to shatter into crystal shards. The Eleventh Doctor, realising this to be of grave importance to fix, recruits you and other time travellers to help save all of time. To send you off on this adventure, the Doctor even gives you your very own sonic screwdriver. Over the course of your travels, you battle evil forces who are also after these shards, and meet with others, to stop this cataclysmic event from spreading.

Characters

 * Eleventh Doctor

Companions

 * Companion
 * Talia
 * Silas
 * Noma
 * Mal
 * Meera
 * Darren
 * Gethin
 * Will
 * Nneka
 * Steven
 * Camile

Citizens of worlds

 * Patrick
 * Martha
 * Tyler
 * Ashley
 * Gerald
 * Rasha
 * Lieutenant
 * Watkins
 * Soldier
 * Ainsley
 * Brigham
 * Darby
 * Ronnie
 * Major
 * Reginald
 * Kingsley
 * Corwin
 * Thornton
 * Bassani
 * Caravello
 * Grato
 * Astronaut
 * Genero
 * Antonia
 * Bezio
 * Lina
 * Marcella
 * Servius
 * Aelus
 * Laelius
 * Lunius
 * Nona
 * Abel
 * Betty

Plastic Soul

 * Pedestrian
 * Shopkeeper
 * Vicky
 * Sylvia
 * Bernard
 * Constable Howe
 * Hooded stranger

Menace in Venice

 * Tullio
 * Franco
 * Chief Magistrate

New Earth

 * Jeremy
 * Rebecca

Level layout
Worlds in Time was split into ten main worlds, besides from "Home," which the player's room in the TARDIS. Each world is split into several "Interventions", later renamed "Adventures", with each Intervention/Adventure split up into numerous stages. For the most part, planets could be played in any order

Plastic Soul

 * 1) Bigger on the Inside
 * 2) Domestic Disturbance
 * 3) Loot and Laurels
 * 4) Above and Below
 * 5) Crystal Caverns

Blitzkrieg

 * 1) Back to the Blitz
 * 2) Bombing Run
 * 3) Muck and Brass
 * 4) Elementary, My Dear Watkins
 * 5) Shard of the Earth

Menace in Venice

 * 1) Ahhh, Venice
 * 2) Market Instability
 * 3) Heart of Glass
 * 4) Ode to Bezio
 * 5) Council Counsel

Roman Holiday

 * 1) Do As the Autons Do
 * 2) Burning Rubber
 * 3) Wake-Up Call
 * 4) Unnatural Formations
 * 5) They Could Look Like Anyone

Troubled Times

 * 1) Luna Landing
 * 2) There Goes the Neighbourhood
 * 3) Foreign Legion

New New York
to be added

Ember
to be added

Mars
to be added

Starship UK
to be added

Messaline
to be added

Malcassairo
to be added

Skaro
to be added

Crew

 * Daniel James - Three Rings CEO

Story notes

 * The intention of each level is that it be played with four "Assistants," or companions. If the user had three friends in 2011-2014, three extra players could have been added to each time. If multiple players did not play through a level, NPC "Assistants" would be randomly selected to assist the player. These NPC assistants were: Darren, Will, Mal, Meera, Noma, Nneka, Silas, Steven, Talia, Camile and Gethin.

Gameplay
Worlds in Time was a multiplayer online game in which the players solve various puzzles and challenges in a multiplayer environment. Although free to play, many of the things needed to progress in gameplay required chronons — the in-game currency — that regenerated at the rate of one every half-hour until the limit of 50 was reached. This limit could be exceeded by purchasing more with real money.

Like many other MMOs, the narrative experience each player had with this game was unique. Indeed, the player could play the same scenarios over and over again, each time with a different group of player-controlled and non-player-controlled (NPC) characters. The game also had a significant social aspect, which opened up the opportunity for roleplay, further customising the player experience. Thus, there is no singular narrative which arises from Worlds in Time.

Creating a social space online was presented a major motivator behind this game. According to a BBC spokesman, the game "offers players a multitude of elements and opportunities to socialise ... our goal is to become the largest Doctor Who community ever assembled."