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.

Intro
A temporal event has caused time itself to shatter into crystal shards. The Eleventh Doctor, realising this to be of grave importance to fix, decides he need "a cavalcade of help", and decides to recruit as many allies as possible to help in fixing time.

The Doctor lands his TARDIS in a dark room, and a figure cloaked in shadows finds him. The Doctor tells the figure they're just who he's looking for, and to come in.


 * This character, the player, now can choose their name, gender (male or female), and race (human, Silurian, Catkind, or Gelth).

The Doctor tells the companion to complete puzzles and to find him the scattered time shards. He then drops the human on their first mission.


 * Plastic Soul on Earth is always the first level of the game, but the player is able to play future missions in some variety of order. Despite this, missions typically have a set script, with the chat windows for characters and the chat window for players being separate.

Bigger on the Inside
The companion lands in London, which has been infected by the Nestene Consciousness. Nestene spheres clutter the streets, and plastic Autons are on a rampage. The companion enters a storefront, where he encounters numerous Autons and meets an employee, Vicky. Vicky tries to take them to the alley behind the store, but the back door is locked, so the companion has to pick the lock.

As they reach the back alley, they are cornered by Autons, before the TARDIS suddenly appears. As the Doctor exits the TARDIS, Vicky flees, saying she'd rather risk it in the streets. The Doctor exits the TARDIS, nothing he hasn't seen Autons in "ages." He notes that they have one weakness, as their molecular structure breaks down under the stress of a sonic device. To help you fight the Autons, the Doctor gives you a Psychic wand.

The Doctor reveals he has collected the first time shard, and that next they need to use the TARDIS to scan the Nestene Consciousness and discover when and where the Auton invasion began.

Domestic Disturbance
The Doctor drops the companion off with three other assistants just before the Auton invasion of Earth began. He detects a time distortion nearby, and instructs the team to investigate.

As the Doctor flees in the TARDIS, two humans pass by: Sylvia and Bernard, who are arguing over a crystal he has found and her fear that someone will come after them for it. The four companions interact with the pair, and convince Sylvia to trust them. Sylvia explains that Bernard found some strange object, and now there are "unsavory characters" living in their basement. She notes the companions seem to honestly want to help them, which Bernard sees as a problem, as it is revealed that he has been replaced by an Auton duplicate. With their Sonic devices, the four companions manage to defeat the Auton copy.

Sylvia takes them to the basement in their home, which leads to Bernard's locked office, guarded by Autons. The companions pick the lock and fend off the plastic invaders, making it inside the office. There, a hidden door disguised as a bookcase in unlocked, revealing a hidden room. Inside, a time shard is stored. Sylvia reveals her husband was once part of the Sword and Laurels Club, which he claimed was ancient and secret. She says if the groups follows her, she thinks she can lead them to another time shard.

Characters

 * Eleventh Doctor

Companions

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

Citizens of worlds

 * 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
 * Shopper 1
 * Shopper 2
 * Vicky
 * Sylvia
 * Bernard
 * Constable Howe
 * Hooded stranger
 * Gerald
 * Ashley
 * Rasha
 * Patrick
 * Martha
 * Tyler

Blitzkrieg

 * Lieutenant
 * Watkins
 * Soldier
 * Ainsley
 * Brigham
 * Darby

Menace in Venice

 * Tullio
 * Franco
 * Chief Magistrate

New Earth

 * Jeremy
 * Rebecca

Mars

 * Nick

Level layout
Worlds in Time was split into ten main worlds, besides from "Home," which was 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. The game would begin on Plastic Soul, but otherwise Interventions/Adventures could be played in almost 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

Ood of New New York

 * 1) Undercity Market
 * 2) Bargain Hunter
 * 3) Ood for a Song
 * 4) Rush Hour
 * 5) Fractured Franchise

Breed Lines

 * 1) Of Two Minds
 * 2) Inside Job
 * 3) Robin Ood
 * 4) Shard Runner
 * 5) Special Victims Unit

Underbelly

 * 1) It's a Trap
 * 2) Infirmary Infiltration
 * 3) Bioshards
 * 4) Shards Stat
 * 5) Sanctuary

Revolution

 * 1) Friends of the Foto
 * 2) Red-Eye Roundup
 * 3) Wolves at the Gate
 * 4) Distractions
 * 5) Free Ood

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 2012-2014, three extra players could have been added to their team each play-through. If multiple players did not join, NPC "Assistants" would be randomly selected to assist the player. These NPC assistants were: Darren, Will, Mal, Meera, Noma, Nneka, Silas, Steven, Talia, Camille 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."