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F13.net Interview

I recently did an interview at F13.net:

f13: For those unfamiliar with you and your company, please give a description of yourself, your company, what game(s) your company is working on, and your role in the production of those games.

CG: My name is Claus Grovdal and I'm the Lead Designer and Producer of Darkfall, the MMORPG currently in development by Aventurine/Razorwax.

f13: World or game, which is more important? Why?

CG: The goal is to make a good game, and the world is a feature of the game, not the other way around. The nature of MMOGs obviously demands creating good persistent worlds, but if the game doesn't come first, you could end up with a glorified 3D IRC client.

f13: However, many people who get burnt out on the combat/exploration aspects of the games remain subscribed to log in and chat with friends, in a glorified IRC tavern - is there a place for this utility in every game? How can it be implemented so that it doesn't detract from other aspects of gameplay?

CG: Absolutely. I think that good community building tools such as chat, messaging, ingame boards, etc. are vital to any MMOG. It suprises me that ingame boards are not a standard feature of most MMOGs.

f13: In your opinion, are MMOGs converging towards a model of perfection or diverging into new genres?

CG: I think we're far from even beginning to talk about a model of perfection for MMOGs. We're still in the embryonic stages of a new industry, and everything is still evolving. Game design, game concepts, marketing, distribution, billing methods, publishing models, platforms - the growth of the MMOG industry is happening as we speak, just considerably slower than some of the more optimistic observers predicted a few years ago.

f13: Some companies are claiming to be 2nd and 3rd generation MMORPGs - aside from being your typical PR Bullshit, what generation of MMORPGs do you think we're currently in (by your comments, I would assume 1st generation - which is what many fans believe)?

CG: It's just semantics. Whether you are talking about 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation, it is all relative and irrelevant. Whatever generation we are at, we are the next one ;)

f13: Does the so-called casual gamer exist? If so, what design goals would attract such a player to a game?

CG: There is still no real evidence proving there is such a thing as a large base of casual MMOG players. Planetside is a game designed for more casual players were you log in for instant action. I think it proved that in order to get paying subscribers, you have to compete with and offer more than what traditional multiplayer games such as Counterstrike and Battlefield 1942 gives for free.

The predicament is of course that if you offer more, you might actually add too much and the game requires bigger time investments by the player than you initially planned. It's an interesting design dilemma.

For example, community building is in my opinion one of the most important aspects of MMOGs. You have a community of friends and enemies, and players keep coming back to MMOGs to play with their friends, and fight their enemies. A problem here is that as soon as players become part of this community, they start feeling the pressure from their friends about playing more, building their characters so they can keep up, helping the team out etc, and they have to decide if they want to invest more time in the game or not.

The first game to offer players more than Counterstrike, but with considerably less time investments than Lineage II, might have a real winner on their hands. I think Shadowbane came close, but they had too many and too serious technical problems with their software.

f13: We've been playing what seems like the same game since the first MUDs came out, what do you think is currently missing from the MMOG genre that's keeping it from breaking into the next generation?

CG: I think we need to see a shift in publisher strategies.

When companies invest enormous amounts of money and resources on big projects like MMOGs are, there's a lot of responsibility attached to it. Companies and developers could choke under this kind of pressure, and start questioning themselves, often ending up with settling for proven concepts, cutting important game features, spending too little time testing, and releasing the game earlier than they're supposed to.

The problem is unfortunately that settling for proven concepts, and cutting features that made a game stand out in the first place, often translates to boredom for the players, and they naturally don't want to pay to play.

Maybe there will be a shift in publisher strategies eventually, following the venture capitalist model of investing $30M on 10 small projects, instead of on one big one. Then after a year or so of development, they could pick the best projects, juice them up, and cut the poor ones or release them as budget titles.

I think that would help.

f13: What model of government do MMORPG developers attempt to replicate in-game (I.E. Japanese Feudalism, Anarchy, Capitalism, etc)? In addition, What model of government do you think works best given the unpredictability of a world where killing is the main form of progression?

CG: Players tend to organize themselves into primitive tribal communities within the games they play. I am not so sure this is always a conscious design decision by the developers, but nevertheless it's the result.

I don't think it should be up to the developers to replicate or to dictate government or economic models in MMORPGs. Give the players the tools to successfully pick the government models themselves. When the game is released, the game should belong to the players, not the developers.

f13: With the new MMORPG, City of Heroes, we have seen the epitome of classification among character archetypes. They have been blatently labeled Tanker (Warrior), Blaster (Archer), Scrapper (Rogue), Defender (Paladin), and Controller (Generic Crowd Control) and as such have left zero room for creativity (which they allocated into clothing customization). By labeling thusly, we are told what kind of character we are to play - and have almost zero room for deviation.

Has character archetypes 'jumped the shark' as it were, only leaving enough room for minor changes, or are we actually going to see innovation? Discuss the future of character archetypes as you see it.

CG: I am not a very big fan of predefined character classes. Frankly I think this is another symptom of the settling for proven concepts problem.

The main argument for predefined character classes has always been game balance, but I think there are better ways of balancing while at the same time allowing the players the freedom to play how and what they want without having to constantly reroll new characters.

Let the players define their own character classes. Let them pick up the skills, spells and equipment they feel like. As an example, in Darkfall we haven't balanced the spell casters by not allowing them to wear armor; instead we've given armor a casting time penalty. This way you can decide yourself if you want to be a quick but fragile mage, or a slow but more protected tank mage.

The freedom to let the players be more in charge of how they play games - I think this is a huge deal in moving the MMOG genre forward.

f13: How would you avoid the pitfalls of the current crop of PVP-centric games, such as the power of the zerg, 3 AM raid syndrome, time-investment being more important than player skill, serial killer griefer PK syndrome, and the loser quitting because rebuilding is too hard?

CG: You have a thread discussing the Darkfall siege system here on the F13.net boards, so I kind of expected this question. We have several ways of balancing the power of the zerg and the 3AM raid syndrome, but I don't want to go into specifics yet.

Speaking about the losing side quitting the game because rebuilding is too hard, I think it is important to break the entire gameplay down into smaller steps. In Shadowbane you could build a city for months, only to have it burned down completely in a few hours. It is a cool sounding feature on paper, but in the end I think it is punishing the losing side way too much. I don't have any numbers to back it up, but I am pretty confident that every guild that had their city burned down, saw a good percentage of their players quitting the game in the following few days. Rebuilding after defeat was just too hard and tedious, and most players didn't want to go through with that again.

In Dark Age of Camelot they adopted the small steps philosophy. You can take over another guild's keep, and the losing side doesn't lose that much. Additionally, the losers can get the keep back fairly easily; it hasn't been burned down to the ground. I personally feel that the risks and rewards are too small, close to insignificant in Dark Age of Camelot, but still better than in Shadowbane.

I think a better balance lies somewhere between Shadowbane and Dark Age of Camelot. Let the conqueror take over the city and allow them to destroy a few assets if they so desire, but limit how much they can burn down. Basically you want them taking over instead of destroying. This way the losing guild has the chance to lick their wounds, regroup and try to take their city back through diplomacy, trade, or by force.

You keep most of the gameplay about building and taking over, instead of destruction, which ultimately chases players away from the game. The fun part in both Shadowbane and Dark Age of Camelot is the fighting anyway, so now there's always something to fight over.

It's still possible to burn down entire cities in Darkfall, but only a few buildings/structures every so often, giving the losing team the possibility of reclaiming what was theirs before it is forever gone. With this system we hope to increase the fun and excitement of waging war, and decrease the sense of a definitive Game Over.

f13: Here's a simple one: Is it solely the publisher's fault when games are rushed out the door?

CG: I think the term "rushed out the door" is misleading. The truth is usually that initial time estimates were wrong, and the developers need more time to finish the game than decided when contracts were made, and budgets were allocated. It is a sad fact, but correctly estimating the development time of a game is extremely hard, and almost always fails.

Publishing games is a business, and money to keep funding development is not always available. For most companies money is a limited resource, and even if the resources exist, publishers still have to make sound business decisions.

I think it's really a shared responsibility. The developers failed to deliver the game at an agreed date, and the publishers decided to release the game anyway.

Unfortunately everyone loses when a game is released too early. Players get an unfinished product, and publishers/developers usually lose sales.

f13: The most successful American MMOG to date, Everquest, has spawned numerous knockoffs that, frankly, suck. How dangerous to the creativity of the industry is an incredibly successful release?

CG: Copying is not exclusive to the gaming industry. It is a human trait; for every Coca Cola there is a Pepsi. In some cases cloning helps create better cars, faster planes or cheaper burgers and that is a good thing for most industries and consumers. I agree that the Everquest phenomenon has mostly been slowing down the evolution of the MMOG industry, but I am not so sure we would have been better off without it.

f13: Aside from the games you are developing, are there any MMOG's on the horizon that blow your hair back? If so, why? Also, what MMOG most influenced your current focus, Darkfall?

CG: I probably learned something, and found inspiration in every game I ever played. If I had to pick one game though, it would have to be Ultima Online. The freedom Ultima Online offered players has been a mantra for me and the rest of the team when working on Darkfall.

Making games is my daytime job, but I am also a fanatic gamer. I really wish there were a few MMOGs on the horizon that blew my hair back, but I honestly can't say there is. There are a few interesting ones, such as City of Heroes, but none that really keeps me up at night plotting and planning.

f13: Is there anything you'd like to add? Any comments for our readers or inside information on Darkfall or future releases you'd like to throw in?

CG: Darkfall is currently in internal testing, and we are slowly gearing up for external play testing. We are in a fortunate position financially, and having a knowledgeable and understanding community, we're able to take the time to try and get everything right before we release the game.

We plan to release Darkfall within 2004.

Claus

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