Fundamentally, I just want to play FF Tactics against and alongside other people. The rest of this project exists to construct a framework in which other people experience the same desire, and possibly give me money for helping them do so.

This is part of my “Do One Thing” philosophy: understand the most basic abstract goal you’re setting out to achieve. In this case, it’s to reproduce the feeling of Final Fantasy Tactics‘ combat and some of its setting in a multiplayer, persistent way. All of the other theorizing and design must in some way contribute to this goal: it must either be part of creating the gameplay itself, or it must be part of encouraging other people to enjoy it, or it must be part of encouraging other people to pay for it.