BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter like its predecessors, but a less lonely one. You play Booker DeWitt, who is trying to escape the flying city of Columbia with a girl named Elizabeth before a terrifying steampunk robot called Songbird catches her. The city is a spectacular airborne flotilla of districts suspended by vast balloons – a testament to America’s cultural might, and its fondness for things that are big but not terribly useful. Our last good look at the game was a spectacular 15-minute demonstration at E3.

I spoke to creative director Ken Levine about why Elizabeth is the centrepiece not just of the story, but of the technology that drives it.

PC Gamer: Your personal story seems to be about rescuing Elizabeth from Songbird. How does that tie in to the revolution that’s going on in the world around you?

Ken Levine: Elizabeth is the catalyst for what sets this revolution that’s going in slow motion into one that’s going at hyperspeed. The fact that you bust her out of this tower where you find her at the beginning of the game… the Queen comes into play on the board.

And each side – the Founders on one side, and the Vox Populi on the other side – feels that Elizabeth is essential to them accomplishing their goals. The Founders want to keep her locked up in the tower, and the Vox Populi want to destroy her. This is because she is part of a prophecy: it is believed that if Elizabeth dies, the city falls with her.

That’s all the Vox Populi want, to take the symbol of their oppressor and make it tumble from the heavens.

Founders leader Zachary Hale Comstock isn't everyone's choice.

PC Gamer: Aren’t they also on the city, though?

Ken Levine: Yeah, they are, but you know what? They don’t care.

PC Gamer: So it’s like suicide bombing on a massive scale?

Ken Levine: Yeah. Well, if you go back to the Anarchist movements of that period, their symbol was a bomb. They have to tear down the system to rebuild it.

PC Gamer: How do you go about making the player care about a companion character like Elizabeth?

Ken Levine: In terms of emotional connection, I thought about this for a long time. Because you only know this character for a period of hours, and you have to make a connection with her. And in real life that just doesn’t happen – relationships take a long time to form.

So I spent a lot of time thinking about that: “How can you make a relationship form quickly? How do you cement a relationship fast?”

And one of the things that we kept coming back to was soldiers – the kinds of bonds that soldiers form, when their lives are in danger and they make these incredible sacrifices for each other. And I think that it is sacrifice that makes people form relationships very, very quickly, with people that you don’t really know very well.

And so I just started thinking about how we can make Elizabeth and Booker perform sacrifices for each other, and how that would draw them together. And that’s what we did with the narrative of the demo we showed at E3: a little microcosm of that.

It’s basically a story of sacrifice, and she sets up her own stakes: this is the thing she wants out of life, and this is what she wants least out of life – to go back with this… thing, Songbird.

And what does she do at the end of the demo? She goes back. And then that puts Booker in a situation where the onus is on him. She made the sacrifice for him, what does he have to do for her?

It’s one thing to say that the princess is in another castle, it’s another thing to say that she’s there because of you. And not you as in the backstory, but you as in what happened in the game.

That steampunk circus strongman suit is unbelievably cool.

PC Gamer: How much work does it take to produce a demo like the E3 one?

Ken Levine: For us it’s a lot of work, and the reason it’s challenging is that obviously you’re bringing things to a level of polish ahead of the rest of the game. But the thing for us that’s useful, that actually saves us time, is that it forces us to get real, you know? We can’t say, “Oh, that’ll be fine once that part’s in,” or “Yeah, don’t worry about that.”

It sort of forces us to bring it to a point where it actually has to stand up for itself. These Skylines, it’s not, “They’ll look good,” or “They’re going to feel fine.” It’s, “Do they look okay? Do they feel okay? Do they seem interesting? Do they seem fun?” We have to make those determinations.

Like interacting with Elizabeth: “Well, yeah it’ll be great! Trust me!” We actually have to bring it to a point where we start to get a sense of that, internally on the team, and I think that’s very valuable for us.

PC Gamer: So it’s almost like a preview for you – you’re finding out what your game’s going to be like and how it works.

Ken Levine: Absolutely. So quite often you’ll encounter things that you realise are not going to work, and you have to either figure out how to make them work, or say they’re not going to be part of the game. And that happens a lot during our demos.

Irrational mined early 20th century war propaganda for Columbia's political art.

PC Gamer:There are moments in the demo that seem scripted, and others where it seems like you could go anywhere. Can you?

Ken Levine:Well, I’d say it’s much like BioShock. It’s just that the levels are geometrically larger, and they seem more vertical. But I don’t want to give an impression that this is a Grand Theft Auto or a Red Dead game.

I think the big thing that is interesting for us in this is that… we controlled that demo, but if we want Elizabeth to do a bit of business – like the part where she picks up the Abraham Lincoln head – what if the player doesn’t go there? What if the player’s busy? What if they’re in combat at the time?

And so we have this system where we build these bits of business like the Lincoln head, and Elizabeth says to the game: “Hey, I’d like to pick up the Lincoln head now and show it to the player, can I do that?” And the game either says, “Yes, this is a good time,” or, “No.” And if the game says no, we’ll place the other opportunity somewhere else in the level for her to do that bit of business and again, it’ll check: “Hey, is this a good time?”

'I wouldn't have to kick you in the stomach if you flossed more often.'

PC Gamer: Does that mean she’ll carry the Lincoln head through the whole level, waiting for you to turn around?

Ken Levine: No, it means that we would place the Lincoln head in the level, but say she picks up the Lincoln Head and all of a sudden the player gets attacked, she has to get rid of it. So we need to account for that, or she’s carrying this stupid Lincoln head throughout the level.

But we also have another system on top of that which is saying, “We don’t want all these bits of business to either happen at the very beginning or the very end of the level, as if the player is sort of rushing them to the end.” [It] works like content distribution, saying, “Has Elizabeth just done something recently, or has she not done something for a while? We should try to make her do something now.”

So, those bits – you could say that they’re scripted in a sense, but they could happen at numerous places throughout the level, because we don’t know what the player’s going to do. So we have to account for it, and Elizabeth has to seem both fluid and consistent.

That is probably the most complicated thing – in fact, I wouldn’t say probably, I’d say it is the most complicated thing in the game, because she’s so content-heavy.

She has her roots in the Big Daddy and Little Sister characters in some ways. And I say that in terms of how we had to think about it, because Big Daddy was trying to go through all these little bits of business as well: Little Sister would get tired, and Big Daddy would control the speed he was moving at. And we had to do that in places where we didn’t know what players were going to be doing. Their paths weren’t entirely predetermined, nor were their actions on that path entirely predetermined. So she’s just like an incredibly, incredibly complicated version of that.

I don’t think anybody’s done anything exactly quite like this, because she’s performing these continually scripted things in areas where we can’t control the action.

PC Gamer: Were you tempted to put that in a restrictive context, where the player loses control of his view and has to see Elizabeth do this cool thing?

Ken Levine: We have this theory – and I can’t say whether it makes sense, but… the less we take control away from the player, the better. That’s always been our structure in terms of storytelling, it’s always been our approach back from System Shock 2 to BioShock. We try to tell a story that is deep in narrative, but without asking the player to be restricted for it – and that’s very tough to do. But we think it’s worth it

BioShock Infinite is out in 2012.

We hope you’ll have a fantastic holiday season full of wonder-frags and epic loots. Look for podcast #300 in the new year. It’ll be the cat’s meow.

PC Gamer Interview with Daniel Erickson

You might not have noticed, but there was another band (on top of the Foo Fighters and Blizzard’s own Level 90 Elite Tauren Chieftain) worthy of your praise at BlizzCon last month: the almighty Songhammer. We sat down with the two gamers that formed the army of epic rock, wicked guitars, and WoW-centric lyrics that won third place in the Original Song Contest at this year’s BlizzCon. Between bursts of guitar riffs and giant dragons breathing fire, they told us their tale and talked about some their top songs, like “We are the Horde” and “Armies of the Light.”

Read on to learn more about this rocktastic duo and grab free MP3s of their premier songs at the end of the interview.

PCG: So let’s start at the beginning. How did you guys meet, and why did you decide to form a band that wrote songs about video games?

Ben Stewart, AKA Shredhammer, guitarist and lead vocals: Well, we both played in various bands throughout southern California–not in the same band, but in different groups–for well over a decade. So we’d met each other at different points and had become friends as a result. When Dustin first realized that winning BlizzCon’s song contest was a possibility, I had just finished another album at home called The Red Fist Revolution: the Fall of Goliath. It’s a rock opera. It turned out really well and a small independent label picked it up. Dustin heard the recording and said to me, “Hey, why couldn’t we do some of this stuff for BlizzCon at your house?”

So we started talking and we both love fantasy; we both love games; we both love all these concepts and ideas. So as soon as he told me about his idea to write a song that’d win the BlizzCon contest, I started working on it and built the skeleton of a metal anthem that ended up being “We are the Horde.” I wrote the bridge and the vocals, but I didn’t have the verses or anything else yet. At the same time, Dustin started working on a separate piece called “Armies of the Light.”

Initially, we each wrote separate songs. We worked on them together, and we submitted them as separate pieces. But as the competition and BlizzCon drew closer, we decided that we needed to become a Voltron of super-powered rock with face-melting strength. So we became Songhammer.

The Horde does not tolerate sissy pop music--screams are required.

PCG: So, from the start, Songhammer was about winning the BlizzCon song contest?

Dustin Miller, AKA Croonhammer, guitarist: I’ve been a WoW player for over 5 years, and I came to BlizzCon last year. As I was watching the ceremonies and the song contest, I noticed that all the finalists were all very good songs. Two out of the three were orchestral compositions, but the song that won first was an orchestral-composed pop piece–more of a simple format song. After listening to it live, I thought, “Hey we could do that!” and I even turned to the guy next to me and said, “We are gonna win that next year.” So I told Ben I thought we could win, and so we founded this project to win BlizzCon.

PCG: You both play guitar in the band, but what are your specialties?

BS: Dustin is really good at the finger-picking and acoustic pieces, so the really intricate finger picking in the “Armies of the Light” is Dustin, and I’m the one doing the guitar solos and the heavy, grindy stuff.

DM: The nice thing about having the two different styles is that they’re so complementary. Like in “We Are the Alliance,” we have this heavy-but-metallic piece with the Flash Gorden Queen vocals beneath it. It’s just beyond cool.

Elf groupies: just one of the many perks of winning the BlizzCon music contest.

PCG: Something else that reminded me a bit of Queen was the huge horde of voices chanting in “We Are the Horde.” Is that all you guys?

BS: Yeah, that’s all us. That’s 30 voices. In fact, we did drums, bass, guitar–all of it. It’s the musical version of what gamers consider grinding.

PCG: You guys are working on a full album, right? Are all the songs about World of Warcraft?

DM: Presently, we have post-production done on the two songs for this BlizzCon, because it was our launch. We’re in pre-production on 11 more and all of those are in the World of Warcraft universe. We want to do an album in each of Blizzard’s game universes.

BS: Maybe a Diablo album, then maybe a Starcraft album. The music would reflect those albums. If it was Starcraft, we would go digital and have that theme, and if it was Diablo, it would be very dark and deep. But the idea of [writing songs about] other gaming universes is pretty great. Branching out would be good.

No one said making game-themed music would be easy, or allow you to maintain the proper number of limbs.

So you’re fans of all of Blizzard’s games, but which is your favorite?

DM:  Warcraft. I’ve been a Warcraft player for 5 years now. I’m a main tank and officer for my guild. Expecially now, with the economy, people don’t have that much money–WoW is cheap recreation. I can say truthfully that the relationships I’ve built with the people that I play with are friendships. The first time I met the other guy who main-tanks with me, it never occurred to me that we’d never been face-to-face together before. We’d been friends for 5 years and never physically been in the same room.

BS: I’ve been particularly impressed with the art of Diablo. I was really taken by it. We were looking at some of the computer stations yesterday, before the ceremonies were going and we were watching the games going on there, and its just beautiful art. When you’re into games and music, there’s this component where you just want to see the art, and you want to see something that transforms the environment–you want to see something that takes you there.

PCG: Is that what you want your music to do?

BS: Yeah, we want to create that environment and that feeling that you’re there, and that you can come along. A lot of our music has group participation: we want them to sing along and add some immersion to that game world.

PCG: So this is the type of music you can listen to in your car on your way to work and show up super pumped.

BS: Exactly! You’re ready to hew some heads and storm the castle, and show up wherever you’re going feeling good. Because the music is just fun!

Horde and Alliance alike, watch your backs.

PCG: You have some sweet looking weapons in your promo shots. Are you going to be wielding exotic swords in concert as well?

BS: No, we want to have hammers. We are talking to [replica weapon-makers] Epic Weapons, and in my wildest fantasy I would love to see a forged weapon that had the Songhammer logo on it. In fact, we talked to them about shipping out some weapons for our next photo shoot. In the Riverside, CA area where I live there’s this castle up on a hill that we’re going to literally be jumping off of with giant hammers or swords.

DM: It’s just so much fun! The administrative side is so much work, but everything we’re doing is so much fun. Its not like going to a castle and sword fighting is work.

BS: Both Dustin and I have played in various bands and clubs all along the sunset strip–Whisky A Go Go, House of Blues, and things like that–but those projects were all very serious. With this, we’re nuts. There are swords. There are hammers. We are focused on gaming and the whole industry. It’s been a blast.

We talked about the games that inspire your songs. What are your musical inspirations?

BS: It’s interesting because for this project I’m really inspired by things like lore. Where Dustin is more inspired by the game, I love the lore. I like to read the books–I love the fantasy and science fiction. Musically, I love Muse and epic stuff like Queen,Trent Resner, 9 Inch Nails, Rob Zombie. You can definitely hear them in ”We are the Horde.” You can hear this kind of Queen feel and Muse feel, but then you get into this zombie-esque angry big stuff.

DM: The foundation for my stuff is you can hear this tight harmony. I was a music student at Chapman so I have a classical background. The way that I hear music is very different from how Ben hears it. He has all this stuff with teeth and then we put my style vocals on it, and it come out to be this very beautiful powerful rock.

Epic.

PCG: Where can people go to find out more?

BS: The best place for people to go is our Facebook page or our website. And, of course, our YouTube page will have all of our interviews and songs in the future.

Get the songs now!

Declare your allegiance by downloading your faction’s anthem, written and performed by Songhammer (or be a fence-sitting turncoat and download both).
“Armies of The Light”
“We Are the Horde”

As action-RTS Heroes of Newerth prepares to introduce new features and a few surprises at Dreamhack, Director of Operations Brad Bower talked to us about how S2 is developing the game by providing more effective teaching tools for new players.

He explained how HoN’s mentoring system mimics the way we tend to learn games from friends in real-life, and how HoN’s updates will make the client itself a learning resource for new players.

PCG: How’s mentoring going to work?

Brad Bower:Right now, HoN is a game that has a very steep learning curve. You’ll play the game, and you’ll realize the minute you play it that it has some of the most amazing gameplay that you could ask for in a game. But then you realize that the learning curve is so steep that a lot of players are left wondering, “Should I even put up with it? Is it worth it?”

So we’re trying to show them, yeah, it’s definitely worth it, and make it easier for you to get into it.

PCG: Be honest here: is one of the reasons it’s hard for a new guy to get into the game the legendary intolerance for the new guy who needs to be told what to do? Have you run into this problem with HoN?

Bower: I think it’s a fact in all of these games. Anything in the ARTS or MOBA genre, you’re in a game for upwards of 45 minutes playing with a team, and you want everything to go well when you’re playing it. You live for those big moments that happen in the game, and it’s rough when someone else is weighting you down.

PCG: So how is the mentor-student matchmaking going to work? What are the logistics?

Bower: Basically, it’s encouraging a friend to help another friend learn the game. The best way to describe it is, when we were thinking of it, we realized how you would stand behind someone in the office and be like, “No, no, you should be buying this item instead of this one.” Or, “You should go to this lane here instead of where you were going.” A lot of helping over the shoulder. I know for me personally, I was taught by everyone in this office as they would watch me play and give me advice. And that’s really how the mentoring will work.

It’s a live feed, a one-to-one live real-time feed of the student’s monitor. You’re watching the other person play, and you’re tied into their screen. You can see everything is if you were that player. It’s very much like the experience of standing behind someone and helping them as they learn and move along in the game.

PCG: If you have friends in the community, friends generally do that already. That’s how you get into any RTS. Friends give you pointers, they get on Skype and talk you through it. One reason that communities become inaccessible is that new gamers maybe don’t have connections inside the game. What mechanism is going to connect well-meaning veterans with novices?

Bower:That’s one of the cool things about our community is that we have members that already do this. We have a clan that is there to help with mentoring and we’ve already talked to them. They’re planning on ramping up as the mentoring/spectating is put in. They’re planning on really showing off how good this community can be, and how helpful it can be. And with our newsletter we’ll be pointing new people to this clan.

So we’re looking to the community to be a big factor here.

PCG: Now ideally, a good deed is its own reward. But is HoN/S2 going to offer anything to gamers who become good mentors?

Bower: Well, with the clan that I’m speaking of in particular, we do have a nice deal set up where we are paying them with in-game currency and exclusive gifts to show them that we appreciate what they are doing in taking new players under their wings.

PCG: When does this feature go live?

Bower: We are planning on a December 9 release date.

Now, another feature we’re bringing out is what we’re calling the HoN TV feature. We’re basically going to be allowing broadcasts to played in-game. Shoutcasts, user streams, YouTube videos that teach players how to play, new characters when they are released… all of that will now be streaming in the HoN client. It’ll be out just in time for Dreamhack, so we’re looking forward to showing off all the great matches at Dreamhack this year. We’ll also be hoping to show off mentoring during that as well.

PCG: So you’re moving all the tools that players will need to get up to speed and develop their play in-game?

Bower: That’s kind of one of our goals. We would like for players to be able to access everything in-game. We want to make it so players can find all the information they need within the client. And I think the HoN TV feature is going to be a huge push in that direction.

Another part that comes with mentoring is spectating. Right now in HoN, if you are joining a public match before it starts, you are able to observe it. What mentoring will allow is if you sign in, and I think this happens to everyone, your friend is in the middle of a game and you’re left deciding if you sit around and wait for him, or do you start a match without him.

Mentoring allows friends to spectate each other. You’ll be able to see that player’s screen, and watch them play, and entertain yourself. I’ve been using it, and I’ve found myself watching as many matches as I’ve been playing.

PCG: So I understand you are also introducing a new hero soon?

Bower: Yeah, we have a hero coming; I’m not going to say too much about him, but he’s a hero that takes many forms. His name has definitely come up in the past, so the community should have fun trying to guess at that.

He laid some fears to rest, and explained how “newer” games should not be confused with “brand new.”

Do you think trying to make GOG.com a digital distribution service for new
games will interfere with its original mission? It was a huge boon to GOG users when games from EA started appearing on the service. But now EA and GOG are
digital distribution competitors, are they not? Will that interfere with your ability to reach
agreements with publishers like EA?

Guillaume Rambourg: I think that calling what we’re doing a competition with services like Origin or Steam may be a bit misleading. We’re remaining true to our original mission of bringing DRM-free games to our users, adding in extra content, and keeping everything priced fairly across the whole world. This is the experience that a user gets when he or she comes to GOG.com, and that experience will remain unchanged.

Keep in mind that our initial plan for 2012 involved adding 20 “newer” titles–that is to say, titles between one to three years old. These games are well past their initial sales rush and are in what you would call the long tail of their sales phase. GOG’s mission is to give these titles a second youth, making these games virtual “collector’s editions” with bundled-in extra goodies like soundtracks and wallpapers. Adding games like this to GOG.com certainly doesn’t compete with traditional digital distributors, but will really show off how DRM-free sales channels are an excellent complement to traditional game distribution.

PCG: Is your commitment to DRM-freedom absolute? If so, how will you convince publishers to put newer games on GOG.com, when so many of them are committed to aggressive anti-piracy measures?

Rambourg: Yes, distributing titles without any DRM is our absolute commitment. This has always been one of the key pillars of our philosophy and we will remain faithful to that. I think the way to convince publishers how to put newer games on GOG.com without DRM is simple: show them it works. And, you know, we have!

When it comes to business, results (and actions) talk louder than words. More than 6 million PC classics have been downloaded on GOG since we launched 3 years ago. We serve over 1 million unique clients per month. But most importantly: we proved to publishers and developers that we could generate substantial sales with their products. We’ve even proved that new games, DRM-free, will generate substantial revenue.

We released The Witcher 2 without any DRM, but with tons of goodies, full customer support, a fair price policy worldwide and a lot more. We sold over 35,000 units so far. All the other smaller platforms combined (Direct2Drive, Gamersgate, Impulse–everyone but Steam) sold under 10,000 units.

Keep in mind that the reach of those platforms combined is a lot bigger than GOG.com’s, but we’ve managed nearly four times the sales. We were also the only DRM-free distribution channel from launch. I don’t think that’s coincidence. I think we now know as a fact that yes, our model can be successful with any title, whether old or new.

PCG: What can GOG offer smaller publishers that outlets like Steam and GamersGate cannot?

Rambourg: We are not a simple storefront signing and releasing titles as fast as we can without any special care. Every game that we release on GOG.com, we take the time to package it up and celebrate the release. We are not only here to sell games in bulk; we’re trying to cultivate a passion for gaming and the great titles you can find on GOG.com.

Our approach is reasonable and sustainable. As gamers do not have endlessly extensive wallets and as days are still made of 24 hours, we want to give proper time to gamers to discover and enjoy all the products we release. We want every release on GOG to be a big event. This is why we currently have two releases per week, while others platforms have a lot more – which makes it easy to completely miss the release of a game.

To develop this interest in ALL our products, we also bundle every title with a vast selection of free goodies (wallpapers, soundtracks, manuals, avatars and a lot more), and also organize regular interviews with the developers. Also, we provide customer support for all titles, rather than frustrating users and telling them to contact the publisher or the devs for that.

Last but not least, what we can offer to smaller publishers is simply an audience of happy and passionate users. Many publishers (including top players) had the occasion to tell us a couple of times that they heard very positive feedback from gamers after their titles got released on GOG.

We do our best to bring extra value to consumers and reassure them that yes, buying PC titles can still make a lot of sense these days. It is all down to what you offer and how you treat gamers. We want them to love gaming and help us spread the message that there is a digital distribution platform that works for them.

PCG: Having even a semi-neutral race is a big deal for World of Warcraft. Does that indicate any change of direction for PvP in the game?
John Lagrave: We had meetings prior to the launch of Cataclysm, talking about what we wanted to do with the next expansion. We started kicking around a lot of ideas… In lots of those meetings, [we asked ourselves,] “What’s interesting about the panda? What do we want to try and do with that?” The idea of having a neutral race has been floated around [the development team] for quite awhile. We thought about the idea for many expansions. We talked about, “Well do we want to add a neutral race? Do we ever want you to choose [a side]? Do we want to leave the race neutral forever? What does it mean to leave them neutral?”

We went back from having Pandaren characters stay neutral. Let’s go back to that notion of faction warfare. We do a lot of the “evil, great big nasty villain” thing, but Mists of Pandaren really returns back to what classic World of Warcraft was. It was all about “You’re alliance or you’re Horde and I can’t stand you, I want to kill you.” There was all the raiding and stuff to do in there as well, but PvP and world PvP was awesome. You were in Hillsbrad and suddenly the whole place lit up. You were like, “It’s on. Its all on.” Everybody is calling everyone in; people are flying in. It was great fun.

PCG: During his presentation at BlizzCon, Chris Metzen said that in Mists of Pandaria, “The enemy is war itself.” That seems to indicate that the expansion will be about more calm or peaceful activities.
JL: It is really about Horde vs. Alliance. I think the calm before the storm is that you start off going through the starting area and then Pandaria itself. You’re going to kill things and find out about the rest of the world and find out how it works. I think that’s the calm: the leveling experience and the combat you’re going to do before you get to the challenges of the rest of the game. Pandaria is pretty tranquil and peaceful. The vibe is pretty cool in that respect. Then once you are done with that leveling experience, it becomes all about that ganking.

Not exactly the colors I had in mind when kicking ass

PCG: In the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, WoW went towards Wintergrasp style PvP because of how world PvP disrupted the early leveling process. Are you going back to world PvP because the benefit is worth the cost?
JL: I think we overestimated the damage. It certainly is disruptive. I remember my Rogue was in Undercity and I was doing something in the royal quarter. The Alliance rolled in and were killing everyone and I was like, “Oh man. I just want to drop off my quest. I’ll stealth out and … Oh, now I’m dead.”

So it is disruptive, there is no two ways about it. That said, it was also awesome. That is a very memorable experience for me. I don’t remember much of leveling in Arathi Highlands as much as I remember the event of being ganked in the royal quarter.

It will be disruptive to some, but not to everybody. I think we can live with that.

PCG: Do you think the new outdoor monsters will promote a lot of PvP?
JL: Absolutely. One of the focuses is to get more folks out into the world itself. Whatever we decided to put out there, monsters or events, that will drive folks out of the safety of the city. People tend to hole up and wait for the queue to pop. It makes sense because that’s the way the game works right now. It’s awesome when you’re a low level guy and get to see some dude in Tier 12 rolling through and you’re like, “Holy crap. What is that? That is the most badass thing ever.” That’s a great thrill. I hope we do a lot more of that.

Other pandas laughed, but deep down he just had to dance

PCG: Pandarens can play as Horde or Alliance. Is there anything in the gameplay or lore that address the fact that Pandaren are killing their own kind in PvP?
JL: One of the questions people ask about the Pandaren is, “What about in PvP and battlegrounds?”. What you really find out about PvP is that people really look at the tags and not many look at the silhouettes. They’re not asking, “Is that a whatever and should I attack it?”. In some cases, the silhouettes really are distinguishable like male taurens are easy to see, but really, in the thick of things, you are only looking at tags and the red names. We don’t think it will be too confusing.

You're barking up the wrong tree...

PCG: So pet battles are a fun twist on dueling PvP. How much time do you expect players to put into pet duels? Is this something a player could spend all their time on, or just toy with between raids?
JL: I think the idea is more between raids, downtime, and waiting for raids to start. Maybe waiting for the group to get back after a wipe. Hopping on for fifteen minutes and doing some pet battles. It is much more a side thing than it is an entire focus.

Now, there will be people that absolutely focus on getting all their pets and getting all their pets leveled up. We have a lot of pets in the game, over 100. If people enjoy it and want to spend the time on it then great! It’s seen as another interesting activity for you to do. You as a player don’t get specific benefits for leveling your pets: you don’t gain more power. Your pet has a higher level but it doesn’t matter, as a player. It won’t affect you in PvP or raids. Just something awesome to do.

Playing Skyrim made me realise just how huge, fresh and exciting it really is. I asked game director Todd Howard how far it’s come from Oblivion, and what some of his favourite discoveries have been.

PC Gamer: Is Skyrim as big a leap forward for the series as Oblivion was?

Todd Howard: Hard to say… I have a hard time looking at it that way. I think it’s close. I don’t know that I would say it’s as large a leap, just because the technology gap between Morrowind and Oblivion was greater.

PC Gamer: But do you feel on the mechanics side it’s changed more?

Todd Howard: I’d say about the same. The number of gameplay changes and things like that are probably on the same level.

PC Gamer: We’ve heard about the Radiant Story system ensuring a kidnap victim is someone you’ve already met. Can you give any other examples of stuff you’ve seen it do, maybe stuff that surprised you?

Todd Howard: Let’s see… something that was good lately – but this was a bug – lately we realised that chickens were reporting crimes. I found that very funny. That was just last week: “Why are we getting caught?” “Oh, the chickens are reporting the crimes!”

PC Gamer: [Laughs] In terms of intentional Radiant Story stuff, though…

Todd Howard: Intentional things that are interesting… You can get married in the game, and I had decided to marry this one woman who was my friend. And I forgot that I had done this Radiant quest for this other guy, who it turns out had liked her.

When you get married, you can decide where you live. If you own a house, your spouse can move in with you, or you can move in with them. I had owned a house in the city of Whiterun, so I told her “OK we should live there.” I went there, and she hadn’t arrived yet, so I decided to wait. I slept.

And then she showed up. I turned around and as she was standing there, I saw another door open to another bedroom and the other guy walked out!

I had to call over the designer and say: “This guy! I forgot I did that thing!” and he said “Oh yeah, he’s going to visit her every day.”

If you make him like her, he then visits her every day, and doesn’t care if she’s married.

PC Gamer: There’s no concept of fidelity.

Todd Howard: It’s my wedding night, guy walks out of the bedroom!

I’m trying to think on my feet right now because these are just things from last week. If you ask me next week, I’m sure there’ll be something new. The marriage one is not a bug, it’s a thing – the chicken one is unintentional, a bug.

PC Gamer: When I played, I found a pair of gloves that gave me +15 damage to unarmed attacks, and it totally changed the way I played. Do you have any favourite items like that?

Todd Howard: One of my favourites is a shout that turns things to ice. On the surface, you shout and the wind turns the guy to ice, and what’s neat here is it acts as a paralysation for a period of time. So it visually looks neat because he falls over encased in ice. And during the time that he’s in the ice, he’s taking a little bit of cold damage – not enough to kill him.

When the ice is done, it kind of shatters and that hurts him a lot. So you can use the shout and incapacitate people, and then move on and hope that when it shatters, it kills them. If you hit the ice then it will shatter and hurt them a lot.

So even amongst this basic shout, there’s some gameplay: “OK, I’ve incapacitated these enemies, do I want to shatter the ice? Will that kill them? Or they’re tough enough, I’d rather just leave them encased in the ice for as long as possible and deal with something else or move on.”

PC Gamer: That’s cool – Paralyse was always my favourite thing in Oblivion.

Todd Howard: Yeah, we still have that as well.

PC Gamer: When you’re not doing the main quest, how common is it for you to run into a dragon?

Todd Howard: You have to do a little bit of the main quest – just the initial stuff – for the dragons to really start appearing, because it sits in with the story. After that point, the more of the main quest you do, the more dragons you’ll run into. But it’s hard to quantify it. They appear every once in a while. Not at a rate that is annoying… it still feels special. It’s hard to know how people will play the game and it’s a little bit random.

Valve are constantly surprising. One month they’re making one of their most popular games, Team Fortress 2, free to play, and the next they’re running a $1 million tournament for the upcoming Dota 2.

That makes any chance to speak to company co-founder Gabe Newell a pleasure, because you never know what you’re going to get. I sat down with him during the Dota 2 tournament to talk about his obsession with his company’s new game, his thoughts on EA’s Steam-rival Origin, and what motivates him to come into work each day.

PC Gamer: You’ve said in the past that Valve’s model is to experiment at every point. Is that still what’s going on at Valve with Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive?

Gabe Newell: Absolutely. For example, we’re here at Gamescom and this is the first time we’ve brought our own tournament, and in order to do that we’ve built a lot of client-side and server-side technology that allows us to host this.

Depending upon how it goes today, there are probably some changes we’ll make, some improvements we’ll make. Then it’ll move into some of our other games to make sure we’ve thought through the issues.

You know, if something works in an action RTS, how does it work in a first-person game? And as that evolves, it’ll go into Steamworks so it’s available for all our partners to use as well. So we see ourselves always thinking about what the opportunities are to do a better job for our customers and our partners.

PC Gamer: With The International, the million-dollar Dota 2 tournament, was it your goal to cement it in people’s minds as a competitive e-sport?

Gabe Newell: We think that we will really benefit as games developers from running this tournament. We already have. There’s a very strong group of testers that IceFrog has been using throughout the development of Dota. We’ve been working with them on Dota 2 to address their issues and incorporate their feedback into the game, so we’ve already been through four or five different versions of the user interface. It’s evolved. You’d try something, they’d react and then we’d go back to the drawing board.

For The International, it made a lot of sense at the point in time, where we were in development, to get a bunch of people who play at this level and make sure that we address all their concerns. That’s going to get fed back – the stuff that we’re learning today is going to impact builds that we do next week. It’s just part of that process of iterating through development.

For the next step, we’ve opened up signups for our beta. We’ll go through that and have an invitation beta, and then we’ll have an open beta, and then the game will go out and we’ll continue to iterate from there on out.
It’s something that Valve have always done with our games and, if you look at IceFrog’s history, it’s the same thing. There are all these differences between Defense of the Ancients 647 and 631 where he’s continued to evolve. This, for us, is the right step. It has already been a very valuable experience for the entire development team to put this tournament on.

PC Gamer: Do you think of Defense of the Ancients is a genre, considering how many games use it as a template? That includes League of Legends, Blizzard’s upcoming DotA. What’s your opinion on that?

Gabe Newell: I think that the action RTS genre is a great genre, so we’re excited – we’re fans of it. We got into this because a bunch of people at Valve were huge fans of what IceFrog had done, and it was great to find out that he was interested in doing the sequel that removed some of the constraints he’d been living with.

But you know, we’re fans of the genre – we love to play these games ourselves, so we think it’s great that there’s more attention being paid and a lot of games are going to get developed.

PC Gamer: So you don’t mind that you’ll be competing alongside the already established League of Legends?

Gabe Newell: We’ve been around for a long time and there’s always this assumption that videogames are a zero sum game; that if Quake does really well, Duke Nukem will suffer, and that’s never the case. Gamers who play a good game want to play more games, not fewer games. So you’re never hurt by the success of another games developer – you almost always benefit.

You know, when Zynga go out and gets 100 million people playing one of their games in two months, I think every game developer is benefiting. Not everyone should throw in the towel and say: “We’ve been defeated.”

PC Gamer: Does the same apply to digital distribution platforms? Does the existence of EA’s Origin mean you’re going to make more money?

Gabe Newell: I think right now there’s always this temptation to assume that the way things are today is the way things are going to be, and having been through this long enough in the games industry, I think I and everyone at Valve know that you’re only as successful as what you’ve done lately. So the idea that Steam is somehow the answer to digital distribution ignores the fact that every two or three years, something is going to change dramatically.

It’s like, along comes the Wii and that overthrows a bunch of ideas; along comes social gaming and that throws over a bunch of ideas. If you stand still and you’re not doing the things that you need to do to be valuable in the future, you’re going to be left behind really rapidly.

Chris Delay: It certainly was all those things, but we struggled to find a really solid “core game” within the tech that we’d developed. We did what no game designer should do – we had more fun making the game tech than players would ever have playing it. There has to be some action at the core of a game, that is typically repeated thousands of times, that is simply fun and rewarding to do again and again. Everything else is theme and setting, which are also crucial, but they have to be built on the foundations of a core game. We worked on Subversion for so long that we struggled to remember what the game was supposed to be about. Eventually we realised there simply wasn’t a core game, and no amount of technology or polish would solve that.

PC Gamer: Will Introversion eventually return to try and finish Subversion, or is it more likely that it’ll become an important lesson, but never materialise as a full release?

Chris Delay: The way we think about it, Subversion has become fertile ground for our future projects. We’ve had several ideas that are based on Subversion already, Prison Architect is just one of them. Certainly the game we’ve talked about in our blog will never be released – if we do go back to Subversion we will be making some fundamental changes. We wouldn’t go back to it now unless we felt we could reach the core game very quickly indeed – we are done with years of open ended tech development.

PC Gamer: What lessons have you learned from your work on Subversion that you’ll carry through to work on Prison Architect and future projects?

Chris Delay: Probably the biggest lesson is to get to the core game as quickly as possible, whatever the cost. With Subversion we had this idea that if we just developed an incredible simulation of a procedurally generated world, that a game would emerge from it. We thought it would be enough to have a massively interactive world – just think of the possibilities! So we just kept throwing more tech at the problem, developing newer and more complex simulations, hoping an emergent game would be waiting for us at the end. We should have seen the danger signs with that earlier I think.

PC Gamer: In the post announcing the shift from Subversion to Prison Architect, you mentioned that you “could see how much of the tech that we’d designed for Subversion was directly applicable.” Can you talk about any themes or technology that will be making the jump from Subversion into Prison Architect?

Chris Delay: There was an unfinished mission in Subversion where you had to bust a team member out from a maximum security prison. This mission had loads of specialist code for simulating the inner workings of prisons, and the behaviours of guards and prisoners. It was far too ambitious for its own good, much like most of Subversion. The core idea had been to simulate a prison in a lot of detail, then just let the player figure out how to bust his teammate out by exploiting whatever loopholes in the security setup he could find. It’s a nice idea in principle, but in reality that kind of unbounded thinking is what ended Subversion. After all the work required to do a prison properly, most players would probably just blow a hole in the wall with explosives and headshot the guards anyway.

However we did have a map editor for Subversion, and I’d been working on producing a plausible prison layout for the mission. And I’d found that laying out that map was actually quite a lot of fun. I spent a lot longer tinkering with my prison layout than playing the mission.

Subversion was about robbing banks in procedurally generated cities.

PC Gamer: You mentioned in your announcement that the idea for Prison Architect sprung almost fully formed into your brain. Where did that idea come from?

Chris Delay: I was actually on holiday in San Francisco with my wife, and I’d been thinking quite a lot about Subversion and what was going wrong with it. I was toying with various radical rethinks of the core idea, trying to find something that was interesting. Three things then happened : we took a tour around Alcatraz, which was absolutely amazing because it’s such an atmospheric place to visit. I then made a connection to the prison mission in Subversion, but imagined turning the whole thing on its head – let the player build the prison and setup the security. In other words, I wanted to build Alcatraz, not escape from it. The core of the game was set down right there, before I even got off the boat and back onto land! Then the third thing is that I was thinking quite a lot about this new idea in the taxi home from the airport, and the taxi driver turned out to be an ex-prison guard in one of Her Majesty’s Prisons in the UK. So I spent about two hours taking notes from this guy about all the things that had happened to him, and all the things he’d seen over the years. And I could just see gameplay in virtually everything he said about how jails worked.

PC Gamer: How did everyone react when you returned from holiday with a whole new game idea?

Chris Delay: My wife spent quite a while trying to talk me out of it actually. I was telling her that I was thinking about dropping Subversion altogether, and switching onto a new idea that I’d had literally that morning. It had to be done though, to be honest I’d been looking for a way out of Subversion for a few months before the idea for Prison Architect came forward. I’d been trying to find ways to cut it down to the bare essentials, or release it somehow in a very early state, but basically they were all attempts to get out of having to finish it, because I couldn’t really see how to.

I actually planned how to present the news to the other guys at Introversion quite carefully, because I knew it could go down very badly indeed. They’d been waiting for me to “get it together” with Subversion for years as well. In the end I actually gave a powerpoint presentation on the new idea, and the need for us to change to it! I had my core messages very clearly thought out, because I really did think this could be a company ending moment if I delivered it wrongly! In the end it wasn’t that tough to sell the idea to them, because I think they could see the potential in the new idea straight away as well, and they also shared my worries about Subversion going off the rails forever. So from that first meeting we agreed to put subversion on hold and do a six week “first playable” of Prison Architect, and by the end of that period we already had more of a game than Subversion had ever been.

PC Gamer: You mentioned scribbling the design brief onto a notepad on the flight home, and how that reminded you of working on Uplink. And Prison Architect will be the first game you’ve submitted to the IGF since Darwinia. Does the new project feel like a symbolic return to Introversion’s roots? A new beginning?

Chris Delay: Certainly the hand written notepad feels like a return to Introversion’s roots – its exactly how Uplink started its life, in a notebook I carried around at university. It’s difficult to say though, Introversion is definitely a different company now than it was then, not least because we are all different people now. But there’s something very satisfying about having a core game documented in ten hand written pages or so, that remain the principle guide to the game even now.

Introversion spent years developing Subversion's architecture-generating systems.

PC Gamer: Does spending six years on one project rob it of some of its freshness? Is it more exciting to be working on something new for the first time in a while?

Chris Delay: Although Subversion has been in development for that long, you have to remember that we’ve shipped Defcon, Multiwinia and Darwinia+ in that time, as well as a couple of unreleased projects like Chronometer! So Subversion has always been a background project, until about 2 years ago I think. Subversion was always the exciting new project, and never really got boring because we were always developing such cool stuff, and we were picking up great feedback from the press and our fans about what we were doing. It was only once we started work on it fulltime, and we never seemed to be able to reach a point where you could play a mission, that we realised we had some problems.

PC Gamer: You guys have been through a lot. How do you think Introversion has changed in over the years?

Chris Delay: Yeah we have been through a lot, and it feels like we’ve been doing this for a long time now. Uplink feels like a different era altogether, closer to University for me than Introversion. Each person at Introversion sees our history slightly differently. I think we had our most incredible years when we were doing Darwinia and then Defcon straight after – both games we are hugely proud of. We also took the IGF prize around the same time in 2006, and did the Steam deal, which continues to be our best business partnership to this day. I mean, we just love Valve to bits! How often does one company make so many of your favourite games AND provide you with the best storefront for your own work? Once Defcon was done we started expanding, and I feel like we fell off the boil quite seriously, pursuing a console version of Darwinia which shipped in 2010, way later than planned. Multiwinia was part of that project (being the multiplayer component to Darwinia that Microsoft required for their console), and that also fell a little flat, I think it’s our weakest game, although I’m still very happy with it, and disappointed more people didn’t play it in the end. During this time we scaled up to ten fulltime staff in a London office and a handful of freelancers, so it was getting pretty big for a while.

But now all that is over, we are back to the original three founders and some highly talented freelancers, all working out of our bedrooms once again (Myself and Mark both work in bedrooms now, that isn’t a lie) and it feels like the old Introversion again. Our core mission now is to make the next original game, and that was our intention when we started out in 2001, and I think that’s a very healthy mission for an indie game developer. For a while during 2008 and 2009 I don’t think you could say that was our core mission, so it feels good to be back.

Nobody likes a mindless grind in their MMOs, following in the footsteps of the countless players who have already optimized all the content. One upcoming MMO hoping to shatter the mold is Core Blaze, the Unreal 3-powered hack-’n'-slash from Gamania. We asked Jacky Chu, chief operating officer at developer RedGate Studios, how Core Blaze will differentiate itself from the pack. Check out his responses, translated into English.

PC Gamer: What sets Core Blaze apart from other action-MMOs?
Jacky Chu: A good action game should allow the player to perform combos, dodge, and block enemy attacks. While Core Blaze also has these elements, it’s much more than a mindless adrenaline rush. It’s also very cerebral, in the sense that players must figure out ways to work with each other to carry out a plan. The key element in this type of game is not only character design, but also the enemy AI. Each boss monster can be seen as a puzzle that can be solved in multiple ways. We didn’t design the game to rely purely on button-mashing or twitch mechanics (though we believe this should be viable on some levels). If you can make use of elements in the environment and your items, you’ll receive better rewards.

PCG: How much depth will there be to character customization? Talent trees, gear, etc.
JC: We can’t yet tell you how many skill trees or weapon types there will be in the game, but we can tell you that the players decide how they want to advance their character because there are no pre-determined paths for character advancement. Other than character stats, we came up with many statistics that are specific to action games, such as the length of combo attacks, attack range, movement speed, rolling distance, double jumps, or weapon-specific attacks.

Sup dude. Just wanted to let you know that my bow is 20 times cooler than your dinky cane.

PCG: What are the mechanics behind each of the four weapon styles?
JC: Each style must be played at a different rhythm. For example, a player using the dual blade style may mash the combo button as soon as he can, and dodge whenever the enemies attack. But a great sword user will have to play very differently to be effective. Due to the weight of the weapon, a great sword user can’t dodge freely while he’s attacking; he’ll have to find the optimal moment to strike instead of mashing buttons blindly. Conversely, when facing larger enemies, a dual blade user, while fast, can’t do as much damage compared to the great sword, which has more power and longer range. Also, for all of the weapon styles, we’ve designed at least one special mode: the shield and sword user can perform crippling shield attacks, dual blade players can enter a berserk mode, great swords can store up power to perform one devastating attack, and longbow users can utilize a special aim mode.

PCG: How will Core Blaze’s itemization work?
JC: All of the weapons and equipment in Core Blaze are crafted by the players and not dropped by monsters. This means that players can decide for themselves what equipment they want to make. All items have different properties, and players will be able to level up a weapon in specific ways, such as increasing damage or enhancing a stat. For players who don’t want to spend time crafting, they’ll be able to purchase basic weapons from the in-game store. However, they’ll be somewhat weaker than crafted weapons.

In Core Blaze, spiky armor isn't a fashion statement—it's the law.

PCG: Is four people the party limit? What happens if two people in a group want to use the same weapon style?
JC: Core Blaze is designed to encourage players to make use of all game mechanics to come up with the best experience that’s specific for them. Except for in rare cases, players can solve any stage however they see fit. The key to doing well in the game is not only the quality of the equipment or class choice, but also the players’ skill and teamwork. Therefore, there are no optimal builds, just builds that are suitable for you and your party.

PCG: Will players be casting spells, or are the attacks purely weapon-based?
JC: Other than weapons, characters in Core Blaze can also perform Oriental magic, or “Tao.” They involve items, traps, and magical weapons. Players will have to perform the Tao by using magical items or runes, such as Qi Men Dun Jia (Chinese metaphysical arts), fengshui, and chi.

PCG: Will there be any platforming-type segments to the levels? What kinds of items, like the hookshot, can the player use to access new areas?
JC: In Core Blaze, the stages are designed like a platformer. The players will have to use tools (such as a hookshot), jump, or climb in order to proceed. We want the players to look like an action hero. After getting past an obstacle, the player may find a hidden location with a key NPC or a treasure chest. What we want to do is design levels so that when a player meets a new obstacle, they’ll be able to find a solution intuitively. And the most important thing is that the players will be able to choose freely among multiple solutions.

PCG: What’s usually in these hidden areas, besides new bosses? Will they be accessible to anyone, provided they know how to reach them?
JC: Exploration is an important element in Core Blaze. Exploration can open up many possibilities in the game, such as a hidden quest, hidden NPC (maybe a hidden trainer that can grant players new abilities), a secret monster, or a secret group of mobs. And during the exploration process, the game will provide the players with many hints. For example, you may find a hidden path, or obtain information on a secret location from an NPC in town. The key elements in the exploration process are hints and information sharing, with a bit of random chance thrown in (for instance, some locations may not be accessible unless it’s raining). Most importantly, the world should be fun to explore.

Stabbing a guy in his peg-leg is just plain disrespectful.

PCG: What can we expect from boss fights? For instance, Liang Qu can have parts of his body, like his teeth, destroyed for bonus damage. Will all boss fights have these kinds of unique mechanics?
JC: The destruction of body parts will be presented in a very clear manner, with each destructible body part having a unique look. With one swing of the blade, a player might hack off a huge limb of a monster, and that monster will react accordingly (like doubling over in pain). This kind of gameplay mechanic can be very satisfying and we’re incredibly happy with it so far. We want to ensure that players have to do more than just hacking at the monster to destroy key body parts. In some cases, players must wait for the best moment to strike. Or in other cases, players will have to use special items or objects. The key is that every boss monster can be dealt with in a variety of ways. Our AI design forces players to stay aware of subtle cues and changes to the monster’s body and behavior. Even if its outside appearance seems the same, its behavior can still change drastically. How players deal with and adapt to these changes when killing a monster affects their bonus.

PCG: Thanks so much for your time! Anything else you’d like to add?
JC: Core Blaze has a very high degree of freedom. We want the players to decide on their own how to solve the problems they encounter and create entirely unique gameplay experiences. The last thing we want is a fixed and restricted path for all players.

So it’s fitting that their next game is explicitly called Wargame: European Escalation, and I got in touch with Eugen CEO Alexis Le Dressay to learn just how this would differ from RUSE. It turns out that Wargame will be very different, throwing out Ruse’s deception mechanics as well as a lot of RTS conventions. The result could be an even more interesting real-time wargame set in the late Cold War.

PCG: First, I absolutely loved RUSE and thought it was one of the best games of 2010. Unlike RUSE, however, Wargame is not being developed for consoles. How did console development affect your design for RUSE? How does Wargame benefit from the focus on PC?

Eugen Systems CEO Alexis Le Dressay: I’m very happy and very proud that you liked RUSE! The main difference between PC and the rest of the consoles is that PC is an open platform. Thanks to this, we can provide more online features and services. We can also be much more reactive post launch of the game and provide patches and upgrades for the community.

Now, RUSE was published by Ubisoft, but this time you are working with Focus Home Interactive? Why the shift?

AD: Wargame is a real-time strategy game for gamers and hardcore gamers. This kind of game fits better with a medium-sized publisher.

How does the Cold War setting change gameplay from what we saw in RUSE? The technologies are completely different, but does that impact tactics?

AD: The difference is pretty big. Wargame’s period covers the years from 1975 to 1985. This period features helicopters, auto-cannon, ATGM (anti-tank guided missiles), electronic optical systems and a lot more new equipment. This means that the players will have to master new tactics.

For example, an ATGM can be wire guided. This means that the unit who fires it has to stand still to keep control of the missile and to have some chances to hit the target… But an ATGM can also be laser guided. In this case, the target tracking is manual but the tracking and control of the missile is automatic. This allows the unit to fire-and-forget!

Did deceptions work as well as you hoped in Ruse? How will ruses / deceptions work in Wargame, and are there any new ones you can tell us about?

AD: I think the deceptions worked well in RUSE. But, we should have done more of them and made them more deeply imbricated in the gameplay.

Even though Wargame doesn’t feature any deception tools, it has some a very strong information and spotting mechanics. The use of recon units is as vital as it was the case in RUSE. We have some similitude in the way the player will have to think of the where is the enemy hiding, what is his main plan…

One thing I loved about RUSE is that it had so many different factions, and they all played so differently. Hardly anyone ever includes the French and Italians in WWII game, for example, but in RUSE they were two really interesting armies. What kind of differences are you emphasizing between NATO and Warsaw Pact armies? How different can Warsaw Pact armies really be from one another, since they were so heavily controlled by the Soviets?

AD: I’m very glad you appreciate the idea of having a great choice of units and factions! With Wargame, we have gone much farther in this direction. We feature more than 350 different units in the game! Albeit there are only two factions, there are several countries involved: USA, France, West-Germany, East-Germany, UK, Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

The main difference lies in the fact that the composition of the army is directly made by the players. There is no more pre-created army, which means no more factions. From theses 150 units available (there is approximately the same number of equipment around 150 units for each side) you have to pick up the ones you want to play with. This is what we call the “deck”. It has a limitation of units and the players have to unlock the different units.

We had a long chat with CEO Hilmar Petursson about the changes, and where they leave CCP. He explains why CCP is narrowing its focus, and says that it was “hubris” that led CCP astray.

PCG: I know a lot of people are curious about where this leaves World of Darkness. You’re a little vague in the press release. What’s the plan for that project moving forward?

Hilmar Petursson: We as a company were trying to achieve many impossible things at the same time. We were fighting on many fronts, and that has now resulted in us not really being able to get through [all] that. We need to focus more. So now CCP becomes much more focused on the more classical aspects of EVE Online, and getting Dust out there, and working the connection between those two games so that they add value to one another.

WoD development will definitely slow down during that process. We have a team in place which will continue month after month on that project, but it’s still becoming less of a priority for CCP overall. And I am not sure, really, how much of a delay for WoD it really is, because the way we were going about this was also a very long road of getting WoD out to market. We were developing a common platform and re-integrating it into EVE and WoD at the same time. It was just a very ambitious plan.

So it’s difficult to answer at this moment. The team is definitely going through scoping WoD and seeing what makes sense to make as a plan for WoD.

Like a lot of PC gamers, when I think of EVE Online, I don’t necessarily think of it as a fictional universe so much as a community of players. Superficially, it would seem that CCP is an MMO company, and many of your strengths would have pointed to making a game like WoD rather than moving into a console shooter like Dust. Let’s say you came to this crossroads a year and a half ago, and you had to choose which of these projects to focus on. Would you still choose Dust?

HP: That’s a very hypothetical question. I’m not sure I have a good answer to that.

Dust has a lot of MMO components. It has a lot of persistence and character progression, and elements like that which are born out of EVE. Dust is much closer to EVE Online than we ever thought we would be able to do. So you could say that Dust actually adds tremendous value to EVE Online in terms of the connection between the two games.

So we look at it as there is one EVE universe that has many approaches to it.

What kind of involvement do you think EVE players are going to have with Dust? Certainly many of the EVE players I know have practically married to the game. DO you see many of them crossing over and becoming a part of the Dust community as well, or do you see them as being two separate communities that will exist in the same universe?

HP: I think initially, it will be separate communities just because the audiences are different. But we have also seen a lot of interest from EVE players, current or previous players, on trying out Dust. But after the release of Dust the game will continue to become closer and closer. So I think over time, the communities will become closer and closer. But it is also to be said …[that] even the EVE community itself is many different things.

Have you given serious thought to an eventual Dust PC release?

HP: We can’t really comment on that at this time. Currently we’re just super-focused on making an awesome PS3 experience. That’s really our priority right now. Part of our mission now is to just focus on fewer things and doing them well.

I caught up with him to ask about both his two new companies – Overhaul Games and IdeaSpark – and why now is the time to bring MDK2′s bizarre mix of comedy and shooting back to the world.

So, the obvious starter question – why do an MDK2 remake? Most of the time, these sorts of project are geared around bringing classic games back from the dead. With MDK2 though, the original is already easily available for a couple of quid on both GOG and Steam.

We had a long look at MDK2 and we felt it was a great game that a lot of people never played. It was our thought that a HD version of MDK2 would be a great reason for people to take another look at this fun game. As well, my business partner in Beamdog and Overhaul Games, Cameron Tofer, just happened to be the lead programmer on MDK2, giving us a clear understanding of the challenges we would face. Cam was pretty much Captain MDK2 during the original development and he took the same role this time.

Kurt's sniper rifle is his best weapon, but don't expect the enemies to just stand back while you line up shots.

Is MDK2 HD a complete remake, or an upgraded version of the original engine/assets?

We started with a rough plan for just doing a technology overhaul on the game, but it quickly grew out of control and we a couple artist from the original team to our effort. Russ Rice and Sean Smailes came in and re-worked almost every art asset in the game. The environments have been re-textured, with the addition of normal maps and specular maps. All the particle effects in the game were rebuilt. The major characters, monsters and weapons were rebuilt from scratch by Sean, and he did a really amazing job – I just love the detail on Hans (the first level boss monster). We’ve also modified some of the original level design, but for the most part we left what worked well alone.

Do you have any plans to do a similar remake for the original MDK?

We had a few discussions around an overhaul on MDK, but after some digging into it, the original code and assets could not be found, and so we would essentially be creating a new game. We’re far from done with overhauling games, but it won’t be the original MDK.

Is it difficult, going back to something you worked on so many years and games later?

It’s a great deal of fun and nostalgia, yet frustrating at the same time. I love the fact we could bring such a sharp art look to the game, with bloom, normal/specular mapping, skinned characters and a ton of advanced shaders to enhance an already fun title. The downside is trying to walk a fine line between re-doing the entire game and staying remotely within our budget (which we blew past quite a while ago).

MDK2, then and now. (Click the image to see in higher resolution)

Given complete freedom and some kind of time machine powered by zinc lemon batteries, what’s the one thing you really wish you could change about the original game’s design in hindsight?

The design really starts to take off in the middle levels, with some frustrating bits early on that you have to power through. I think a number of people never got through the early, tough bits and missed some great fun in the later levels. So, I wish we would have spent more time on the early levels. I also would have rebalanced the doctor’s content. The Doc is a lot of fun when you are trying out combinations and putting gizmos together, and I really wish we would have developed that angle a lot further.

Older games typically show their age as much, if not more, through their mechanics as their graphics. Were there any particularly big changes you had to make to get MDK2 playable for modern audiences who won’t be looking at it through a nostalgia filter?

The big changes we made are mostly around the difficulty in the game. MDK2 was a damn hard game. When you picked the easy difficulty previously, the enemies had less health, but the puzzles were just as hard. We went through and re-worked the difficulty in those sections for the various skill settings. We’ve tweaked the Easy setting a great deal. We’ve touched the Normal setting a bit, but Hard and Jinkies! are just as they were. Anyone who can complete this game on Jinkies! difficulty is a pretty good gamer. We also reworked the control scheme so that it made more sense to the modern gamer.

MDK2′s levels are split between three characters – sneaky sniper Kurt, combat dog Max and the invention-loving Doctor Fluke Hawkins. Which of their playstyles do you enjoy the most?

I’m 100% Max. Four Gatguns take me to my happy place. Max is all about bulldozing the opposition and that appeals to me on every level. As we progressed through development I also came to better appreciate the jetpack sections of the game. It takes a little practice, but once you get the hang of the jetpack, those sections are very satisfying when you complete them.

Next Page: Beamdog, PC vs Wii and the first MDK2 HD trailer

Andrew Kuhar: When making the posters, I knew that Bosses like C’Thun and Ragnaros are so visually recog­nizable that I didn’t want to stray too far from what most players probably remember about them. I remember seeing server-first Ragnaros-kill anno­uncements all the time, with guilds posing for a picture around the fallen Hand of Sulfuras.

At the same time, C’Thun’s giant eye was, and still is, absolutely terrifying. I had some conceptual fun in the C’Thun poster by making the text (comprised of various phrases he whispers to you as you descend underground) look like a vision test. That sort of juxtaposition—a sentiment against an image—also allowed me some liberties to acknowledge both the old and new worlds in the other two posters.

In the case of Shadowfang Keep and Deadmines, the spotlight fell on Lord Godfrey and Vanessa VanCleef. Both are new characters, but are busy filling in the shoes of two old-world veterans: Archmage Arugal and Edwin VanCleef.

The SFK poster is an image of the keep’s silhouette at a distance. Godfrey’s words are quite true: he replaced the only human character that was left in the instance.

The in-game flashback of a young Vanessa seeing her father assassinated is very moving, and I decided to tie that into who she becomes later in life: a radical movement leader in the Deadmines dungeon. The poster is definitely the most abstract of the bunch. The only thing drawing the scene is Edwin’s blood: in a pool beneath him, smeared from the battle, across his sword, and on Vanessa’s hands. As a small homage and foreshadowing, I drew in the red bandanna worn by Defias members, which is now worn around Vanessa’s face.

If you’d like to see more of Kuhar’s art, you’re in luck. His portfolio/website is readily available at http://andrewkuhar.com, and you can read his various game design musings at his blog Digitalchemy. You can also follow him on Twitter here.

PC Gamer: The big new content in Patch 4.3 is the Deathwing fight. We’ve had a lot of dragon fights before in the past; what makes Deathwing different?

Tom Chilton: Deathwing’s the first fight we’ve ever done that spans multiple locations—any other bossfight that we’ve ever done has essentially been a one-room kind of fight. This fight is broken up into multiple stages; obviously we’ve done multi-phase fights before, where it’s like, oh, you fight Onyxia on the ground, then she gets up in the air, that kind of thing. But in this one, it’s actually more extensive than that. You fight Deathwing in multiple locations—for example, the fight with Deathwing begins at Wyrmrest Temple; that leads to Thrall using the Dragon Soul to damage Deathwing, at which point he attempts to escape. You catch up to him in a gunship and basically para-drop onto his back, then you fight on his back, peeling off armor plates and stuff like that. You eventually wrestle him to the ground near the Maelstrom, for the grand finale: taking on the corrupted version of Deathwing at the Maelstrom, and that’s the final big part of the encounter.

See how cool Alexstrasza looks? We imagine Deathwing will be 10x cooler (provided he's not actively killing us).

PCG: So are you using vehicle mechanics in that fight? Like when you’re on his back, do you have different abilities that you’re using, or are you still your character and using your own abilities?

TC: You’re just your character, freely running around on his back (your whole raid is), and you’re fighting stuff that’s acting as his corrupted bodily defenses, like corrupted tentacles that come out through his armor plates, or these different fire and lava beasts that seep through his plates, stuff like that. You’re having to try to peel his plates off.

PCG: When you’re on his back, is there still going to be the traditional tanking role; is someone trying to keep his attention, or is it all about the adds that are coming out of him?

TC: It’s mostly about the adds, but the adds include things that need to be tanked, stuff like that.

When Thrall looks this pissed, you know it's ON.

PCG: Is it because Deathwing is so powerful that you guys decided to make this a multi-part fight? I mean, Arthas is the most famous villain, but is Deathwing the most powerful one that we’ve faced so far?

TC: I would say so. Conceptually, he’s probably the most significant being that people have ever taken on. He’s absolutely massive; he’s certainly much bigger size- or scale-wise than any other boss we’ve ever done. His character model that we built for him is actually big enough for you to run around on his back and use it as a boss location [laughs].

PCG: And Thrall’s with you the whole time. That’s probably (lore-wise) why you’re able to take Deathwing out–without Thrall we wouldn’t stand a chance.

TC: Yeah, exactly. The three new dungeons, story-wise, lead up to the raid, and we’ve been talking recently about how that plays out. Essentially, you start off by convincing Nozdormu that the future of the world is going to be in terrible shape (there essentially is no future) if Deathwing and the Twilight’s Hammer win. So you start off by going into the future to demonstrate and experience what the world is going to be like, and it’s like this horrible, grim version of the future if the Twilight’s Hammer wins. At that point, Nozdormu agrees to send you back to the past, to the battle of the Well of Eternity, and that’s where you get the Demon Soul for Thrall. Then, the third instance is, you’re essentially doing an escort mission to lead Thrall with the Demon Soul to Wyrmrest Temple where the raid takes place.

The future looks awfully bleak if the Twilight's Hammer cult wins.

PCG: When you’re transitioning between these different locations, will Thrall create a portal and you’ll run through it, or are you actually going to have to move around the world to these different areas in between phases?

TC: Yeah, those three different segments are different instances, so for some you go to Caverns of Time, and for the escort mission for Thrall, that takes place at Wyrmrest Temple. They’re all different instances that you either queue for or walk through the portal, that kind of thing.

PCG: One of my favorite parts about the old dragon raid bosses was how you used to be able to take their heads to the city, your faction leader shouts about how awesome you are, and the head gets put on a pike for all to see. Are we going to get that same sort of thing with Deathwing?

TC: We are planning to do that kind of thing. We’re still in the process of deciding how that’s going to work.

PCG: Does Deathwing have any specific powers that use new fight mechanics? Or is it more about the location-changing that’s the new twist?

TC: Certainly Deathwing has a large number of new combat mechanics and all that kind of stuff that you’d see from any new raid boss. I would say each individual segment of that fight is reasonably traditional, in terms of the standard types of raid mechanics that we use. There isn’t any funky vehicle stuff or whatever.

PCG: What kind of cool down will the battle suit skill have?
Jon Peters: It’s unknown at this time, but it will be similar to other Elite skills.

PCG: Can friends join you in the battle suit?
JP: It’s designed for one player, but one person summons the battle suit, then anyone can interact with it to get into it and use it.

PCG: What kinds of skills does the battle suit open up?
JP: We haven’t finalized those skills yet, but you will be able to spin around, punch guys, etc. Cool stuff like that.

PCG: Will non-asura be able to join you in the suit?
JP: Yes, player characters of any race can use the battle suit, not just asura.

PCG: Is the suit golem-like in nature?
JP: While the suit is about golem-sized and shares some design elements, it definitely looks different than your standard unmanned golem.

PCG: Will the battle suit be used by enemy asura?
JP: Yes. Battle suits can be used by PCs, but enemy asura (such as the Inquest) would definitely have access to their own suits.

PCG: Any chance of the asura battle suit being usable in PvP?
JP: In World vs World vs World PvP, absolutely yes! In competitive PvP the battle suit will get banned from tournaments.

Stock cd player, AC, anti-theft and gets 32 mpg on highways.

PCG: Tell us about the Asura, who are they?
Jeff Grubb: The Asura first appeared in Eye of the North, which was the last of our Guild Wars product. They were a subterranean race that were driven to the surface by the Great Destroyer, who was one of the harbingers, the heralds of Primordus, one of our elder dragons. The big thing that happened between Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 is the awakening of the elder dragons, these very powerful, titanic elemental forces that are ravaging the world. Now the Asura were a refugee race. They were sent to the surface where they set up shop inside some old ruins, Rata Sum. Since then, it’s been nothing but getting better for them all the time. They have taken Rata Sum itself and carved out a huge cube of stone and magically levitated it so it is hovering above the surrounding areas. Rata Sum is now honeycombed with colleges, the schools, the laboratories, the support network, the arcane council, and in the depths, the golems. Servitor golems are still mining out and building new rooms for everything. They’ve been a very successful race.

The original Asura are diminutive, they have long ears and big eyes that fits with their underground nature. They’re the smartest kids on the block. Asura are magical but they approach their magic from an intellectual approach rather than a holistic one. They’re a race of mad wizards, highly competitive and very proud. They do not suffer fools gladly, and they really don’t hesitate before they throw you into the fools’ bucket.

'Does this helmet make my head look big?'

PCG: How have relations and social situations changed between Asura and the other races?
JG: I think the Asura have worked their way into the fabric of other races much more effectively than the other races have done so. The Humans and the Charr of course have been fighting for centuries, so when you see a Charr in Divinity’s Reach, it’s, “Oh my god, why is the Charr here?” The Sylvari are new, people still don’t know what to make of them. The Norn leave a swath of broken beer kegs—ha, no, a swath of adventure behind. But the Asura have moved in. There are Asura Gates in all of the major cities, so therefore, they are part and parcel of the components of the world. They’ve actually worked very well as far as working with other races. Which is a little bit scary because Asura tend to be a little manipulative as well.

RS: Well, I want to add a caveat to that, which is that they’re not doing that well with the Sylvari. They had terrible issues the first time they met a Sylvari, and they didn’t understand it was a sentient creature, and they did a whole lot of tests on it before they realized the talky mouth noises it was making were actually language and that it was intelligent. Then they had to go and make reparations to some extent, as much as an Asura ever would. And that has caused tension between the two races for the 25 years of the Sylvari’s existence. Because those two cities are very very close to one another, there has definitely been some squabbling. I wouldn’t say they have the same war as the Humans and the Charr, but they get along in sort of a testy way.

JG: I always put out the idea that the Asura have intelligence, but not necessarily wisdom. Whereas the Sylvari is the reverse: they have the wisdom, but they don’t have the knowledge of the world.

An ancient Asura past-time: Wack-a-golem

PCG: You also mentioned that Asura are kind of going to be an enemy in this regard with the meta-krewe Inquest.
JG: Well, you talk about being a krewe, the krewe being the basic unit of, you have a prop, you bring a bunch of Asura together for a krewe, and you disperse them—it’s like movie production. The Inquest, at its core, is a method by which you organize so everybody gets knowledge. Which is to say, the Inquest gets knowledge. And in order to do that, they’ve made some major changes to the way Asura function. You no longer are working on your project, you’re working on part of a project that we tell you to. You join us, you’re part of the group, you’ve got the eternal NDA, you don’t leave the Inquest, you belong to us, we will recruit you, we may recruit you even if you don’t want to be recruited.

Most Asuras will not experiment on sentients. That’s one of those things that’s just not a good thing. The Inquest don’t have that limitation. They are more willing to not just manipulate, but to harm others because they’ve made the judgment that they’re superior and therefore have the right to do what they will without worrying about you. If and when they screw up, they don’t hang around to deal with their messes. In Metrica province in one of the early areas, there’s an area that was an Inquest base. They were experimenting with things no Asura should mess with. And the area is a magical Chernobyl right now, and yes, your story takes you into that. They are essentially knowledge without wisdom.

PCG: Are they a group of outcasts?
RS: Oh goodness no! They’re very integrated and very powerful. When you have that many Asura working together toward a common goal, you really have a force to be reckoned with. The Asura as a people are ruled by an Arcane Council. In theory the Arcane Council is supposed to be the best and the brightest among us, but in reality it’s, some of the best and the brightest that really couldn’t get out of the politics and are stuck with it. The Inquest actively looks for those positions, they’re actively trying to get the race as a whole to listen to their ideas and to sort of work for their krewe. In an Inquest magical future, the Inquest are the Asura—that’s all there are.

JG: They see themselves as the future of the Asura, and the Nightmare Court are outcasts, and the Sons of Svanir are the rowdy guys that, if they don’t make trouble, will be tolerated. The Inquest are Lex Luthor in Metropolis. They have tangible political power.

RS: And it’s hard for any other Asura to really discount them. You can devalue their methods, you can disagree with their ethics, but wow, do they get results!

Looks like Half-Life 2's Dog got an upgrade.

PCG: What type of player would enjoy the Asura?
JG: There will be a lot of smart people going into the Asura, a lot of people who have personal drives for making their character the best. One thing—and this ties in with what Ree just said—the animations for the warriors are really cool. We didn’t expect this. Most of the Asura you’re going to encounter will be from the magical side. There are Asura warriors, there are Asura guardians, but most of the guys you encounter will be from the elementalist, necromancer magic user-type school and professions. As a player character, you can play anything, and we saw a lot of people in the demos at GamesCom and PAX playing Asura warriors. In part because they look really cool as a little guy in full-plate armor with a huge sword!

RS: One time at GamesCom, I was standing and watching the people on the screen, and they were fighting the big dragon. The big demo dragon had come up, and someone had just made an Asura with a gigantic blue afro, and he was doing the roll on the ground. People were running over to his character instead of watching this gigantic fight going on behind him. “The dragon is going to kill you all—ooooh, afro!”

JG: The laugh animation is very good for the video story. He literally throws himself on the ground and rolls around.

RS: And wipes some tears.

PCG: Are we going to see any more of an emotional side to the Asura through this process? We’ve seen that with other races.
JG: Oh yes. There are Asura love stories.

RS: In fact one of the early Asura story chains has to do with a male and a female Asura who are in love, and the female Asura undergoes a horrible laboratory accident and they have to deal with it.

JG: There are Asura love stories.

RS: I think we said earlier that one of the things an Asura parent might say is that their child is their finest invention.

PCG: What led to the decision to make Rata Sum a levitating city, rather than returning them to their roots underground?

Jeff Grubb: Well, one is a superiority thing. They’re above it, they’re basically showing off. But another reason is that Tyria is a very plastic landscape. The type of thing where land either sank beneath the waves, or rose up between the waves. Primordus, the one who drove them from their underground lairs, is still underground, they’re still dealing with that. The idea of the most defensible position is off the ground. And with that comes an implied portability. It’s not just Rata Sum—you go out into the Metrica province, which is right outside, and you’ll find floating buildings out there. You’ll find a lot of their structures have power stones under them to levitate so that, if need be, they can move them somewhere else. Could Rata Sum move? It would have to be a really big threat. It would have to be like a dragon champion taking up residence right on top of them. But the idea of, it’s a much more defendable position than on the ground.

PCG: Are we going to see a lot of the subterranean roots of Rata Sum? Like underground elements specifically.

Ree Soesbee: There’s an underground area of Rata Sum—Rata Sum has some deep clefts that you can stand at the top of and look down on and see golems and Asura working to clear the mines.
JG: Asura are a spectrum, so there are Asura who feel that, when they were driven to the surface, they lost knowledge, and so there is stuff to be found down below. The old labs, the old cities, and some of our story gives an insight into that recovery of lost knowledge. This is one of the problems for the Asura: they’re a race of mad wizards who are all individualists, who are all going off and making individual discoveries, and then stuff gets lost. And some of Asura feel, we should be moving back in. We should be moving down below—if we can take care of the elder dragons. Once that’s taken care of, that’s one more area we can expand into. But we’ve lost stuff when we had to book it out of there.

PCG: Will players get to experience the recovery of some of this lost knowledge?
JG: Yeah.
RS: We have dynamic events and so forth that will take you into the underground, but we’re not actually taking back the old Asura cities right now. They’re just far too dangerous.
JG: It’s more likely to be something similar to Oola’s old labs.
RS: Old labs and so forth. Individuals who have found things under there and are doing stuff with it that you have to investigate.

PCG: Since Asura always want to be the best and brightest individuals, is this going to be reflected in the size of the city? Are we going to see a massive thing here, kind of a “we can build the biggest city” attitude?
RS: I don’t know that it should be in any way correlated with the Asura that “bigger is better.” I just don’t think that’s the case.
JG: We are short, you’re freakishly tall.
RS: In their opinion, they have the best city of course. It has the most magic, it has floating things, it has brilliant lights, it has magnificent architecture, it has wonderful gardening, the works. The area around it is lovely—it has views, and it has exceptional laboratories, and I can say with 100 percent certainty that the Rata Sum laboratories are second to none in the world, and that’s the most important thing to them.
JG: It’s also close to mass transit and schools.

PCG: Well, speaking of mass transit, let’s talk about Asura Gates—are they going to be a method for traveling around the world, of getting from place to place?

JG: Yes. In Eye of the North, they had of course built their central transit hub right over a strong source of arcane energy, which, by the way, turned out to be an elder dragon. And when the Great Destroyer arrived, they used that hub to spread through the underground and bring about the devastation. Now, the Asura has fixed that hub, but they are still using Asura Gates to transfer across the world. So there’s an Asura Gate in Divinity’s Reach, there’s an Asura Gate in Hoelbrak. So the end result of this means that, if you’re playing a Norn, and you want to play with your friend who’s an Asura, you can get to Rata Sum without too much problem. From a social aspect, it means that the Asura are infiltrating and investing much more in the other races. So there’ll be an Asura Gate in the Black Citadel. They have it away from everything else, they keep an eye on it, they’re very suspect of the whole idea that here’s one more gate into our city, but there is an Asura Gate in the Black Citadel.

PCG: How about these colleges that you mentioned? What’s their significance for Asura players?

JG: If you’re playing a Charr, you choose a legion in your initial story. If you’re playing a Human, you choose a social class. If you’re an Asura, you choose your initial college. Each of the colleges has a different outlook on the universe, how they’re going to solve everything. The Asura believe in the eternal alchemy: that everything is a big machine, a big equation that can be solved, a big machine where everything interacts with everything else. How they approach it depends on their college.

The College of Statics is more traditional, more conservative; those Asura who want to go in and find old knowledge that is lost tend to be of this college. This is where you’re going to find people who are looking for the ancient artifacts, etc. They tend to be more stable, they’re more structural—the floating castles and labs are a good example of their type of thinking. They’re still using magic inherently—that’s part and parcel of being an Asura—but they’re using it in a very stable fashion.

The College of Dynamics is much more active. Much more energetic, much more explosive. They are experimenters. Their belief is to move everything forward. They are the ones who are building new creations. They are the ones who are coming up with radical new plans and if it does not necessarily work, the important thing is to what we learn from what we’ve done to move forward. An experiment where you learn is a good experiment even if it isn’t what you intended to learn. They are much more into energies, and devices.

The College of Synergetics is much more theoretical. They’re a little more mystic. They’re dealing with primal building blocks. They’re saying, “What is magic? How far can you divide magic before it stops being magic? How does everything interact with everything else?” They’re very much about the spaces between the cogs. They’re about how different systems interact, they’re the ones who were looking at larger ecosystems, or interactive personal systems, or how the planets spin around the sun. An example I’ve been using has been, think of it as three branches of engineering: the school of statics is civil engineers, those of dynamics are chemical engineers, and those of synergetics are nuclear engineers, because they’re working with forces they cannot necessarily examine firsthand.

PCG: Tell us more about golems. Are they still a major part of the Asura and Rata Sum?

JG: Very much so, and there’s a wide variety of golems. The most traditional golem you see will be the big radio-type golem that you see in the demos right now. It looks like an old RKO radio, that’s what it reminds me of. But there are other types of golem forces they use as well.

RS: And one thing that can be pointed out is that the Asura are very efficient in the use of golems. Where the Humans have the Seraph to protect Divinity’s Reach, and that’ll be a team of five or six guys going about and handling trouble, the Asura have one Asura who does the same job—but he has multiple golems who assist him in keeping down trouble and in handling problems in the city. And the peacemakers, who’re the city guards for the Asura, are really very efficient in their use of those golems, and how they bring that technology to bear for the benefit of the city.

Want the rest of the interview? Check back Monday for more goodness when we detail the culture, conflict and softer side of the Asura.

Tarn Adams: It was mostly a tedious slog, looking for every relevant (x,y) pair and adding a z, with some more difficult changes for fluids and cave-ins. The z-axis was added in part to alleviate some problems with fluids vs bridges, and I think it was definitely worth it, since we don’t have to handle bridges and similar buildings as special cases now, and especially because we can make some really cool maps, even if the display doesn’t handle them very well. There are still some bugs from the change though, a few years later.

PC Gamer: Did many prefer the 2D game? How did you coax them into digging vertically?

Tarn Adams: Yeah, a lot of people prefer the 2D maps, especially at first, although other parts of the game have moved on as well so it’s difficult to go back to the old 2D versions. The 2D version had a very stratified river-chasm-magma setup, and a gamey progression of metal availability, which is appealing in its way. There were also specific mechanics like filling the chasm with magma and so on. The new maps generally have a fairly shallow grade, so digging downward is necessary to build an underground fortress, for the most part. For experienced players, digging deep is mostly encouraged by magma, which is a fuel source that frees up a lot of your need for lumber. People who are aware of the deeper dangers probably don’t feel enticed to dig deeper, but the promise of finding something exotic down there probably entices newer players to try it out. There’s a geology rewrite upcoming which might shake this up a bit, but we’ll see.

PC Gamer: Did you have some idea of what you wanted players to discover if they continued digging downwards?

Tarn Adams: When you are in a 3D space, the old ‘1D’ rivers/ chasms from the two dimensional plane suddenly become very sparse and hard to find (string in a haystack vs string on a table), so it was clear that we had to move over to larger 2D ‘planar’ features that would be struck almost inevitably if you dig downward. It took a while to get the basic ones up and we’re still working on it.

PC Gamer: What interesting features would you still like to add to the depths?

Tarn Adams: Anything’s fair game within reason, and it’s just a matter of finding time and getting started. Aside from adding more critters and plants, we’d like to get better underground rivers (eg, ones that have current or that exit outside through a cliff face) and ruins linked to world generation down there, and we’ve got underground civilizations like those of the various animal peoples that aren’t realised at all.

PC Gamer: Dwarf Fortress has a remarkable roster of bizarre and hilarious creatures. How regularly do you add to it?

Tarn Adams: Most recently we’ve been doing animals from the sponsorship drive, and the big April 2010 release had about 30 new underground critters. We’ve also done some night creatures recently. Adding critters is a bit of a project because the text definitions for them have become more and more involved. Gremlins are my favourite – stories based around “something has pulled a lever!” are fun to read. Zach (Tarn’s brother and Dwarf Fortress co-designer) likes the bogeymen that appear at night to torment the adventurers

In July, we blew the lid off Flying Wild Hog’s cyberpunk-soaked love letter to shooters of yore, Hard Reset. But—after picking the lid shrapnel out of our charred flesh—we realized something: this isn’t a typical game release. Big-budget PC exclusive? No multiplayer? Nothing about crying behind cover 70 percent of the time? We asked, and Flying Wild Hog founder Klaudiusz Zych answered. Read on for Zych’s thoughts about Call of Duty, Deus Ex, phoned-in multiplayer, PC leaving consoles in the dust, and plenty more.

PC Gamer: What’s Flying Wild Hog’s background? How large is your team, and what games have inspired your current direction?
Klaudiusz Zych: Flying Wild Hog started up in April 2009. First it was 8 people, ex-employees of CD Projekt RED and People Can Fly. For the first year, we built our own engine from the ground up. Since then, the studio’s grown to 35 people. Everybody in our team’s a veteran dev with at least five years experience and multiple titles under their belt. There are people who previously worked in CD Projekt RED, People Can Fly, City Interactive and Metropolis. Some have over ten years of professional experience.

This ranks about a 9.5 out of 10 on the 'futuristic mayhem' scale.

I won’t hide that we were inspired by over-the-top, action-packed shooters, like Painkiller or Serious Sam. We wanted Hard Reset to have even more physics, destruction and mayhem with hordes of enemies. To do this, we had to make almost everything physical and destructible, even light sources. Hard Reset also adds an experience-based upgrade tree similar to something like Diablo. So it’s basically a marriage of Painkiller and Diablo.

Hard Reset’s a bit of an anomaly in a shooter landscape dominated by cover-heavy Call of Duty-alikes. Do you think gamers are getting fed up with that style of game? Do you think there’s a growing contingent of folks who just want to shoot things with awesome weapons, “realism” be damned?
Zych: Hard Reset is a game that you want to jump on after work and unleash some mayhem. It’s not an interactive movie on rails like most modern shooters. It’s back to the roots of first person shooters, but with updated graphics. There are still many fans talking on forums about the old style of gameplay. They are fed up with modern games that just play themselves and don’t require skill. Modern shooters are often lacking variety in game world theme selection. There is World War 2, modern warfare or Star Wars-like sci-fi. It’s been quite some time since anyone picked the dark and dirty theme of cyberpunk, which is very interesting I think.

We don't advise that you put your hand into this pulsating orb of pure energy.

Similarly, you’re not including a multiplayer component. Was that a tough decision for you? Do you feel like too many games tack on half-baked multiplayer modes without putting any thought into it—just to fill in a checkbox on some marketing survey?
Zych: Multiplayer is cool, so it was a tough decision. But it’s either you make a heavily polished multiplayer-focused game to compete with Battlefield or Left 4 Dead 2 or don’t make one. The idea to just add multiplayer mode to please publishers or marketing guys, or to put it on the box just doesn’t make sense. We wanted to put the time we would spend on multiplayer to polish the single-player experience as much as we could.

You’re going PC-only with this one, which is something of a rarity in the modern console-heavy triple-A space. Why’d you pick PC, specifically? Are you concerned at all about the typical PC woes: piracy, lack of exposure to “wider” audiences, etc?
Zych: It’s been six years since the Xbox 360 was released, and console hardware has become an order of magnitude slower than current PCs. Multiplatform PC games need to make compromises about technology decisions and usually don’t use the full potential of modern PCs. Of course, the console market has a larger audience, but PC gaming is still alive and well thanks to digital distribution channels and services like OnLive, so it can still be a great platform for smaller studios like Flying Wild Hog.

You’ve got a really nice cyberpunk vibe going with your game, but—like it or not—that puts you in Deus Ex: Human Revolution’s line of fire. Obviously, you’re making a very different sort of shooter, but is releasing in the same space as such a revered franchise a big thing for you? Is there any pressure there?
Zych: Deus Ex is a completely different kind of game. It’s an RPG with heavy storyline, it is a slow-paced tactical shooter, while Hard Reset is an action game with lots of enemies storming at you and powerful guns to tear them into pieces. I think the only way that Hard Reset and Deus Ex are similar is the cyberpunk theme and art direction. We are not afraid to be compared here; it’s easy for everyone to judge for themselves from screenshots and movies.

We love soaking in HR's Blade Runner.

What sort of enemies will we be going up against in Hard Reset?
Zych: Expect hordes of biomechanical creatures storming at you in Hard Reset. In the world of Hard Reset, a rebellious AI is capable of building enemies from everything it can. Literally hundreds of randomly generated, differently appearing enemies will show up. And as I said, we were inspired by Painkiller, so expect BIG surprises.

You’ve opted to use your own technology instead of, say, the oh-so-trendy Unreal Engine 3. Why? Also, will Hard Reset include mod support at launch?
Zych: We wanted to tailor the Road Hog engine for the kind of game that we wanted to make. The idea was to have everything possible dynamic, so we are making extensive use of Havok physics. The graphics engine has fully dynamic lighting. We don’t use pre-rendered lightmaps. Every light is dynamic; it can casts shadows or be shot down. It’s just not possible with Unreal Engine 3 to run it smoothly on low-end PCs, as Road Hog does.

Another motivation to stick with our own tech is that we are a small company and we are pushing to have rapid code integration for tools and features that our artists and designers require. Our engine is clean and compact, so it’s easy to experiment with things, add new functionality, etc. If community response to Hard Reset is positive, we might consider releasing an editor in the future.

Willits has been at id Software for 16 years – he came up with the idea for bespoke deathmatch maps in Doom – and he talked to Rich’s glowing face about Rage’s open world, the graphical power of the PC, and how gamers are suffering from “modern combat fatigue.” He also briefly covers the impressive mod tools that will be released when Rage comes out on October 4th in the US and October 7th in Europe.

PCG: Why did you decide to implement an auction house system instead of typical microtransactions, which have pretty much been turning everything they touch into gold lately?

Bridenbecker: Really, what you’re talking about there is the hallmark of what Blizzard’s all about. We really try and get into what’s in the best interest of players. And any time you introduce that business-to-consumer relationship, it muddles the waters some. So the person starts to think “Why is Blizzard doing this? They’re obviously doing it because it’s in the best interest of the business.” But if it’s something where it’s player-to-player, it actually takes away some of the questions as to why we’re doing it. Just by the very definition of player-to-player, it shows that it’s actually for the players. It’s about the players.

PCG: Obviously, though, monetizing virtual goods is a touchy subject. Are you expecting any fan backlash? I mean, your fans have been known to keep pitchforks and torches stuffed in their giant foam “Blizzard is number one” fingers…

Bridenbecker: No so much, no. Because the players want it. They’ve shown in the past that there’s a demand to buy items. And from our perspective, what we determined was that we needed to provide a safe and secure environment for that demand. By putting it in the game—integrating it and providing it in a way where we’re really just facilitating it—it really opens it up for them. I think everybody’s going to be really happy with it.

PCG: Given the success of free-to-play games and the premium society in general now places on digital, well, everything, do you think the notion that virtual items aren’t worth real money is antiquated?

Bridenbecker: Well, one of the things that’s unique about what we’ve come up with is that players don’t have to use it. It’s completely optional. We provide a couple different facilities for players who feel like the real money aspect somehow taints the experience. We’ve got a gold-based auction house [as well]. So those players are going to be able to avail themselves in that gold-based auction house. And then for players who are excited about purchasing items or even selling them, they’ll be able to use the real money auction house.

PCG: So, with Battle.net, you’ve got your own storefront/network that binds all your games’ communities together. But then, over on the other side of Activision, there’s Call of Duty: Elite, which does many of the same things, but for different games. Elsewhere, meanwhile, there’s Origin, Steam, and all their ilk. Do you think social features are becoming overly stratified and proprietary?

Bridenbecker: Yeah, it’s a great question. I mean, it’s a really unique time in the industry. You’ve got all the various social landscapes that are cropping up. I do believe that players are always going to want to gravitate toward the games. And individual game networks that provide social networking capabilities just enhance that overall quality. So the fact that there happen to be different products isn’t that much of a concern. The fact that I have different social networks in those products is really not that big of a deal.

PCG: Diablo III is following in StarCraft II’s footsteps and going online-only. Is it possible, though, that you might be pushing online functionality a bit too hard? I mean, what about the players who just want to tune out the world? If they, say, slay a big boss and then a chat bubble suddenly pops up, doesn’t that sort of ruin the moment?

Bridenbecker: I don’t think that individuals want to isolate themselves and be solitary cave people. But I definitely believe that individuals prefer to play in more isolated environments at times. That doesn’t necessarily have to compete with the goal of having things online. The capabilities that get presented when you push people into an online connected environment are so much broader. It’s like Rob [Pardo] was talking about: Imagine you have a world where you want to play in an entirely single-player environment. You go through and you level up your character and you get all these awesome item drops and so forth. Then you say, “OK, I do want to play with my buddy.” Well, guess what? We have to make you re-roll a new character because we can’t guarantee [a lack of cheating or hacking]. In an online environment, we can do that.

PCG: Is there any way to make sure that people can’t bug you, though? To essentially replicate a completely single-player experience even though you’re required to be online?

Bridenbecker: There’s definitely a question as to how much an individual is participating in the community and how much you award them the option to say, “I’m no longer a participant.” I mean, the reality is that most people, when they’re in a game and they say that they’re busy, other players are going to respect that. If somebody happens to intrude, you know, it’s your friend. Just tell them, “Hey man, when I’m busy, leave me alone.”

PCG: Do you have an overarching plan for Battle.net as a whole? An idea of what you’d like it to evolve into? For instance, would you like to expand it to include more games—say, from other developers or publishers?

Bridenbecker: Our main focus is enriching Blizzard titles. We definitely have had conversations about the best way to evolve Blizzard titles. Could that lead into a different [publisher/developer] world? You know, who knows what the future holds? But right now, no.

If you’re already a proud owner of HoN, don’t panic—you haven’t been ripped off. S2′s approach to the change in payment model comes in the form of a three-tiered account system. User’s accounts will be categorized into three distinct types, as follows:

• Basic: The standard, free account new players will receive upon sign up.
• Verified: Basic accounts that have been upgraded through a show of commitment to their account, by either purchasing Goblin Coins or surpassing a certain threshold of play time. This allows them to participate in Verified Only games.
• Legacy: Paid user accounts that existed prior to the free-to-play model. These accounts receive a lifetime of free access to all HoN heroes and are able to play in Verified Only games, to ensure that experts and beginners are separated. Legacy accounts can no longer be purchased.

Verified Only matchmaking should solve the problem that Team Fortress 2 faced when it went free-to-play: keeping expert and beginner players separate. With Verified Only games, we have faith that more players will feel like they’re on an even playing field during matches. This is especially important given HoN’s notably hardcore community; new players have a tendency to get raged at pretty hard, as we’ve experienced firsthand.

If you took advantage of HoN’s $10 price drop this past week, don’t worry, you’re still getting your money’s worth. Basic and Verified accounts will have access to a rotating pool of 15 free heroes at any given time, while Legacy accounts will have free, permanent access to all heroes. One catch is that there will be a short delay between a hero’s release and it being added to the Legacy player’s roster, with the option to purchase early access if the user’s keen on trying every hero as soon as they’re released.

We wanted to know more about what S2 plans to do now that they’ve entered the F2P ring, so we asked James Fielding, director of design and development at S2, about where HoN is headed now that the playing field’s really opened up.

PCG: Congrats on making the switch! What are the specific goals you’re trying to achieve by making HoN free-to-play?
James Fielding: We’re aiming to lower the barrier of entry, making it easier for our existing players to get their friends playing alongside them. After all, HoN’s a heavily team-based game, and playing with your friends is what it’s all about. We’re also aiming to open the game up to some new audiences.

PCG: Will the inevitable influx of new players open you up to implementing anything you weren’t able to before?
Fielding: Because we’re anticipating more players bringing in and playing with their friends, we’d like to reward them for playing together. Players will receive bonus coins after every match they play with friends—the more friends you play with, the more coins you get! In addition, depending on the success of the model, we may be able to do things faster (and work on more of them at once). HoN’s numbers generally tend to exceed our expectations, so we’re pretty optimistic.

PCG: How will the existing shop be affected? (Bonuses, XP/Coin boosts, etc) Are you planning on making any UI changes?
Fielding: The shop had a few new items added to it, but nothing too drastic. The biggest example is the hero browser, so that F2P players can browse and purchase heroes. There have also been a number of UI changes. We included difficulty ratings and categorization for different hero types in the hero browser, to enable players to make an informed purchase. We’ve also spruced up the alternate avatar preview for browsing these items in the store. We’ve had to do a lot to make the F2P experience compatible with the experience that the existing players are used to. All in all, we tried to keep the experience for existing players as similar as possible, while adding new things for the F2P players.

We’ve update our spectator interface, as well—it’s much flashier, easier to read, and a lot more entertaining in my opinion. We added some graphs to make it easier for spectators to identify what players are the strongest in the game, have the most kills, most gold, etc; [this also helps spectators to] identify what team has an advantage in gold/experience. We also worked a bit with certain members of our community (including shoutcasters) to get an idea of what features and tools they want available when spectating a match.

PCG: With the switch to microtransactions, will every hero be getting an Alternate Avatar in the near future? Deadwood needs some Captain Falcon love!
Fielding: We’ll certainly continue to add Alternate Avatars—we add based on a number of factors, though, [so we're not necessarily] aiming to add one for every hero. I’ll see what I can do about Captain Falcwood (pun gods: forgive me).

PCG: How often can we expect updates once HoN goes F2P?
Fielding: The frequency of updates probably won’t change—we currently patch once every 1-2 weeks (with a hero usually coming every two weeks). The amount of content in them may [increase], though, depending on how things go with the new model. We wouldn’t want to add [an excessive amount of new content], or the game changes too frequently to the point of instability.

PCG: What are the projected Goblin coins / time spent needed to upgrade from Basic to Verified? What are the upsides of being Verified?
Fielding: A purchase of any amount of Goblin Coins will automatically promote your account to Verified. If you choose to get there without wanting to spend any money, you must play until your account reaches level 5. It’s hard to say how many games that is, because it varies from person to person (for example, your first win of the day awards more account experience), but we estimate about 60 to 70 games for the average player. Being Verified allows you to choose to play in “Verified Only” matchmaking, alongside the current (Legacy) HoN players. We expect Verified Only matchmaking to achieve a higher quality match—due to the entire player pool all being people with a vested interest in their HoN account, they’re less likely to do something that would get them banned. Additionally, you gain access to the Report A Player (RAP) feature, which further improves the quality of Verified Only games. You also get a few tokens once you become verified, which grant you the ability to play in game modes other than All Pick (Basic accounts are restricted to only All Pick games).

PCG: How long will the waiting period be between a new hero’s release and them being added to all Legacy accounts?
Fielding: Heroes that enter Early Access are intended to stay there for about 4 weeks, at which point they’re released into the general hero pool. [At this time, though], not all numbers are final (and we always adjust to what makes sense, based on live data).

PCG: Thanks for your time! Anything else you’d like to add?
Fielding: We’re very excited for the Free-to-Play switch here at S2. Ultimately, we’re interested in providing the best multiplayer competitive title out there, and securing HoN a place in the ever-changing, competitive marketplace. HoN has been continually growing since it’s release [and consistently retains players] (90% of all time sales are active), so we’re really excited to open it up to some new audiences. If you’ve never given HoN a try, there’s no time like now.

Be sure to check out the two new brawlers coming to Heroes of Newerth in today’s patch: the Monkey King and the Drunken Master. Also, be sure to invite your friends to give HoN a try, and join the official PC Gamer clan while you’re at it!

Dragon Nest was a sleeper hit at E3, attracting crowds and long lines with its appealing graphical style and frantic, third-person-shooter combat. After just a few cutthroat PvP matches (chock-full of smacktalk and righteous fury against Josh), the PCG staff is most definitely excited to play more of this fast-paced MMO. Haven’t heard about Dragon Nest yet? Our interview with one of the devs will tell you everything you need to know about the fast-paced Korean MMO that’s headed our way.

If the above trailer wasn’t enough to get you jazzed for the game, know this: you haven’t played an MMO like Dragon Nest. The combat was fast and furious, and felt closer to Unreal Tournament’s team deathmatch than World of Warcraft’s arena. Abilities are all skill-shots using a target reticule, and combos are essential to coming out on top during fights. I derived a certain glee from flip-kicking Josh into the air as an Archer, then filling his airborne-body with arrows while he plummeted to the ground; all the while, Tyler Wilde was backing me up with some sweet lightning attacks and heals as a Cleric. You won’t find auto-attacks here—Dragon Nest feels like the marriage of Quake and Street Fighter, and that’s enough to hook me to any MMO. All you need to do to join the upcoming Open Beta (which starts next Tuesday, July 26) is visit the Dragon Nest website and create a Nexon account.

Face, meet my mace. Mace, face.

PC Gamer: What inspired the game’s art style?
Tyler Chang, Eyedentity Games: With the art style, we wanted to convey a feeling of warmth and easiness, and so we adopted a casual and light color palette that’s easy on the eyes. On top of that, we used cute, feminine lines for our female characters, made the monsters goofy looking, and crafted serious-looking backgrounds which all blend in well with the lighter, casual look of the characters. We feel that the cute graphics style, coupled with the active and dynamic action and effects, makes for a very visually appealing game.

PCG: What did you observe during the game’s Closed Beta? Any valuable lessons learned?
Chang: Absolutely, the closed beta test (CBT) was held specifically so we could begin making gameplay and network improvements, paving the way for an even smoother open beta test launch later this month. One area in particular that received a lot of positive feedback was the control scheme and the game’s fast-paced action, so we’ll continue to emphasize content that allows for chaining massive attack combos.

One area that generated a lot of feedback was Dragon Nest’s empowerment system. Our release of Dragon Nest will differ from the Asian version in significant ways, but the biggest distinguishing item is probably the empowerment system. In the Asian version, players receive restrictions on game content when playing for long periods of time. This type of content restriction has proven highly unpopular in the west, so what we’ve done is remove that system entirely and replace it with something that does the exact opposite: players are now rewarded with empowerment points daily, which enables them to receive bonus experience.

It's like fighting the nightmares I had as a kid after watching Fantasia.

PCG: What’s in store for people participating in the Open Beta?
Chang: The upcoming Open Beta Test (OBT) on July 26 will launch with significantly more content compared to the CBT. The level cap will be set at level 24, and players will have a slew of new dungeons and bosses to try and defeat. The guild system is also being introduced, which is a major component that expands the social aspects of the game. And as a way of saying thanks to all the players who are helping make Dragon Nest the best game possible, we’re going to reward all OBT participants with in-game currency that can be used to purchase convenience items from the cash shop. We’ll also be rewarding players with cash shop items for leveling up and completing other in-game activities. The currency can be used throughout the OBT to make questing more efficient, improve the look of players’ avatars and the like.

PCG: Are any of the four classes specialists in PvP?
Chang: Each of the different character classes brings a different skill set to the table in PvP, there isn’t one class that we consider “overpowered.” We’ve taken great pains to keep the classes balanced, so it’s our design to make individual player skill and teamwork the primary factors that determine the victor in a PvP match. For example, a round between a warrior and a sorceress will come down to who knows how to best time the use of special abilities and keep or close the distance gap on the battlefield. The warrior obviously has the advantage at close range, whereas the sorceress will dominate from a distance.

The Archer dealing death from above.

PCG: How many PvP options will there be? Will there be goals/ladders for beginners and hardcore players alike?
Chang: Dragon Nest fans can expect to eventually see a wide variety of PvP modes, although the exact name and number that we’ll have at launch is still in the works. We plan to roll out the staples for PvP over time, such as a round based mode, a respawn mode, a “take out the enemy leader” mode and a free-for-all mode, and more. And yes, there will be a ladder system! Nothing encourages friendly competition like a robust ladder and ranking system where players can scope out their own stats and the stats of their friends and peers. Beyond the thrill of going head-to-head against other flesh-and-blood players, there will be plenty of incentives for PvPing as well. Players will collect PvP EXP points in order to increase their rank and also to acquire medals to redeem for high value items at the Arena goods vendor.

PCG: How much customization is allowed for each of the four classes? Can you differentiate yourself from the pack, either visually or skill-wise?
Chang: There is a significant amount of customization for all of the character classes, both in cosmetic appearance and gameplay-wise. Each of the four base character classes can branch off into different specializations at two points while leveling up. The first branch occurs at level 15, and the second level of specialization occurs later.
For example, at level 15, an Archer can choose to branch off to either the path of the Sharpshooter or the path of the Acrobat. The Sharpshooter is the ultimate long-range damage dealer. She uses incredible single target ranged and area-of-effect skills to destroy her foes. The Acrobat by contrast develops close quarters combat skills that she can use to launch foes into the air, stun them, grab them and pummel them down to the ground with a flurry of melee attacks.

Two-player combos: mmm mmm good.

PCG: What’s your personal favorite combat combo to pull off? What’s the most hits you can get in one combo?
Chang: I love to play the Sharpshooter for combos, as I’m able to combine air strikes together with close-up physical moves to dodge and block enemy attacks. It’s a lot of fun to use the various spaces in the game to my advantage, so whether I’m knocked down on the ground, running towards an enemy or just flying in the air, I can come up with an attack or counterattack to fit my situation. I’ve done up to a 170-hit combo so far, but I have a long way to go to beat the biggest records out there! There are achievements for pulling off different combos in the game, and I look forward to seeing players unlock the 400-hit combo achievement!

PCG: Can you tell us more about The Abyss?
Chang: The Abyss mode is the highest difficulty level for each dungeon, and it’s available only after clearing the four lower difficulties – Easy, Normal, Hard and Master. While the difficulty gradually increases for the five different modes, the Abyss mode also changes the physical environment of the dungeon. When playing on Abyss mode, the dungeon will become darker and sinister in appearance to add to the tension. The gap between Master and Abyss difficulty is also fairly substantial, and players will want to take a party of their bravest friends with them, because the fiends you will face will be incredibly challenging.

PCG: Thanks Tyler! Anything else you’d like to add?
Chang: Open Beta is coming up really soon and we are incredibly excited to showcase Dragon Nest to the widest audience possible. The characters that players create during OBT will remain live throughout the life of a game, meaning that there won’t be any database resets once the servers open July 26. We cannot wait to see players filling in each channel and seeing the massive numbers of players in the villages. We look forward to seeing you online!

This week, Evan, Dan, Josh, and Lucas circle the wagons to address new cyberpunk FPS Hard Reset and 2K’s recent comments that “strategy isn’t contemporary” in light of its changes to XCOM. Josh recalls his pool party-filled time at SOE’s Fan Faire and tells us his impressions on PlanetSide 2, and Evan tells us what a great time he’s having on our new GoldenEye: Source server, tackles Tribes: Ascend, and more!

At the end of the podcast, Lucas sits down with one of PC gaming’s most-loved men, Sean “Day9″ Plott, to talk eSports, why attacking in StarCraft 2 is good, and his favorite card game.

PC Gamer US Podcast 280: Not California

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At E3 last month, I spoke to Emil Englund, one of the founders of developers Arrowhead Game Studios, and asked him how the buggy launch happened.

PC Gamer: When the first game out it had quite a few bugs, how did that happen?

Emil Englund: Oh, I mean, you have to start from the beginning. First of all, we were students, we were a very small team. We didn’t have any experience. We started working with Microsoft XNA initially, and we were looking at the XBox, and then halfway through we changed to the PC. So, I mean, already there you have a foundation for a lot of bugs. Combined with not having a lot of resources to try the game on different platforms, you know. I read an article in Game Developer Magazine about the Civilization 5 development, and they said, ‘Oh, and we had engineers from Nvidia and AMD at our office who constantly helped us try the game on the different graphics cards.’ We didn’t have that. So it’s kind of hard for us to do everything right from the get go.

Also, some other things. We didn’t know the game was being released, the time that it did. It’s kind of stupid, but we thought it was released the day after or something. And all of a sudden someone says, “It’s live!” And we were working on the Day One patch already. We’re like, “What!?” We had like three hours where the game pretty much didn’t work because we hadn’t got out there with the release patch. There were a few bugs that snuck through at the end. We had them fixed, but it wasn’t distributed to Steam. It was a nightmare.

And then, of course, there were a lot of other bugs as well. Many of the bugs were simply things we hadn’t noticed. We had beta testing, but nobody reported it, so we didn’t find it. So the only thing we could do was promise everybody we were going to patch this a lot. Which we did. We pretty much lived at the office the first two weeks and just kept pushing out patches each day, to fix as much as possible just to show our good will. And it seemed to work out. People appreciated it, and we kept patching, only we had to put more and more space in between the patches. Right now, we have a lot better quality assurance about patches as well, to make sure that the new patches don’t break the game further.

But yeah, working with XNA wasn’t really helping us. And right now we have a lot more resources. I mean, Paradox is helping out a lot as well. If we need somebody that knows more about something, they’ll help to get a contact for us to talk to, and that has increased quality for DLC and patches.

Magicka is now polished, and last month Arrowhead pushed out an enormous free update adding PvP. I asked Emil what had changed for them since the game’s success.

PC Gamer: The game has sold 600k copies so far. How has that changed your lives?

Emil Englund:Oh, we actually have a salary now, which we didn’t before. We had a really low one towards the end so we could actually pay our rent, and buy food without loaning from parents. Right now we have salaries so we can live regular lives. We managed to employ some more people. We’ve grown from 7 to 11 since release, which is always fun, to bring some fresh blood aboard. And I don’t know, it’s kinda strange, sometimes I just don’t get how much we’ve sold, how successful the release has been. And though there were a lot of issues, we have more plans for the future, there’s a lot more stability in the company now. I mean, there was no money in it at all at the start. Right now, we at least feel we might be able to get somewhere. I guess that’s the main thing, that we have a salary, so we can live ordinary lives.

Magicka is available through Steam for £8.

However, Todd was keen to emphasise that players wouldn’t be able to buy an in-game advantage: “If they’re gameplay elements our stance is that they’ll be able to earn them by playing the game.” If you’re looking for cosmetic items, you’ll likely need to dig your wallets out, basically. Todd says: “We will also almost certainly have some sort of cosmetic only or prestige elements that might be payment only. Players generally understand that. Players that choose to optionally purchase them for their own enjoyment get to subsidise other people’s play so it’s win-win.”

Todd went on to explain how Global Agenda’s success has been encouraging. “We’ve got our own recent case study with Global Agenda where we can see that it worked well. That I guess just shows that it can work for players and it can work financially for us.”

Todd had previously told us that the free to play model allows games to stand up and succeed based on their merits rather than marketing campaigns.

PC Gamer: You worked at LucasArts during adventure games’ golden age. Did you feel like a brave pioneer?
Graham Annable: I seriously had no clue or sense of context at the time. I was just happy to be paid to animate characters that were fun to draw. Only years later did I realize what a special opportunity it was.

What’s your favorite adventure game? Who’s your favorite character?
I do have a soft spot for Curse of Monkey Island, although I think perhaps Ben Throttle would win the prize as favorite character. Or maybe that alien space-turtle creature I animated in The Dig.

Do you ever run into people that look or act like one of your characters?
Definitely. In my mind we’re all participating in the Grickle-verse. How else would I get my ideas?

Huh. Learn something new every day, I guess.

Were you surprised that Telltale was interested in edgier fare that includes guns, cults, and freaky gnomes?
We’d been talking about making a Grickle game for years. Puzzle Agent is really the kind of game that I knew I personally wanted to play. I feel incredibly fortunate that Telltale felt the same way and were willing to gamble on it.

Nelson Tethers isn’t a traditional hero. For example, he screams. A lot. How was he developed?
In the early stages of development, Nelson was written with a bit more of a confident “go get ’em!” attitude. I kept suggesting that Nelson should come off as more insecure and hesitant about things. I felt that I would personally relate to his character better, as opposed to heroes that hold massive guns and speak in harsh whispers.

What types of puzzles do you find most interesting?
My wife is fascinated by puzzles, and I tend to ask her help whenever I’m doing one. I’ve discovered that I’m more fascinated by mysteries in general. Puzzles just happen to be one of the many forms that mysteries take.

Do you doodle everywhere, or do you only draw on paper?
I do tend to doodle on a lot of things. As I was about to graduate from high school, I seriously contemplated getting into the sciences. But when I looked at my textbooks, they were so covered in cartoons and doodles that I could barely read them anymore. At that point, I decided that art was my more natural inclination.

When you sleep, what kinds of things do you dream about?
Kittens and pancakes mostly. I did also have this vivid one about a giant—wait, why do you ask?

UPDATE: The winners have been chosen, and will be contacted shortly. Thanks to everyone who entered! Even if you didn’t win a Premium Membership, you can still get the full experience of this “sexy, savage, and brutal world.”

Only a month after its announcement, Age of Conan’s free-to-play incarnation, dubbed Age of Conan Unchained, is to be released tomorrow, and we’ve got the exclusive look at the official launch trailer to celebrate it. We’re excited: we previously discussed the details of how the business model works, and now it’s time to try it out for ourselves.

First up, I think I’ll pick out a new companion to accompany me on my journeys from the store. Funcom gave us the exclusive scoop on new “tempress” pets being added to the game’s cash shop that’ll replace your silly non-sexy pet that currently follows you around with a seductive lady of the night. There are several different varieties, and while interaction is limited, Funcom stressed that this was a change they could only do because they’re now free of any rating restrictions in the new free-to-play mode. Of course, the usual lineup of weapons, armor, potions, and all that jazz will also be available in the cash shop.

Read on to learn more about the new content and characters as we talk with Executive Producer Craig Morrison to hear what he’s doing on launch day and get his tips for those jumping into AoC for the first time. We’re also giving away 11 60-day Premium Membership subscriptions—details inside.

Update: Funcom sent us over a list of several other companion pets that’ll be available in the store tomorrow. They are: Arctic Hare, White Khitan Tiger Cub, Black Khitan Wolf Pup, Hippo Calf, Wolverine Kit, Panda, Polar Bear, Obsidian Ravager of Jhil, Ivory Ravager of Jhil, Ashen Fu Dog ,Pleasure Priestess of Derketo, Pleasure Priestess of Morrigan, Pleasure Priestess of Ishtar, Pleasure Priestess of Yun, Social Pet: Owlet, Social Pet: Loyal Crocodile, Social Pet: Fearless Crab, Social Pet: Tamed Baboon. Personally I’m most intrigued by that Hippo Calf–for example, can it blow cute little bubbles and pop them while giggling?

We haven't seen official shots of the new 'tempress' companions yet, but Funcom sure isn't shy about mature content.

To win one of the premium membership codes, send an email to contests@pcgamer.com with “Ladies love premium members” in the subject line. 11 random winners will be chosen tomorrow, July 1st and have their code emailed to them.

PC Gamer: That was fast! It wasn’t too long ago that you announced AoC was going free to play at all, and here we are on launch day. How long has the team been working on this transition?

Executive Producer Craig Morrison: We didn’t want to have too long of a delay between the announcement and the release, mainly so that people wouldn’t put off trying the game because they wanted to wait for the new offer. These changes have been considered for some time, and it was always an option that we knew we were likely to use at some stage in the product’s life cycle.

In some ways, parts of this have been in motion for almost two years. Since we knew it would most likely be something we’d do eventually, we were able to lay the foundations in other systems from the start. We’ve always felt that it’s good development practice to be flexible in [regards to business model]. We also benefited from our work with Neowiz in launching the game in Korea, where we’ve been using elements of this business model since it launched there last year.

In terms of concentrated work–the supporting systems, shop integration, and inventory–we’ve been working in detail since the beginning of the year so we could get everything in place for the summer.

Undead or no, a dude that gross deserves whatever trouble he gets when adventurers stroll in.

PCG: What areas are the dev team monitoring most closely for player feedback in order to make quick adjustments? (i.e. store prices, leveling speed, security issues)

CM: We’ll definitely be paying attention to how the new players integrate with the existing players. The game itself hasn’t been altered in terms of progression for free players, so the speed of leveling should be pretty much the same. In terms of the sales through the item store, yes, we definitely pay attention there and will be monitoring players purchasing habits with interest.

You always think you have a pretty good idea about what will be appealing to players, but if you learn anything from working in this genre, it’s that the players can always surprise you! So whenever you do something new like this you are watching the results closely.

PCG: What are you most excited to do today? Are you going to be analyzing player’s actions/choices on the backend, lurking out in the chat channels listening to what people are saying, or just out enjoying playing the game?

CM: I think I’m probably most looking forward to showing the game to more new players than ever before, and to welcome back those [I played with] who haven’t played in a long time…I will definitely be in game quite a bit, as I usually am, as you get a lot of invaluable insight from just listening to and playing alongside the players.

Raawr, it feels good to be free!

PCG: What tips would you give someone that has never played Age of Conan before who’s going to jump in today?

CM: The game feels and plays a little differently from other, more traditional MMO titles. In particular the combat system, so be prepared for a little adjustment. It isn’t too steep [of a learning curve], however–once you get the hang of bringing down your wrath on your foes without things like an auto-attack, the combat system provides a really engaging and layered experience. It really makes for a more exciting gameplay experience than you may find elsewhere.

PCG: Is there any race/class combination that you’d recommend for new players?

CM: That depends on your playstyle to a large degree. If you want to dive right into the front lines with a melee class that uses the combat system you should look at the Soldier or the Rogue archetype. Priests can be fun as healers in Age of Conan, and can also take an active roll in combat–they aren’t just back line support characters.

But if you find the concept of the dynamic combat system a little too intimidating, you can try one of the Mage archetypes as they largely use spells rather than combos, which plays a little more like a traditional MMO.

Of course, for the true Conan experience the Barbarian class in the Rogue archetype is everything you need to follow in Conan’s footsteps!

These terracotta murderers must be stopped or orphans will die! Are you really selfish enough to NOT play?

PCG: What’s one thing that everyone that plays AoC F2P absolutely has to experience?

CM: I would urge people not to ignore the low- and mid-level dungeons. They’ll require you to make some friends and find a group, and some are premium spots, but there are some really fun and interesting encounters to be found in them. The desire to level fast is an easy trap to fall into, but it’s well worth your time to check out dungeons like The Black Castle, Sanctum of the Burning Souls and the Amphitheater, to name just a few.

Also if you’re one of those who are prone to the odd hardcore PVP desire, you might want to check out the upcoming Blood and Glory server ruleset, which will provide a very harsh “old school” open-PVP environment for those brave enough to try it.

PCG: Personally, what’s your favorite part of the new content being added today, and why you enjoy playing it so much?

CM: For me personally, it’s rewarding to see the new team members that we brought aboard after the expansion (when some moved across to work on The Secret World) mix in with the veterans. I’m usually a little nervous when I do the first few internal playthroughs of content from a new team setup, but this team have really pulled it off. So as a player, I really like the new instances…they play really well, and I think the players are recognizing, and appreciating, that.

I also love that each of the new areas have great atmosphere and their own distinct feel to them. The art team did a wonderful job giving them all unique elements that allow you to immediately identify with the area. From the awesome vistas in the Forgotten City, to the bleak and stormy environs of the Breach, through the brilliantly twisted nightmare section of The Refuge of the Apostate, and the grim corruption of the Paikang districts. Our Dreamworld engine is capable of creating some of the most atmospheric and amazing environments that can be found in any MMO, and I think it brings that dangerous and brutal world that Robert E. Howard described in the Conan stories to life brilliantly.

 
Sound like fun? You can download the client at Age of Conan’s website right now and play! Let us know what you think in the comments or, as always, at letters@pcgamer.com.

“SC2 is much more open in terms of opportunities.”
Newcomers to the exploding StarCraft scene may be surprised to know that in 2009, long before StarCraft 2 was released, Jung Hoon was living the life of a professional gamer. Going by the ID “Clare,” he played for the Korean pro team MBC Game. If you weren’t around to keep track of the Brood War scene, all you need to know is that this was a huge deal.

Getting a prized spot on any pro Brood War team is hard. Jung Hoon earned his spot, and even a few short cameos alongside his former teammate, Jang Min Chul, in the classic Brood War show “Hyungjoon Becomes a Pro gamer.” In tournaments, however, Jung Hoon garnered little success. In June of 2010, with no improvement and StarCraft 2 burning on the horizon, he played his last official game of Brood War. Four months later Jung Hoon shed himself of the name “Clare” and made “the switch” with his entrance into the GSL Open Season 2.

Jung Hoon executes a classic, two-base marine attack and uses his exceptional unit control to avoid being surrounded.

Starting anew, Jung Hoon’s chose “Boxer” as his first StarCraft 2 ID. The Korean community, which knows players primarily by their real names, gave small reaction. But the foreign (outside Korea) StarCraft community was outraged. The real Boxer, SlayerS_BoxeR, aka Lim Yo Hwan, aka The Emperor, had also debuted his StarCraft 2 career in the GSL Open Season 2. Jung Hoon was immediately dubbed “Foxer” (Fake Boxer) and was known as such for the rest of the tournament. With mounting pressure from his foreign fans, Jung Hoon eventually changed his moniker to “MarineKing.” (Unfortunately, not Optimus—”OptimusPrime” would’ve been the coolest name in StarCraft history.)

In the GSL Open Season 2—Jung Hoon’s first major tournament—he debuted his now-trademark specialty of all-Marine play, blasting through the likes of “Rainbow,” the ultra-aggressive “Kyrix,” and, most notably, the winner of the previous season, “FruitDealer.” As the tournament progressed, Jung Hoon’s opponents scrambled in Darwinian fashion for a response to his whirlwind play. By the time the grand finals rolled around in November, Jung Hoon’s personality and playstyle had sucked in thousands of fans, making him an icon.

With marauders positioned at the front of the army to absorb damage, Jun Hoon's marines are safe to stim and continue the attack.

“A good jinx…”
The grand final was one of the most nail-biting in the history of the game. Jung Hoon took the first two games, lost the third and fourth, then won the fifth. Up 3-2, he was one game away from taking the tournament and being hailed as one of the first “greats” of StarCraft 2. But he was being outclassed. One of his wins was from the ever-risky rush strategy: marine and SCV all-in. Another win was the result of a huge micro blunder from his opponent “NesTea,” that Jung Hoon capitalized on. Win or lose, NesTea had proven that MarineKing could not just be beaten, but dominated.

A shaky, indecisive strategy in game six tied up the series, and took it to the rubber match. Here, Jung Hoon attempted another all-in and emulated his idol, Boxer, by playing a game highly reminiscent of the ageless, StarCraft: Brood War 2004 EVER OSL semi-finals between Boxer and his rival, “Yellow.” Boxer won his game; Jung Hoon lost his. The failed gambit ended the tournament and his chance at becoming the Boxer’s successor in StarCraft 2.

Nine days later, he placed runner-up to Kyrix in the GSTAR All-Star Tournament. Two months after GSTAR, he lost to MVP in the first season of GSL’s Code S. In April, he lost to MVP again in the final of the GSL “World Championship” tournament.

Jung Hoon has made it to the grand finals in four of the world’s largest tournaments and never taken home a gold—but he’s an iconic, irreplaceable figure for the community. Jung Hoon’s wicked style, soft manner, and tearful responses to both wins and losses made him the poster boy for Terran, and for a time, maybe even for StarCraft 2 as a whole.

Jung Hoon uses the enemy's mineral patches as a wall to create a narrow choke for the Zerg units to attack through. This position keeps his army safe from a flank and at the heart of the Zerg economy.

“I’ll always try hard to play well and deliver fun games.”
Jung Hoon has yet to clinch a title, but he’s still made a cool $60,000 USD in his GSL second place earnings—no small amount, considering his lack of gold medals. He’s well-known, sitting at the top of the StarCraft 2 food chain at a time when the StarCraft 2 scene still has a ways to go before reaching its peak.

The game is still young, and Jung Hoon’s still full of potential, with no reason to falter. Perennial runner-ups Hong Jin Ho and golf pro Jack Nicklaus each still won a rack of gold medals. There is no reason why Jung Hoon cannot do the same.

If all goes well, competitive StarCraft 2 will turn into a behemoth of mythical proportions, rivaling even the Korean Brood War scene. Jung Hoon is one of the most engaging, captivating, entertaining and promising players that’s leading the community. Every time he gets close to finals, viewers have to wonder whether he will finally win a tournament, or continue to forge a legacy of silver. His story is compelling, his character full of good manners, and his playstyle is as entertaining as they come. If you aren’t yet a fan, you ought to be.

Thanks to my colleague Kwanghee Woo, aka “Waxangel” on TeamLiquid, we were able to get in touch with Jung Hoon’s team, “Prime,” and ask for an interview. Jung Hoon responded in his usual cheerful manner and shared his thoughts on his runner-up status, the transition from Brood War to StarCraft 2, and on much more, including his non-Marine related interests.

The prince who would be king.

PC Gamer: Hi, Jung Hoon. It’s a pleasure to be able to interview you for the foreign community. Do you ever follow foreign tournaments? Are there any foreigners that you want to play against?
Lee Jung Hoon: Hi, this is MKP, Lee Jung Hoon. I would like to face ThorZain who is doing well in foreign tournaments lately, or Greg Fields who has left Korea.

PCG: Which foreign tournament do you most want to compete in, and why?
JH: MLG, DreamHack, NASL, IEM—I would like to compete in all of them. Because I have little international experience, I would like to compete in any [overseas] tournament.

PCG: How does your “runner-up” identity affect you as a player? Is it something you ignore, or does each second-place finish make you that much hungrier for a win?
JH: I think it’s a good jinx. It gives me motivation to work harder and get rid of it.

PCG: What was the hardest StarCraft 2 game that you ever played? Which game is the most memorable for you? Many foreigners think that your games against NesTea in the GSL Open Season 2 made for one of the most exciting finals.
JH: The tournament games that I thought were the most fun were my quarter-final games against Kyrix in the GSL Open Season II. It went all five games, and because it kept going back and forth, it was fun. Of course I remember it because I won, keke (losing to Jaedeok hyung*[NesTea] in the finals is another unforgettable memory, but since I lost…)

PCG: How do you compare the team league oriented StarCraft: Brood War scene, with the Proleague, MSL and OSL, to StarCraft 2′s GSL and GSTL? Which aspects of the Brood War system would you like to see adopted by GOM? Team leagues like the GSTL are very popular in the foreign community.
JH: I think the ideal system is for the GSL and GSTL to grow with similar importance, like SC1, where it’s not too team league oriented.

MKP with his game face on.

PCG: Foreigners have recently been discussing the fact that none of the top Brood War players have switched to StarCraft 2. This has led some people to think that StarCraft 2 pro gamers do not practice as hard as Brood War pro gamers, and that all of the good StarCraft players are still playing Brood War. As a current StarCraft 2 pro gamer, and former StarCraft: Brood War pro gamer for the team MBCGame HERO, what are your thoughts on this?
JH: I think it was an amazing choice for SC1 players who were falling out of competition and were producing [unsatisfactory] results to switch to SC2. SC2 is much more open in terms of opportunities. Hmm, I think if SC1 gamers with skill at the TaekBaengLeeSsang level came over, they could be in the top tier of SC2. But now SC2 teams are being run very systematically around large amounts of practice, just as much as SC1 teams. So even if top SC1 players switched, they would need a lot of time to come up the ranks.

PCG: Who are you closest to in the Prime house? Do you keep in touch with anyone from MBC Game?
JH: The average age in the prime team is high, so I thought at first it would be difficult to make friends. But now I get along with everyone! If there’s anyone who I get along well with in particular, it would be “Maka” Kwak Han Eul, who’s of a similar age and I’m very friendly with. “Polt” Choi Sung Hoon and “AnyPro” Lee Jung Hwan are also very good to me. From MBCGame Hero, I stay in touch with Jaehoon hyung*, “Shark” Seo Gyeong Jong hyung, and “Tyson” Park Su Beom hyung.

PCG: What do you do in your spare time? What are your hobbies?
JH: Mainly I hang out with my friends, or watch TV shows or movies.

PCG: What’s your favorite movie and favorite music group?
JH: I can’t really pick my favorite movie, but of the ones I’ve seen recently, Inception sticks out. Of singers, IU is my favorite.

PCG: Thank you for your time, Jung Hoon. Any last words for all of your foreign fans?
JH: Thank you to my foreign fans who always love and cheer me on. Whether it’s Korean or foreign tournaments, I’ll always try hard to play well and deliver fun games, so keep your eyes on me!

*“Hyung” means “older brother” in Korean. The people do not necessarily have to be related. “Hyung” is used only by males.

On Asian piracy:
“Millions and millions of copies of Torchlight downloaded from the illicit market in certain Asian territories. And that’s fine with us. We knew it was gonna happen. For us, we kind of see it as, down the road, we’re building an audience. We’ve long since announced that we’re going to be doing an MMO, and y’know, we kind of view it as a marketing tool for us. We’re going to have millions of people who are familiar with our franchise, familiar with our style, and who are going to be ready customers when we do a global MMO.”

Torchlight 2 should be arriving in September or October.

On DRM:
“You’re fighting against an immovable force by complaining and being paranoid about [piracy] and all that. We figure if we’re just nice to our customers, charge a low price for our game to begin with, don’t over-burden them with crazy DRM, and customers will be nice to us too. And so far, they have been.”

“We got a lot of letters from people saying ‘Hey, I pirated your game, but it was really cool, so I bought it.’ Y’know, we’re cool with that, we’re not as concerned about that sort of thing as other companies, especially if it makes our honest players inconvenienced. We assume that everyone is an honest player, and we want to make their experience as cool as possible.”

On LAN support, which was just confirmed:
“I don’t know why everyone else doesn’t do it. I understand that a lot of other companies want to run you through their portal to expose you to the other products they have and make it easy for you to click a button and buy other stuff. But we’re a small company–we have Torchlight and Torchlight 2. There’s really no reason for us to do that sort of thing. And it’s something [fans] have requested, and we’re happy to be able to do it.”

On the prospect of community-created 50-player multiplayer:
“We’re releasing the tools that we use to make the game. We’re not dumbing them down at all or disabling anything–you’ll literally be able to change everything in the game, among that the maximum number of players that can get into a game. So yeah, if you make a level that’s appropriate for a ton of guys–we haven’t done 50–but it’s theoretically possible, it should work perfectly well.”

“Fredrik Wester: It’s now sold close to 600,000, and we’re still selling ten to fifteen thousand a week. We’re probably going to pass a million by the end of this year because we’re seeing no steep drop-off in the purchase rate.”

That’s a lot of accidental friend-murdering. Read on for Fred’s thoughts on the game’s crippling early bugs, details of the free PvP DLC, and why Paradox might release a standalone PvP-only Magicka in the future.

Magicka began with a miniscule development team of seven people. Fred explains Paradox’s process for bringing developers on board:

“PC Gamer: Does the company have any overriding philosophy to the type of games you make? Or is it purely that you’ve stumbled across a market and you want to service that market?

Fredrik Wester: It’s a mix. Obviously we’re looking for certain types of games. We’ve been working with TaleWorlds now since 2006 on the Mount & Blade series and I chased Armağan Yavuz for two years before he signed with us. I was thinking “This is so perfect because it’s niche and hardcore and even though it’s an RPG it’s still the same style that we want to do”. The Magicka team came to us and said “Can you do this game?” We were blown away by the whole concept. If we can choose ourselves we pinpoint companies we want to work with and we take it from there. Cyanide for example: they’ve done Blood Bowl, and they’re making Game of Thrones: Genesis. I’ve known Patrick, the CEO for many years. I contacted him in March saying “We have this idea and we want to do this game with you guys” and he was like “Great”.”

Fred took to Magicka immediately, and described the game to Graham as “sort of Monty Python in gaming.” Monty Python, if watchers had their televisions turn themselves off for the first three episodes, anyway – Magicka’s bugs were game-breaking until a few weeks after release. Fred’s aware of the game’s issues, and diplomatically describes it as “somewhat buggy.” How do Paradox mean to stop that happening again?

“PC Gamer: There’s been problems with bugs in a few Paradox games. Is that because you don’t have a big enough Q&A team, or is that a budget constraint?

Fredrik Wester: Our biggest challenge in the coming two or three years is quality assurance. We’ve been – I wouldn’t say sloppy – but inexperienced on how to deliver a fully polished product. We’re still learning. We’ve hired a new producer who comes from DICE and has a lot of experience on the Battlefield series. It’s a totally different approach to the whole gaming scene.

I agree with you both Hearts of Iron 3 and Ship Simulator Extremes should have been released in more polished states.”

Paradox aren’t done with Magicka. After the release of the gloriously unhinged Magicka: Vietnam pack, they’re experimenting with payment models. Fred confirmed PvP DLC – which they’ve “put a lot of effort into” – will be free for owners of the original game. Rather than a flat fee, players can purchase cosmetic items for minimal cash. In a departure from the normal ‘stupid hat #1, #2 and #3′ cosmetic items, these will serve a visual purpose for dedicated teams. Fred explained players can dress their wizard as RPG archetypes like the tank and healer to denote their preferred battlefield role. “It doesn’t do anything for your character, it’s just a visual feature.”

The PvP DLC will be out June 21st, but might be the precursor to something more substantial, as the developers have had so much fun with it:

“Fredrik Wester: It might’ve been that we put even more effort into the PvP parts of Magicka because it’s so solid. I would like to do, in the future, a standalone PvP-only online game for Magicka. That’s just a dream at the moment, but we’ll see.”

All these things are sort-of anathema to hardcore PC RPG-ers, I know. But yank yourself back from the precipice for a second and remember Skyrim’s still looking really good, and will take as long to finish as the PC RPG classics of yore. And, as Lafferty says in the interview, Bethesda are “still really big on the ‘go where you want’, play how you want from the very beginning”, as the trailer, and Tom’s analysis proves.

So many rumours are swirling about a potential multiplayer mode to be announced for Mass Effect 3 that they’ve formed a giant rumour tornado. It’s currently sweeping across Los Angeles, leaving a trail of destruction and frantically whispering games journalists in its wake. Truly upsetting to behold.

Not that you’d know from BioWare’s doctorly heads, Dr. Greg and Dr. Ray. They’re the calm eye at the centre of the rumournado. When one of our Future friends also at E3 asked them if ME3 would be the first game in the series to feature multiplayer, they responded that they had nothing to announce. Nothing to announce at E3. That, for those of you yet to have your coffee, means that a multiplayer mode could yet be announced in the future. CVG certainly seem to think that’s the case anyway, having dug through job ads to find sufficient evidence, and their argument’s fairly convincing.

Click through to watch another video where two very powerful men grin meaningful grins.

Failing the inclusion of a multiplayer mode in Mass Effect 3 – which CVG say might be a ‘horde’ style, with groups of humans holding off AI enemies – there’s always the outside chance of a dedicated multiplayer shooter set in the rich Mass Effect universe. Back before the Spike TV VG awards that showed the game’s first trailer, a noisy corner of the internet was adamant that we’d be getting a pseudo-Battlefield with biotic powers. BioWare have refused to rule anything set in the universe out, saying instead that they want to “go where their fans are.” This could even mean a Mass Effect MMO in the future: the company’s development of the Old Republic mean they’ve got the know-how, even if their commitment to TOR means they’ll be keen not to stand on their own MMO-toes. See the video below for full details, and a complete lack of denial.

EA certainly have the developers to do what they want with Mass Effect. Imagine a DICE-helmed multiplayer shooter, detailing battles on Virmire, or Reaper-infested Earth? Oh dear, I’ve gone all tingly. But should the Mass Effect universe be diluted, or kept as a monstrously successful, neatly wrapped-up trio. I’m not sure. What do you guys want?

A piece of high art. A fine sunset. The dew glistening on a petal at dawn. A shakespearian declamation. A furrowed brow on a politician making a serious ethical statement. An old maid cycling over cobblestones on her way to communion. Good taste.

All these are things that would not appear in Saints Row 3.

Instead we’ve seen; a car the shape of Johnny Gat’s head, including a flamethrower tongue. Giant hands that fit over your own hands and disintegrate humans on impact. A SWAT team that surround you guns blazing, all the time asking for your autograph. The purple dildo sword. A VTOL jet with guided missiles using a laser to disintegrate buildings. A bank heist where everyone, including Johnny Gat, is wearing promotional Johnny Gat headmasks. A thousand different crotch-targetting attacks. Professor Genki’s Super Ethical Reality Climax cat-faced pick-up truck, which sucks up passing civilians and fires them out through its ‘manipult’ in a shower of cartoon stars.

The Saints attack the bank disguised as themselves.

Drew Holmes, writer (one of five writers); “Anything that’s stupid and ridiculous that you wanted to do in a video game, that’s really what we’re embracing… cartoony, over-the-top ridiculousness… We don’t want people to stop smiling.” Any inspirations? “Shoot-’em-up. Crank… movies where you’re like ‘why would that ever happen in real life?’” Notably, these are movies that are dumb-as-bricks but also curiously high-concept – like Crank, where the protagonist is forced by a mythical drug to do more and more ludicrous stuff. Similarly, Saints Row The Third takes as its precept that the Saints are now a global brand, merchandised to the hilt and famous with it – then runs with the idea of what would happen if something as despicable as a murderous gang is the most famous thing in the world.

Get to the chopper!

It’s amazing that, while Rockstar actively seemd to court controversy, Saints Row hasn’t attracted any; as Drew says “when you’ve got a giant purple dildo sword or fists that turn people into red goo – no-one can take that seriously. It’s the style of the world itself. I’m sure someone will get angry at some point though.” Core to that is keeping the game fun, which itself requires a lot more hard work than you’d expect. “It’s all about design iteration; getting the mission in the game as early as possible, getting everyone to play it and getting feedback… the new engine and tools mean we’re able to really quickly iterate the design and find the balance between crazy, hard and fun…”

You see; steroids *are* bad for you.

Even the story elements face that same iteration; we saw the lengthy first mission of the game, with the Saints attacking a bank vault, just to provide a method actor with accurate source material for his biopic of Johnny Gat. The action quickly escalates from a simple bank heist, complete with giant Johnny Gat bobblehead masks, to a massive firefight involving massed SWAT. As it progresses, the building is increasingly battered, until eventually you end up riding the vault as it’s airlifted out through the bank’s shattered roof; it doesn’t stop there either, with your heavy-lift chopper being taken down by another chopper and you being captured by SWAT…

Your protagonist is, of course, completely customisable.

“That first mission alone has gone through several iterations. Saints Row 2 was entirely built in 3DS Max so when a section of the city was built, that was it. This time around, if something’s not working, we just rip it out and build something new, because of that the level of polish.” That design iteration is the way that the best comedians have always worked – the way people like Eric Morecambe would work so hard to make everything seem spontaneous and casual.

Co-op VTOLs looks super-happy-fun.

Drew continues; “The way open world games work best is by building that system and adapting to what the player wants to do. Building that living breathing city… you can go round Steelport, sit at a corner, and eventually someone’s going to start a fight, and cars are going to go flying by… we just try to plan what the players are going to do and give them the tools to have fun doing it.”  So the game supports drop-in, drop-out co-op, remembers which missions you’ve played together and focuses on co-op mini-games.  (Perhaps including the Running Man-esque Japanese gameshow Professor Ganky’s Super Ethical Reality Climax – featuring the catchphrase “Murder Time, Fun Time.”)

Planet Saints - just another brand.

So much of Saints Row has that wrestling meme about it, the fake stupidity and aggression, the outrageous plots, that we’re a little surprised that the team aren’t more vocal in their smacktalk to Rockstar. “Don’t talk happy funball. They’re the giant gorilla, they sell ten million copies. Don’t pick on the big guy. At the same time, they make really, really good games; why would you smacktalk anyone who makes quality shit?” Not even parodying Rockstar’s famously constipated antiheroes? “The industry is so small, poking fun at someone will come back and bite you in the ass.”

This really can't be in-game.

With tank skydiving, satellite-airstrikes on Mexican wrestlers, entire gangs dressed in furry costumes and total character customisation, Saints Row 3 isn’t going to win any awards for aesthetic excellence or wow the critics on late night talk shows – but it is going to be a damn fun sandbox to just piss around in. It’s due out November 15, 2011.

PC Gamer: That structure was something you moved away from in SupCom 2, I wondered if you considered it a mistake, or just something you hadn’t perfected yet.

Chris Taylor: One of the things that at first I thought was kinda novel, and then wondered if that was the right approach, was designing a game for myself. So Total Annihilation was a game I designed for myself. It was like everything I wanted in an RTS game, I put into Total Annihilation. Units could shoot while they moved, real physics, the fact that stuff was more emergent – based on rule system rather than hardcoded. So there’s a lot of things that I really wanted to do.

But as I went along and as the stakes got higher and as the games got more complex and the teams got bigger, I started thinking to myself: well, maybe I should be designing this game more for the people who are playing it, and not myself. Which I think actually works well. I mean if you talk to some very successful developers and teams, they say “Oh yeah, we sit around for hours and days, and we try out all these different ideas and gather all this feedback, and we do a lot more of that kind of research.”

And so I went more in that direction. And what happens is you get games that can actually sell more. So Supreme Commander sold more units with its somewhat less surprising and quirky game design than Total Annihilation did. So it was kind of true; if you wanted to make a game that people enjoy and wanted to play, you had to pay more attention to what they thought, what they wanted to do. So it works.

But you do lose some of that crazy artistic stuff. Game design is an art. It’s a real challenge. So what we’re doing with AoEO is we’re trying to make sure people are comfortable, and they can jump in and they can play, but then there’s some modes, some boosters, some content that has fresh ideas in it.

Just the fact that we have the Defense of Crete, for example, where you’re playing co-operatively/competitively, you actually have to explain it to someone a few times before they understand exactly what that is. You’re like “No no, you’re playing with a buddy against the computer, which is a comp-stomp, and then you’re going to turn around and you’re going to compete with your other friends – single or in pairs – to beat their score.

So that’s where we’re taking it to some places where people might [say], “Oh yeah, really? That’s an interesting idea.”

So let me answer your question by saying that it’s a mix of both, it’s a mix of doing some fresh things that are kind of interesting and new, and doing some things that are comfortable. So you have one foot in each camp, as you push a design forward.

Previously Chris told us why he thinks Steam’s dominance will shift, why he couldn’t go back from free-to-play games, and why PC gaming is bigger than ever.

On Tuesday we’ll have a podcast of this interview – with both Chris Taylor and Danan Davis of Microsoft Games, so you can hear what else they had to say about PC gaming, Age of Empires Online, Rise of Nations and the future.

Chris designed two of the world’s cleverest strategy games: Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander. More recently, he and his company Gas Powered Games took over development of Age of Empires Online, a free-to-play version of the old classic. He thinks Steam’s dominance will shift before long.

PC Gamer: What do you think of Steam? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Digital distribution generally seems to be a good thing, but is it bad that Steam has something close to a monopoly?

Chris Taylor: I have games on Steam, I have an account, I buy games there. I have three different digital distribution platforms on my PC, it’s driven mostly from the game I want to play. If it’s on there, if it’s exclusive, it narrows the field. I actually don’t generally have to do a whole lot of soul-searching.

Your question though was what do I think of the fact that it’s taken a footing? It’s obviously extremely popular. Kudos go to the Valve guys for having the vision to build it. And they made a big bet – they made a big, scary bet, and they get rewarded for that.

Ask me the question about where they are in the market five years from now: I think it’s gonna shift. I think the playing field’s gonna level out. Because exclusive content drives it. I mean once upon a time we had a Sega console. There was a company called Atari that had a big market position. It changes and it shifts based on the way the company continues to evolve and interact with its customers, the service it delivers.

I think that now we’re seeing so many new players come, they have to come to the market with their first party games. And if they deliver really outstanding games, the platform follows. So I think it’s all gonna work out in the end. But like I said, you’ve got to give kudos to those guys for jumping in and being first and doing a really good job, and taking a chance.

Previously Chris told us why he couldn’t go back from free-to-play games, and why PC gaming is bigger than ever. Tomorrow we’ll have his thoughts on Total Annihilation, and why his priorities changed as he moved on to Supreme Commander and Supreme Commander 2.

More recently, he and his company Gas Powered Games took over development of Age of Empires Online, a free-to-play version of the old classic. Here are his thoughts on why the platform has never been stronger.

PC Gamer: I’d like to ask you how you feel about the general state of PC gaming. We’re kind of at a weird time where sometimes it’s all doom-and-gloom and piracy is ruining everything, but then we’ve also got stuff like Steam, and it’s getting much easier for new developers to get something out there. Is this an exciting time for PC gaming, or a scary time?

Chris Taylor: It’s pure excitement, there’s no question. That’s an easy one.

PC gaming had one problem. We had a retail presence problem because we started to get into this transition, we lost retail space, so there was this reaction to that, so less product went into development. But I don’t know who was taking stock, because between The Sims, and World of Warcraft, and what’s happened in China with PC gaming, what’s happened in terms of PC games being played in the social and casual space, it’s all around us.

I think PC gaming went from a “Huh, is there a problem here?” To “Oh, not only is there not a problem, but PC gaming is bigger than ever.” It just had to go through a little bit of a reinvention.

The piracy problem is gonna be all but solved as we emerge here, and I think the new question is – which I love – is “What’s the future of console gaming?”

And I used to joke about that last year, when people were interviewing me. Off the record, I was going “You know, they should really be asking about the future of console gaming.”

Now people are. This question is starting to come up. And I was like “Ah, I don’t know – but that’s your problem. Don’t look at me.” I don’t have to answer that question, because I know what the answer for PC gaming is now, and I have a PC gaming company, right? I make PC games. And I’m about as happy about where we’re at as an industry and as a platform than I’ve ever been.

Yesterday we heard why Chris couldn’t go back from free-to-play now, and tomorrow we’ll have his thoughts on Steam and the future of digital distribution.

But far from being a stopgap between full-priced games, Chris says that working with the free-to-play model has convinced him it’s the future of the entire real-time strategy genre, and gaming in general. He says whatever he makes next will inevitably end up using it too. I tackled him to the ground in London recently, and demanded to know why.

PC Gamer: Are you just totally sold on that [free-to-play] model now?

Chris Taylor: I am so sold on that model! I am so ready to tell you that this is the future. Games will never be the same again now that we’re onto this way of approaching it.

And it changes, believe it or not, the way we design from the beginning. Not just the way we think about the game after, it changes the way we build the game to start with.

PC Gamer: So if you were making the next game in the logical sequence from Total Annihilation to Supreme Commander, you would do it as a free to play thing?

Chris Taylor: No matter what I tried to do, I would end up here. Because it’s the right way to go. I mean, people would be so crushed to hear they can’t play co-operative quests, to hear they couldn’t play all these modes we’ve got. They’re just going to ask for them. They’re just going to flat-out say, “Where are they?”

You play a quest – let’s say you don’t win. It happens. But you got all the stuff you collected, all the experience points you get, you get it all. So it’s cumulative. So the more you play, the more stuff you get.

It’s a great experience, very rewarding. I saw that model emerging in other places, it was popping up here and there, it was bursting through. It’s like nature, it’s just coming through all the cracks and crevices. But to see it full on now, it’s pretty clear. I don’t want to play a game and set the game down and have nothing to show for it. I have to have accumulated something for all that investment of time.

PC Gamer: So is AoEO what Gas Powered are doing for the next X years?

Chris Taylor: Yeah. We have other things, smaller things but other things going on. The great bulk of the company is working on Age of Empires Online, and we will be for, hopefully, years and years to come. There’s no telling, there’s no seeing totally into the future, but that’s the plan.

We’ll have Chris’s thoughts on the state of PC gaming tomorrow.

He called the project GameTrekking, and funded it with more than £3,000 of donations solicited from the web. Contributors to the fund get email updates from Magnuson and beta access to games in development, and those who contribute more get postcards from the road, links on his website, and even a credit in the games themselves, which are free, open-source and cross-platform.

PC Gamer spoke to Magnuson about doodling, genocide, and his experiences on the road.

PC Gamer: You’ve described some of your work associated with this project as “notgames”. What are notgames?

Jordan Magnuson: I call some of my creations notgames to emphasize the fact that they are neither games, nor tools.

Because of the way the interactive medium and the gaming industry have developed, there’s this huge expectation that when you sit down at your computer to have some kind of immersive interactive experience, what you’re going to be doing is playing a game, because true to their name most computer games are, in fact, games. Now the discussion of what precisely makes a game a game gets into a lot of semantic technicalities, but we can all recognize certain elements that tend to be common to most games, whether we’re talking about American football or Carrom, Mancala or Pac-Man: things like goals, rules, balance, challenge, interaction, and some elusive notion of “fun”.

The rules that govern games can be interesting and fun, but they can also be quite limiting when it comes to expressing an idea or creating an engaging interactive experience; it’s easy to frustrate people at the expense of engaging them, and people who lack the specific skill set that a particular game requires are essentially unable to enter into the conversation at all.

I think there will absolutely always be a place for the kind of skill development and human interaction that games naturally foster. But I think with computers we have all kinds of potential to create interesting interactive experiences that are not limited by the rules that govern games – experiences that are less about skill, competition, and racking up points, and more about exploring ideas, emotions, emergent narratives, and all the things that make us human beyond gameplay. We’ve really done very, very little to explore that potential.

Part of the problem, I think, is that we have no name for interactive creations that are neither games nor tools, and language powerfully affects our perception of potential.

So that’s what I’m working on these days: my whole gametrekking project is an attempt to expand the boundaries of interactive expression ever so slightly. I call many of my creations “notgames” in an effort to draw some awareness to fact that there’s this whole unexplored world of potential out there in the gap, even if we haven’t yet named that potential.

Freedom Bridge takes about two minutes to play through. You can play it on necessarygames.com.

PC Gamer: Your website, NecessaryGames.com, describes itself as a repository of games that have meaning and significance, and several of the games you’ve made deal with very dark themes. What have you got against fun?

Jordan Magnuson: Haha. I really don’t have anything against fun. But I do think there is a dearth of games that can really be considered meaningful or significant, partly because, as I was just saying, the rules and restrictions of gameplay don’t really lend themselves to exploring those things. I created NecessaryGames.com to try and highlight some games that might be considered meaningful, and open up a discussion there.

Just to clarify, I don’t really like the fact that my own creations are hosted on the site, as it may give people the impression that I am presenting my own work as being the height of “meaning” and “significance” in games, which is not my intention. I started dabbling in experimental game creation after the site had already been going for some time, and I posted my work there just because it was the most natural place for me to do so. Whether any of it is worth anything is entirely up to others to decide.

Yes a lot of my games and notgames deal with dark themes. Some of them deal with death, killing, genocide. I don’t think these are the only themes that games should be addressing, by any means, but I do think they are important themes that need to be addressed precisely because of the thoughtless and insensitive ways that games have addressed them in the past. When you think about it, nearly all of the games we make are already about death, already about killing, already about genocide.

But the expression of these things in our games has become so abstracted and dehumanized that we no longer recognize them for what they are. Death, as perceived through most of our computer games, loses almost all of the meaning it has had in the context of human lives and relationships throughout history. Thus, when it comes to the most significant themes in human experience, computer games have the tendency to strip meaning and significance out of those themes, strip empathy and understanding away from the people who play them.

I’m not saying I’m against RTS games, or chess, or even first person shooters. I’m just saying that for every game we have that makes life and death abstract to some extreme degree, I think we also need a game (or notgame) that solidifies them, humanizes them, reminds us of what we used to know about them.

Kindness of Strangers offers a different experience on your second playthrough.

PC Gamer: You’re also one of the few people in the world making games about travel. What is it about travel that you feel lends itself to indie games?

Jordan Magnuson: The reason I was drawn to make games (and notgames) about travel is that nobody else was doing it. I love travel. I love learning about new places. I love coming into contact with different worldviews. I love watching the interactions of cultures around the globe. But where are the games about these things? Where are the notgames? This is just one example of one of the many, many spheres of human experience that remains virtually untouched by the games industry. Because the industry isn’t concerned with exploring the myriad facets of the human experience: it’s concerned with finding new ways to implement addictive gameplay mechanics, and with building profitable franchises.

That’s not going to change. So we need people outside the industry who are willing to experiment and take risks, who are willing to try and make games and notgames about everything that the industry is ignoring. With the gametrekking project I decided to put my money where my mouth was, and try to be one of those people.

I’m afraid I’m making myself sound very heroic, but rest assured that I am no such thing: I just see a huge potential for the growth of a medium that very much excites me, and I want to be a part of that in any small way that I can. The things I make are not epic, or brilliant, or revolutionary: they are just sketches, doodles, prototypes, and experiments. But I personally think that what we need right now are a lot of experiments, a lot of sketches, and a lot of doodles, so I’m happy to doodle away, even when countless others can do so better than I can.

PC Gamer: Has the pressure of having donors to satisfy changed how you approach gamemaking?

Jordan Magnuson: Somewhat. Having donors has made me more keenly aware of the quantitative side of things. There’s this feeling that I need to produce a certain quantity of games in order to live up to my side of the donor-recipient bargain. Which is both good and bad. I’m a perfectionist, so my natural tendency is is to view any kind of quantitative measuring stick as a bad thing: quality beats quantity in my book every time.

But I also have to remember that what I’m doing here — as I just said — is sketching and doodling. Sketching and doodling are activities which profit greatly from an emphasis on quantity, because the point of a sketch is never to make something of great quality, but rather to make something that might serve as a springboard to something better later on.

From that standpoint, the more sketches one can churn out, the better. Which is part of the reason I created the gametrekking Kickstarter project: to force some kind of accountability there, to force myself away from my perfectionist tendencies.

Still, my creative process tends to function in a somewhat unpredictable, haphazard way, and my perfectionism has a nasty habit of hanging on. Add the strain and time requirements of independent travel to the mix, and you have a recipe whereby it is often difficult for me to meet the quantitative goals I set for myself, which sometimes leads to stress, which sometimes diminishes my creativity. So like I said, good and bad.

You can follow Jordan's journey in detail through his website.

PC Gamer: You’ve made it through five countries but with games only listed on your site for one of those, not including Korea. Is finding the time to make games proving more difficult than you imagined?

Jordan Magnuson: Haha. Like I was just saying: yes. The kind of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants independent travel that I’m engaged in just takes a lot of time, especially once I add in the research I’m attempting to get done for each country I travel through (I like to read histories, as well as local fiction and poetry, watch local films, etc), I find myself fairly swamped most of the time. On top of that, game development is fairly time-intensive even when it comes to very small projects, and I’m tending to find that it’s not an activity I can complete very successfully in short spurts (like I can do with reading, or writing). I do much better if I can get periods of several hours to focus on creating something.

So right now I’m attempting to balance days of constant travel with days of development-focused stasis, but doing so has been difficult: “down time” is generally as expensive as “up time” (if not more so), and finding good environments for productive work (with power outlets, dependable internet connections, relatively low noise, etc.) is not always easy in places like Vietnam or Cambodia.

I actually just released a new notgame from Cambodia today (play it here), and I’ve got some things in the hopper, but I’m also coming to terms with the fact that I’m probably going to continue to be behind in my quantitative development goals for as long as I’m on the road. I will probably get to the end of my trip and have a significant backlog of ideas to work on.

The Killer was influenced by the crimes committed in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge regime.

PC Gamer: What software tools do you use to put games together on the road, and how do you use them?

Jordan Magnuson: Basically, I’m coding all my games in ActionScript 3 right now, which allows them to run in Adobe’s Flash Player, which means just about anyone can play them in a web browser without having to install anything. I use the excellent (and free) FlashPunk library to give me a base for game development on top of AS3, and I do the actual coding in FlashDevelop, which is a free code editor for ActionScript.

PC Gamer: What are your future plans for the project? When you’re done in South-east Asia, will you keep going?

Jordan Magnuson: My funds will be running rather low by the time I get out of Southeast Asia, but there should still be some left, so we’ll see. One option I’ve looked into is taking the train from Hanoi to Beijing, then the Trans-Siberian across Russia.

Taiwan is influenced by the island's complex and tenuous relationship with China.

PC Gamer: Finally, do you have any advice for anyone else contemplating a similar game-making expedition? Anything you wish that you’d known before you started?

Jordan Magnuson: I think it’s unwise to count on getting much done on the road. When setting up this project I was probably overly optimistic there, which is why I’ll end up with a backlog of work to do once this trip is over. In the future, if I were to do something like this again, I would probably try to fund shorter trips (maybe a few weeks) to individual destinations.

I’d do most of my research beforehand, spend the trip focused on the actual traveling, journaling and gathering of materials (photos, interviews, music, sound clips, etc.), then come back home and put the games together in a more relaxed, focused setting. Of course, there would be steeper funding challenges to an approach like that, and it would lack some of the unique challenges and opportunities afforded by extended travel.

Despite the difficulties, my gametrekking journey has been an amazing trip so far, and I’m very grateful to all the people who have made it possible. At this point I really just want to fulfill my side of the bargain by giving back as much as I can.

Follow Jordan’s journey on his travel log, and play the games he’s made so far on GameTrekking.com.

PC Gamer: Do you think that Mass Effect 2 was successful in convincing players that they needed to work for Cerberus? It seemed like quite a bold angle to have a terrorist organisation employing you, and you start out very resistant to the idea. Do you feel that that worked in the end?

Casey Hudson: It’s actually kind of interesting, because… most video games don’t offer any choice in the story – the story is the story. But as soon as you offer choice in a story, where you stop offering choice is where you’re criticised. And you end up being criticised for not having enough choice, even though you offer this much more. It’s at the edges where you’re criticised.

So I would say that the idea of Shepard dying, and essentially being resurrected by a group that he may or may not agree with, is part of that story that we felt served that episode of the series. And I think that it worked on that angle.

It happens on different scales too, like sometimes something has to happen. Without being specific, I was playing a game that has a interactive story to some degree, and I’m given something that’s extremely important, and I’m supposed to take it to a certain character. Then I’m talking to that character, and that character says “Oh you have it, thank you. I’ll just take that.”

But it then gives you a dialogue response – you have one response and it’s “Yes.” And at that point I literally couldn’t touch my controller, because I thought “I don’t want to.” I would not say yes. But at least what we try to do is, if that thing has to happen in the story, then we at least let you do something or deal with it in some way. Even if it’s telling the person “No,” and then they say “Well, you’re not going to get very far if you don’t do this.” Some kind of flavour around how you can play it.

PC Gamer: Yeah, there are some in Mass Effect where your options are “Yes,” “Definitely yes,” or “Oh, alright, yes.”

Casey Hudson: Yeah, sometimes it has to be like that to tell a story that doesn’t become multiple different stories, versus different versions of a story.

PC Gamer: I was going to ask you about killing the Batarians in The Arrival DLC – am I right in saying that’s not a choice?

Casey Hudson: That’s right, yeah.

PC Gamer: That seems like quite a big one, given that a lot of people died.

Casey Hudson: Yeah, that was a big one. I can see how people would want us to be able to create like [an alternative]. People were even asking at the end of Mass Effect 2, “So if Shepard can die, after Shepard dies, then what happens in Mass Effect 3?” It’s like, “Wow, OK. So we definitely can’t build a game around a completely different character and Shepard.

Likewise, in Arrival, literally the all powerful beings that can destroy us are at the door, and there’s really only one thing you can do to slam the door shut, and that was to destroy the Mass Relay. But it has this side effect of killing the Batarians. It ties into some of the stuff that we wanted to do at the beginning of Mass Effect 3 as well, and why Shepard returns to the Earth.

Previously, Casey told us how Mass Effect 3′s romance options have expanded, how your choices throughout the series will influence Mass Effect 3′s ending, how they used Mass Effect 2 DLC to experiment with ideas for the third game, why you shouldn’t shoot the hideous sacs on a Reaper Rachni, and that Tali will return as a full time squad member.

You can subscribe to all our Mass Effect 3 news and previews if you use an RSS reader.

PC Gamer: With the choices in the series before, there’s often been the pressure of, ‘If I get this wrong, I’m going to make life difficult for myself later on’ – is that actually the case when the consequences kick in in Mass Effect 3?

Casey Hudson: [Deaths in Mass Effect 2] became the grade of scale of your success of the end game, and we have something similar here. You’re basically building towards greater and greater degrees of success, in terms of how you’re able to fight the Reapers. So similarly you’re going to want to do more, and be more successful, and make better choices throughout. And then that, combined with more personal or more moral choices about how to deal with things… those things will ultimately affect part of the end game, which is pretty amazing.

PC Gamer: So it’s not like, if I let the Rachni live, now I can’t complete the game because they’ve killed everyone. But maybe I can’t get the ultra-nice ending where everything works out perfectly?

Casey Hudson: I think a way to think about it is if you made decisions early on, you’ll see them affecting this. And the decisions you might want to make that go against those prior things are gonna be harder. Killing the Rachni might present opportunities in Mass Effect 3 that you wouldn’t otherwise have, but if you don’t take those opportunities and you try and do something in opposition to that, then it would be harder for you than if you work with it. Similarly with the decisions at the end of Mass Effect 2, for whether you saved the base or destroyed it.

And so all the different things that you do, if you do a little side quest, or you go off and do a major plot, these things contribute to the war effort. If you just rip straight down the critical path and try and finish the game as soon as you can, and do very little optional or side stuff, then you can finish the game. You can have some kind of ending and victory, but it’ll be a lot more brutal and minimal relative to if you do a lot of stuff. If you really build a lot of stuff and bring people to your side and rally the entire galaxy around you, and you come into the end game with that, then you’ll get an amazing, very definitive ending.

Casey also told us how they used Mass Effect 2 DLC to experiment with ideas for the third game, why you shouldn’t shoot the hideous sacs on a Reaper Rachni, that Tali will return as a full time squad member, and that there’ll be no new love interests in the third game (but then, confusingly, tweeted this. We’ve asked for a clarification).

We’ll have another chunk of Mass Effect 3 details tomorrow. You can subscribe to all our Mass Effect 3 news and previews if you use an RSS reader.

Fair warning: the first part of Casey’s answer is about how surprising Mass Effect 3 is, and in the second part he tells us something that happens right near the start. He also refers to some stuff that happens in the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC for Mass Effect 2. Spoilers follow.

PC Gamer: What was the biggest area of improvement that you wanted to focus on in Mass Effect 3?

Casey Hudson: One thing that we’re doing is just making the entire experience feel a lot more… it’s the moment to moment unpredictability, the variability. Anything can happen. We’ve got these action moments, little micro-cutscenes and stuff that lead in and out of actual gameplay. We’ve got lots and lots of epic situations that you’re in for gameplay and combat stuff that we’ve never done before.

Some of the stuff we did in our DLC was very successful, and were in a way prototypes for what we’re doing here. So when you fought the Shadow Broker, there’s a different scenario for how you’re fighting this huge guy who’s smashing parts of the environment, and charging you, and you’re working together. Or you’re on the back of that big ship, and there’s wind. And we had the whole car chase thing in the Shadow Broker. So with some of these things we’re just kind of experimenting with stuff to broaden that envelope of gameplay that we’re doing in Mass Effect 3.

PC Gamer: So what kind of stuff in Mass Effect 3 does that relate to?

Casey Hudson: Well, without me giving away specific situations… a moment on Earth where you’re trying to get away from the Reapers. You’re on a building where the structure’s collapsed, and you’re sliding down the glass face of a skyscraper, and you roll at the bottom. It’s a moment, but you feel like you’re part of it. And these kinds of things are throughout the game: grabbing a turret and mowing down a few of the guys before you go on to the next thing.

But a lot of it is also narrative based, so in shows like Band of Brothers, the group will be fighting their way through and then they’ll meet up with a tank, and they’ll crouch along with the tank as it moves up to the next thing. So we’re doing moments like that, where we’re letting the narrative be more and more part of the combat.

Casey also told us why you shouldn’t shoot the hideous sacs on a Reaper Rachni, that Tali will return as a full time squad member, and that there’ll be no new love interests in the third game.

He’s since tweeted, though, that he’s “Happy to confirm #ME3 supports wider options for love interests incl. same-sex for m&f chars, reactive to how you interact w/them in-game.” Either something’s changed, or some familiar faces are getting bi-curious – we’ve asked for a clarification.

We’ll have another chunk of Mass Effect 3 details tomorrow. You can subscribe to all our Mass Effect 3 news and previews if you use an RSS reader.

PC Gamer: When you’re fighting the Reaper-ised version of a species, how is that different to fighting the normal versions of them?

Casey Hudson: It’s quite different, that’s where we’re putting a lot of our fun new special activities, around these new abilities that they have. So we’re giving them heavier melee stuff that they might do, or one of them is able to suck back the health of the enemies you’ve killed around it. So as you’re killing enemies next to it, your squadmates are working on this character, and it’s able to suck in the health. You start thinking about tactically, “is it better to work on this character first, or fight the guys first to get them all cleared out? Because it’s going to suck their health if I try and fight them both?”

So they have special abilities that their origin species don’t have, but it’s always kind of hinting back at what that species is good at.

PC Gamer: You guys were talking about a Reaper creature with a sac that bursts if you shoot it, and smaller creatures come out – do you have any other favourite examples of location specific damage stuff like that?

Casey Hudson: Yeah, I think two of them. One of them is the Atlas that you saw, so it’s the big kind of mech thing. The cool thing about that is obviously once you see it moving, you get more of an idea of what it’s about – it’s a massive, heavy thing that’s got a huge cannon on it. But it’s piloted by a Cerberus trooper that’s on the inside – you can actually see him in there, and if you concentrate on the little glass shield that he’s behind, if you can take that shield out. Then you can damage the guy that’s in there, and then you kill the guy and the machine’s dead.  Or likewise if you kill the machine, then the guy can hop out and you fight him. So there’s some fun stuff in there in terms of fighting a machine that’s actually piloted by a guy.

And then the sac thing, that’s where the Reaper-ised Rachni has a few of these sacs on him, so as you’re fighting him – in terms of location based damage – you really don’t want to hit one of those things, because then it unleashes the little creatures that are inside that scuttle along and try and climb up you. Those are a couple of the more fun ones.

Casey also told us Tali will return as a full time squad member, and that there’ll be no new love interests in the third game. We’ll have another chunk of Mass Effect 3 details tomorrow. You can subscribe to all our Mass Effect 3 news and previews if you use an RSS reader.

PC Gamer: How are the romance options compared to previous games? In Mass Effect 1 you only had a few, and then Mass Effect 2 had loads.

Casey Hudson: It had a few more. In this one, we don’t really have new characters that are part of the romance stuff in the way that we did in Mass Effect 2, where we introduced a lot of characters. So this is more about how you, if you’re a new player, how you start these romances with the existing characters. If you’ve had relationships with previous characters, then it’s your opportunity to resolve those. And again, it’s in the context of a ‘World War II’-type setting, so you don’t really know if you’re going to survive, or what kind of a world is going to live beyond the story. So it’s kind of that situation.

But we also have some interesting things happening, where you’ve got Ashley and Kaiden from the first game, you’ve got Liara, and there’s sort of a love triangle there. And then we gave people a bunch of new characters. People said “Well, I just want my Mass Effect 1 characters, and I’m not interested in any of these characters.” But then a lot of people had romances with those characters, and now the fun is bringing back some of those characters from Mass Effect 1 and putting them back in the mix, and looking at what you did in Mass Effect 2 and bringing some… interesting scenarios around those things.

PC Gamer: It must be a nightmare, because if you think about all those combinations of who you might have started dating, stopped dating then started dating somebody else, you’ve got to figure out how they react to each other in every case…

Casey Hudson: Yep – it’s fun! (Laughs) I think sometimes when we do certain things, it makes players realise what kinds of things are possible, and then they think about a different level of meaning in terms of why they’re doing things, in terms of how the characters relate. So even something like: if you had a Mass Effect 1 romance and you didn’t have a Mass Effect 2 romance, so you stay true to the character from the first game, there’s a scene where you look at the picture of that character, and that’s essentially the romance scene in Mass Effect 2.

I think when people realised that we were thinking about that kind of thing, and that we were going to reflect those kinds of decisions, then it’s like “Wow, the game actually knows that I didn’t cheat on my Mass Effect 1 love interest. So if it knows that, then it probably knows other stuff that it will reflect. Then that means I need to think about that stuff [when] talking to characters and making decisions and the like.”

PC Gamer: So it’s all existing characters… I’m just trying to think what gay or lesbian characters that gives you. That would leave Liara?

Casey Hudson: Well yeah, it’s going to be similar to Mass Effect 1 and 2. Like I say, we’re not introducing any new characters that are going to be love interests. There’s some new characters, but generally it’s going to be the interplay between the characters from 2 and the returning ones from 1, and then Liara as the one that’s… either asexual or omnisexual, depends on how you look at it.

Casey also told us Tali will return as a full time squad member, but implied Wrex won’t. We’ll have another chunk of Mass Effect 3 details tomorrow. You can subscribe to all our Mass Effect 3 news and previews if you use an RSS reader.

Casey Hudson: Wrex will be… basically everyone that’s a main character is in Mass Effect 3. Everyone – every single team character in the entire series – is in Mass Effect 3, but not necessarily as a squad member. So Wrex will be there but not necessarily as a full squad member.

The squadmates we can confirm are Garrus, Liara, Ashley or Kaiden, James Vega, and the one that we can mention that we haven’t mentioned before is Tali.

PC Gamer: Will some of the main characters who aren’t full squadmates tag along for one mission?

Casey Hudson: Yeah. Basically when the story moves to deal with that particular main character, there might be a plot where they join you for a little while, and they’re with you for that mission.

Casey says the returning characters, particularly Shepard him or herself, make the Mass Effect series unique.

Casey Hudson: I would argue that this is the only trilogy in games. There have been games where there were three, but in terms of planning it out from the beginning, with a story that was meant to span three games, and actually finishing all three games – I don’t know if that’s ever been done before.

Certainly bringing your character across and those decisions, that hasn’t been done before. So we have a really, really exciting opportunity, which is to take all of the stuff that we’ve built and it’s not now just about continuing it, but it’s about letting people end it. And end it in ways that, especially if you’ve been following the series, you know what it would mean to end certain conflicts in certain ways. You know the values behind it, and the history behind it, and especially the people that are affected.

We talk about the Genophage, and how you could resolve that in different ways, because you know so many people affected by it: Grunt and Wrex and Mordin and these characters that you can actually put a face on. So it’s pretty exciting to be able to finish it.

You can hear more about what Tom thought of Mass Effect 3 in the PC Gamer UK podcast, and we’ll have more juicy info from Casey tomorrow. You can subscribe to all our Mass Effect 3 news and previews if you use an RSS reader.

PCG: If you were to buy a graphics card right now, what would you get?

John Carmack: Let me caution this by saying that this is not necessarily a benchmarked result. We’ve had closer relationships with Nvidia over the years, and my systems have had Nvidia cards in them for generations. We have more personal ties with Nvidia. As I understand it, ATI/AMD cards are winning a lot of the benchmarks right now for when you straight-out make synthetic benchmarks for things like that, but our games do get more hands-on polish time on the Nvidia side of things.

Nvidia does have a stronger dev-relations team. I can always drop an email for an obscure question. So its more of a socio-cultural decision there rather than a raw “Which hardware is better.” Although that does feed back into it, when you’ve got the dev-relation team that is deeply intertwined with the development studio. That tends to make your hardware, in some cases, come out better than what it truly is, because it’s got more of the software side behind it.

Carmack also weighs in on medieval weaponry: twisted swords win.

You almost can’t make a bad decision with graphics cards nowadays. Any of the add-in cards from AMD or Nvidia are all insanely powerful. The only thing that’s still lacking—and it’s changing—is the integrated graphics parts. Rage executes on an Intel integrated graphics part, but it isn’t something you’d want to run it on right now. But even that’s going to be changing with the upcoming generations of things.

I mean, the latest integrated graphics parts probably are more powerful in many ways than the consoles. If they gave us the same low-level of access, coupled with the much more powerful CPUs, we could do good stuff there. Of course, that’s the worrisome large-scale industry dynamic there, where as integrated parts become “good enough,” it’s got to make life really scary for Nvidia on there. If it went that way to its logical conclusion, where Intel parts were good enough and Nvidia was pinched enough not to be able to do the continuous R&D, that would be an unfortunate thing for the industry.

To some degree, it seems almost inevitable where the world of multi-hundred-dollar add-in cards are doing something that’s being done pretty well by an on-die chip. Not right now, maybe not next year, but it’s hard to imagine a world five years from now where you don’t have competent graphics on every CPU die.

PC Gamer: What does the name 8Realms signify?

8Realms is actually in two parts. The first is a reference to the 8 Ages of the game, hence ‘8’, the second refers to your dominion or rule in the game, hence ‘Realms’. And 8Ages just didn’t quite roll off the tongue, nothing rolls quite as well as an ‘R’

PC Gamer: The Jagex employees seem to play a lot of board games – what have you learnt from them; are there any board games whose mechanics have been particularly inspirational?

How long do you have? We brought a lot of the mechanics from the more diplomatic board games. The combat mechanics draw from a few brawl card games I’ve been playing, which add depth and flexibility in a fairly simple fashion. Though that’s mostly under the hood. I think the biggest thing we used is our experience of playing diplomatic board games more than mechanics themselves. That great feeling when you are trying to negotiate a takedown of someone you are playing against, or the wonderful hands in the air innocence of the turtling player.

An ancient settlement, yesterday.

PC Gamer: For a long time you’ve been content to focus on the development of Stellar Dawn; why is Jagex moving into this field now?

We’ve always been exploring what’s possible. We’ve had a few games in the mobile environment, Bouncedown in particularly was very successful. We also have access to all the consoles and are exploring options on other platforms. Our web tech was started several years back for our websites and recently expanded to games. We have had other ventures, like FunOrb, which generated a wide range of IP for us and have explored several different genres. With the developments on Stellar Dawn, Transformers and 8Realms what you are seeing is the culmination of several years of work behind closed doors, we’ve been busy, just not loud.

PC Gamer: 8Realms seems like a solid, attractive-looking social game along the lines of Immortal Cities: Nile Online, Evony or Lord of Ultima. What’s its USP, that distinguishes it from these?
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Attitude, we are setting out to make a solid competitive strategy game. Putting the game first, getting the mechanics right and then putting on that polish. We are using Micro-transactions to augment the experience and they will never dull the competitive edge. I could list off our mechanics like; repeating trade, population mood, map control, the 40+ unique wonders, the 300+ research items, the list goes on, however they are just the parts of a bigger machine.

We wanted to make a brilliant strategy game we can enjoy, at this time we are quite modest in our mechanics but we have a lot planned to add-on depending what works well in the beta. I could tell you more but we really want beta to work as beta should, so we want your readers to get involved and help us to shape 8Realms into a fantastic product.

PC Gamer: These strategic browser games don’t often seem to attract the demographic of PC Gamer readers. Why do you think that is? How is 8Realms different?

Honestly, I think it’s because most of these games are about who has the biggest wallet or friends list and they tend to go on and on, without end. We have a defined set of goals, a rough idea of how long each game will last and ultimately each game will have a winner.

I think it’s less about the back-of-the-box feature list and more about the execution. If we can refine our balance and mechanics ensure there is enough strategic choice in the game so that our players are exercising their minds to achieve victory; then we are succeeding.

PC Gamer: Is your flashless browser engine something unique to Jagex? Will you be rolling out a lot more games using this tech? How does it work with more action-oriented titles?

The browser is an interesting space, what is possible now would have blown our minds just two years ago. The key issue is the gap between the cutting edge and what’s widely deployed. Many people are exploring this, especially with the introduction of HTML5. I think most of the excitement is outside the traditional game development environment at the moment, but more and more game devs are going to start to sit up and take notice of HTML as a platform. Twitch gaming is possible in the browser right now.

I play around with WebGL and dev-branch browser and just think of what we could be doing in the future. So I think we will be less and less limited and our technology, which is mostly server-side, puts us in a good position to capitalise on that.

We will always choose the right tech for the game, be that pure browser, Java or something else.

PC Gamer: You deal with drop-out by having a consequenceless starting area for new players – do you think you might lose players at the break point between realms? At the end point of games?

You are always going to lose a few players, either to real life situations or because the game is not for them. Obviously we want to minimize the loss and more importantly minimise the impact of loss on other players. Our staging area, the bubble we call it, is our protection against that. The first age of the game is instanced in such a fashion that your play experience does not affect others. This fits nicely into the lore of the world; as your tribal village is scared of the wider world there are dragons out there don’t you know. It takes between two and three play sessions for the average player to finish this first stage before they are moved onto the main servers. This method of progression allows us to removes most the deadwood from our servers and world maps to make the game more enjoyable for others.

The world is your slimy edible bivalve.

PC Gamer: How will you be expanding Jagex’s userbase outside of the players who started on Runescape?

We have very strong relationships with our loyal fans, but with 8Realms, Stellar Dawn and Transformers we will attract a lot of new players into the Jagex world. They are all very different games with different styles that will appeal to a wide range of people.

PC Gamer: Some of the standard design tricks for making games “sticky” are somewhat amoral in that they promote addiction-like behaviours; how have you made 8Realms compelling whilst avoiding addiction?

Haha, now that’s a fine line. Is adding sugar, cheese and chocolate to food evil? We don’t use any social or monetisation gating which require you to spam your friends and we never allow money to unbalance the game. There is a distinct absence of clickable cows or lost puppies!

That being said I know a handful of people who have lost sleep in our internal playtests to gain an edge or launch an assault when someone is sleeping.

Overall I would say the biggest anti-addiction point is there is no infinite grind, also because of how the mechanics work the optimal play requires between 15-30 minutes of time throughout the day. True you may spend a lot more time planning and scheming but really the game is a fairly light time commitment.

PC Gamer: PLEASE STATE ANY HILARIOUS ANECDOTES FROM DEVELOPMENT IN THE SPACE PROVIDED

Oh dear, well three turning points occurred for me during development. The first was in the early days when we started a small dev test game; there are luxuries in the game you can fight over, and one of these luxuries was, at the time, a giant clam on the map. The moment a dev stood up and shouted, “hands off my clams” was the moment I knew people cared.

Another time my dev team and I were in the cinema and someone pulled out their iPad to check on their settlement and again I knew the game was working as a portable experience. Finally, during internal Alpha testing, I walked into another dev department upstairs and found a group of guys scheming to take out a co-worker. I knew the meta-game was in action.

Mostly it’s just us bouncing off the walls, eating pizza, screaming at our screens and putting lol-cats in the game. But it is brilliant and we all love it.

While elements like the Smuggler class’s ability to take cover shows that BioWare is taking modern action mechanics into account during design, TOR’s main focus is on presentation and interactivity—two areas ripe for expansion. Electronic Arts is betting a lot of money that players want a story-based MMO—TOR is its most expensive game to date. Luckily, crafting compelling stories is BioWare’s specialty. Utilizing interactive cutscenes and voice acting, TOR lets players experience missions in a manner usually reserved for single-player games. The developer even created a system that allows multiple players to progress through the story together, with each having a turn to make choices that could dramatically alter each mission. These advancements are going to be important if BioWare is going to stay competitive in the subscription market, especially with WoW sitting on 12 million active subscribers.

Way cooler than dual-wielding copper daggers.

Galactic civil war

TOR will have a subscription fee, but does that mean that the game will be forced to compete with World of Warcraft for the same pool of customers? Perfect World Entertainment’s Director of Marketing Jonathan Belliss doesn’t think sharing is an option: “You aren’t going to see a lot of gamers playing more than one subscription MMO.” Whether BioWare and Blizzard like it or not, TOR’s combat, quest design and subscription fee setup bear enough similarity to WoW’s that the two games will be pitted head-to-head against each other, at least in the minds of gamers.

We talked to developers working on different MMOs from all across the industry. It didn’t matter if they were creating titles for kids, making free-to-play games, or polishing AAA subscription-based releases for an impending launch: everyone’s eyes are on TOR. Nathan Richardsson, executive producer for CCP Games’s EVE Online, thinks that “whatever happens to TOR, it will have massive repercussions throughout the entire industry. [Those repercussions] will range from the cancellation of games and the closing down of studios to people rethinking how to approach the MMO genre.”

Greetings, I am Ron Solo, smuggler.

Don’t get cocky

If TOR is everything that fans hope it’ll be, we may finally find out how many people are willing to pay for a subscription-based game. Between WoW’s mastery of the fantasy genre and TOR’s story-driven sci-fi romp in the most popular geek franchise on the planet, that’s a solid one-two punch to bring out everyone that’s ever considered paying a subscription fee. “There’s definitely a need for genre choices beyond fantasy,” explains Nexon America’s Director of Game Operations Minho Kim. He’s not the only one saying this—many agree that there’s an overabundance of orcs and paladins when it comes to MMOs, including VP of Development at KingsIsle and co-creator of Wizard101, Josef Hall. Hall warns that games in similar settings leads to “cannibalization,” a belief many other developers shared with us. Todd Harris, executive producer at Hi-Rez Studios, whose MMOFPS Global Agenda mocks the over-saturation of fantasy MMOs in its ad campaigns, echoes the concern that “too many MMOs are still fantasy-based” and hopes to see “developers innovating with setting.”

With games like MapleStory and Vindictus, Nexon isn’t necessarily known for creating story-driven engagements, but Kim is anxious to see players’ responses to BioWare’s focus on narrative and its use of voiceovers. If successful, TOR could start a shift to story-driven MMOs—a move that Runes of Magic’s Andreas Weidenhaupt, CEO of Frogster Online Gaming, and Carbine Studios’s Lead Designer Tim Cain anticipate. Cain, currently working on an unannounced game for Guild Wars publisher NCsoft, is hoping that the RPG will return back to its story-based roots. “Killing a villain in an RPG is exciting because of all of the story that led up to the encounter,” he says. “The player has become invested in his character and in the world, so the big combats actually mean something.”

Never tell me the odds!

Lack of faith

“I’m a huge fan of BioWare,” says Belliss, “however, the scale and supposed budget for TOR are so astronomical that I can see how it could potentially become a train wreck.” If TOR is as well-made as BioWare’s other releases—most of which have been praised by fans and critics alike—and still fails, it’d speak volumes. It could prove that there’s simply not enough room for more than one WoW-sized MMO in the subscription market, something Richardsson already believes. “If you start out with the goal to ‘take down’ WoW, you will fail miserably.” Others, like Age of Conan’s Game Director Craig Morrison, wonder why anyone would ever try to “beat” WoW, considering the amount of funding it would take to compete with such a well-established game. BioWare claims they only need 500,000 subscribers for TOR to be profitable, but that number would undoubtedly feel like a letdown for a project of this size. If TOR fails to meet expectations, we’ll likely see an even faster rise of the free-to-play business model. Bigpoint’s CEO and founder, Heiko Hubertz, whose browser-based Battlestar Galactica Online recently went into open beta, believes that free-to-play is becoming the more viable option. He told us, “While WoW has clearly demonstrated its staying power, plenty of other games have shifted to F2P after failing to achieve critical mass—and return on investment—through subscriptions.”

Even more important than finding out what happens will be looking back after the dust settles to determine why it happened. BioWare and EA are investing as much (or more) time, money and effort into making their story-based MMO than any game developer could reasonably expect to before launch. But what if we find out afterwards that MMO gamers simply aren’t looking for that kind of narrative? Nexon’s Minho Kim is skeptical: “I’m really curious if people will love the [voiceovers] beyond the initial experience, or if we will hear people say ‘I grinded through eight hours of voiceovers today.’” There’s also a chance that BioWare’s game is simply flying too closely to WoW’s style of gameplay, something Todd Harris is weary of in general. He told us, “A developer would be foolish to try to chase WoW’s success by developing a game that’s too similar.” If TOR fails, developers will likely look to revolutionize on different fronts, such as integrating different styles of combat, deeper persistence, more complex economic and social systems, more challenging encounters or one of the many other ways to mix up gameplay without requiring TOR’s massive budget.

He’s just mad that the Blue Man Group fired him.

Use the Force

No matter what happens, The Old Republic will be an important launch for MMO gamers. Its success or failure will tell developers more about what gamers want and how they want to pay for it more accurately than any research could. Of course, we’ll learn if BioWare and EA’s gamble of giving MMO players something different paid off, but we’ll also learn a lot about the long-term viability of subscription-based games, story-driven MMOs, and whether or not WoW players can be swayed away from their game of choice (or if doing so is even necessary to succeed).

It’ll be you, the gamers, who decide what TOR will mean for the future. Whether you’ll be slashing apart droids with your Twi’lek or watching from the sidelines, TOR will not only shape the fate of the universe you’re gaming in now, but all of the future ones as well. Everyone’s watching to see what you think.

“It wasn’t particularly terribly fun,” Hartsman told me during an interview, referring to the final stages of the River of Souls event. “We knew very well that we could handle hundreds of people in a single zone doing a single event, because that happens in the game all the time. The ultra-scale issue happens when you end up with a thousand people standing in the same ten-foot square.”

For those who refrained from logging into the River of Souls event, the “ultra-scale issue” he’s speaking about was the servers exploding after a few thousand people all ran to the same spot on the map. It wasn’t pretty. We presented our grievances to Hartsman last week, to see what he’d have to say.

The bone dragon rift was a welcome addition.

Learning is half the battle
His initial response was reassuring: he wasn’t just concerned with the fact that the servers couldn’t handle the stress. He acknowledged that the final stages of the event were far too short, and relied heavily on the idea that thousands of people fighting the same enemy in the same place at the same time would be entertaining, In short: even if the event had worked as planned, it wouldn’t have been all that fun.

“At the end of the day, the biggest [lessons we learned] are about space compression and time compression—they’re bad ideas, just don’t do them,” Hartsman told me. He explained that they didn’t think of the full ramifications of having such a time-compressed battle. “Having a big event that’s a going to take place over a single hour is really cool… if you can be there for that hour. If you’re not there, it sucks. You missed it.”

But the past is the past, and now, Trion is looking to the future. They plan to move away from super high-density battles like the one attempted in River of Souls. Hartsman admitted that it’s not worth building new technology to support those types of events, because, as he said, “it’s really not fun.” Instead, they want to keep the mechanics of the events closer to what’s proven to be successful in the game already, such as zone invasions, but continue to theme them heavily like the River of Souls event.

The theme of the River of Souls event was its strongest asset. Alsbeth’s massive invasion from the plane of Death focused players on battling against one specific dimensional plane for the duration of the event. It brought new, unique content, including themed items and rifts that made it feel as though Telara was completely under siege. The daily quests moved the plot forward, and reminded players to continue fighting back against the forces of death.

River of Souls stage 2, right before the server crash.

Why with all the fighting?

Trion is also going to be more careful to take PvP servers into account when designing the world events. “The reason we ended up with Guardians and Defiants in one spot was because they had no choice. If the Defiants on your server got kicked out of the area, they missed it. And if the Guardians got kicked out on my server, they missed it.” Hartsman quickly clarified that they’re not giving up on the idea of including some PvP elements in events, though. Update 1.2, which is scheduled for release on May 10th, will be adding their first PvP-focused zone event, which has the two factions racing to build competing colossi in order to do battle with what Hartsman called a “mega-colossus.” They want to have PvP play a role in these big events, but they want to have a better leash on it going forward, so that it doesn’t ruin the experience.

Before the interview wrapped up, I had to get one thing clarified: I needed to know if Trion killed Alsbeth. (During the final stage of River of Souls, the final boss spawned, but after talking for 20 seconds, immediately fell over dead before any player could even attack her. The rumor was that a Game Master in godmode used server-side commands to kill her, hoping to prevent the additional server lag that would’ve been caused by such a huge boss battle.)

You'll need to go into the new instance to kill her yourself.

Hartsman explained that the devs technically did kill Alsbeth, but not in the way that people thought. “The final event was actually a scripted vignette,” he told me, explaining that they had delayed the event a week in order to convert the final boss battle into a what was essentially a cutscene. A script spawned Alsbeth, had her chat with NPCs for twenty seconds, then immediately killed her–no player attacks required. Why didn’t they want to have a big boss battle? Hartsman explained it this way, “Getting thousands of people fighting the same enemy in a five foot area… yeah, it’s not even fun at that point.”

I’m fairly happy with the direction Trion is taking their events–it seems like they’ve taken player feedback seriously and are looking for practical solutions to keep us happy. We know how they’re going to do events differently, the only remaining question is when. “The focus right now is on the new zone events for 1.2,” said Hartsman, ”but I expect that it won’t be too long after that.” Whenever the next world event comes, I’ll be there, ready to defend Telara from whatever forces want to destroy it. It sounds like it’ll be more fun the next time around, too!

On the opposite end of the spectrum, of course, you’ve got the haters. These are the guys that feel the need to troll every thread everytime a new champion is released, complaining that they want to play new maps. Or how they think the new champ will be OP. Or that not enough, or too many, female champions get released. Or that balance suffers as Riot adds more champions. Whatever camp you fall into, champion release days can be quite the polarizing experience. But what about the devs at Riot Games? What’s their take on the champions that they’ve consistently released twice a month? We asked them, and they had some very interesting answers.

There's no denying that Ezreal is a ton of fun.

Recently, we got the chance to speak with two of Riot’s head honchos: Marc Merrill, the president, and Travis George, one of LoL’s producers. Picking their brains on what they consider the best champion releases is intriguing—but let’s step back for a second. What about the rate at which champs are released? Merrill’s decided that “two weeks is a good cadence… what matters most to us is [keeping] players engaged and excited.” Part of that process is constantly giving players something to look forward to, and that includes new champions. “The question we always ask ourselves is: what’s the most fun champion we can make?” says George, who’s been much more involved in the hero creation process in 2011 than previous years.

What, then, defines a fun champion? Merrill’s convinced that, as the game continues to evolve, uniqueness is more important than fine-tuning balance as champions are pushed to live servers. “The most important element to creating a great character is having a very clear and well-defined theme,” he said. Merrill views Shaco as a good example: the creepy jester is all about sadistic trickery and the “clown gone bad” vibe. Merrill describes the champion design process as “highly collaborative… we try to [eliminate] people’s preconceived notions.”

If Shaco’s a dev favorite, what about the post-launch champions? When asked which champion launches he’s most proud of, Merrill lists Ezreal, Nidalee, and Renekton. It all comes back to uniqueness: Ezreal and Nidalee enable totally new playstyles unlike any other champion, focusing on constant, fluid mobility and poking from a distance. Renekton’s fury mechanic, as well as the ninjas’ energy mechanic, also please Merrill, as he enjoys any champion that lets you experience something apart from the norm.

George also includes Caitlyn as one of 2011's best champions.

George’s answer to the “most successful champion launch” question is much more controversial. At the time of the interview, George felt that every champion released thus far in 2011 was spot-on. “Karma was very popular for support,” George said. “Support overall is just not played as much as the other archetypes, but I feel like we executed really well what Karma is. We don’t feel like she’s game-breaking; we feel like she’s got a unique, iconic look and theme, and she’s fun and interesting to play for people who enjoy support.”

Say what? Many a Summoner might beg to differ with George’s take; I personally haven’t seen more than two Karma players since the week of her release, and neither of them seemed to contribute much to the team. But George stood his ground, saying “I feel like we executed all our champions [in 2011] well… We always look back on the previous champions and ask ourselves, ‘How did that go, what did we learn, what are we gonna do next time, what did we do awesome?’ And I really feel that we’re [on a roll this year.]”

But what about the gargantuan elephant in the room: Magma Chamber, the additional map that was revealed in our magazine last year before Riot went silent on its progress? “We learned a couple things from [designing] Magma Chamber,” says George. “[For one,] we have a really high internal standard for quality.” George admits that Riot may have jumped the gun with prematurely unveiling Magma Chamber, and the team feels guilty for getting players’ expectations up long before they could deliver on their promises. “We probably feel the pain [of Magma Chamber still being unreleased] far more than anybody else does,” says Merrill. “We’re our [own] harshest critics.”

As for upcoming champions, Merrill told us that they definitely want to add more “true tanks,” though they tend to be the most powerful champions (I’m looking at you, Shen), so they require more tweaks and testing.

Whaddya say, Summoners? Have Riot’s brightest minds assuaged your fears, or fueled your flames? Do you agree with Merrill and George’s takes? And what’s up with Karma getting praised?

lol

Time for more Portal 2! After finishing both of Portal 2′s campaigns we sat down with writer Erik Wolpaw to discuss what was – and wasn’t – featured in the return to Aperture, the game’s ending, and a lady with an especially sexy voice. Needless to say, if you haven’t played Portal 2 to the end, this is spoiler PACKED. So don’t read any further until you’ve completed the thing.

PC Gamer: No more cake. Well, one reference. Were you sick of the memes?

Erik Wolpaw: Yeah we felt like it had kind of run its course and we didn’t see any reason to – we knew, that particular thing, we were going to retire that and not push it at all. It wasn’t even bait as far as I know, it was just that was one of the axiomatic design principles, you know – no more cake. Even though one might have slid in there it was with a light enough touch that it’s hopefully done in good taste.

PC Gamer: Has Cave Johnson got a bit of Andrew Ryan in him?

Erik Wolpaw: I’ve heard that. Well ‘the industrialist’ is a fairly standard character – this is a bad admission, but I haven’t played all the way through Bioshock. But from my knowledge of Andrew Ryan I don’t think he’s especially funny, which hopefully Cave Johnson is occasionally. We also like the idea of, Andrew Ryan aside, this guy who is kind of on top of the world and then takes this fairly precipitous fall and realises at the last moment that maybe his focus has been on some of the wrong things. For all I know that actually is Andrew Ryan – does that happen at the end of Bioshock? Anyway – I can say for sure, without hesitating, that they all come from a common genesis point though I don’t know what that is, maybe whatisname from Citizen Kane. Kane?

PC Gamer: Did you use the same voice actor for Caroline and GlaDOS? Because Caroline has a very sexy voice.

Erik Wolpaw: Yeah that’s Ellen McLain. I don’t know the actual science that would turn Caroline into GlaDOS, but I assume it has something to do with DNA and genetics so it obviously makes sense. GlaDOS has this actorly affectation, she kind of speaks in this particular way, and then we give it these effects so it changes it from her natural voice. I’m sure she’ll be happy to know that you describe her voice as sexy!

It’s interesting you find that sexy. It is a sexy voice. She also does the voice of the announcer in TF2 and I always found that hot, kind of a sexy voice to me. You know she sounds kinda like a chain-smoking harpy but there’s something kind of… I don’t know… anyway, great actress!

PC Gamer:The script was great – was everything we heard scripted?

Erik Wolpaw: A lot of it is scripted. Probably the character who goes furthest afield is Wheatley, Stephen Merchant, a writer in his own respect and also a good ad-libber. So we’d write a bunch of lines, and sometimes he would spin off and do variations on it that he would just riff on something for a few extra minutes. But he also has the ability to take a line we’ve written and read it in a way that sounds very natural and ad-libbed, which was one of the things we really liked about him – we knew he was quick on his feet, we’d been listening to a lot of podcasts with him when we were initially writing Wheatley.

There’s this thing. Video game characters tend not to feel very naturalistic when they speak and we wanted to attempt something that sounded more off-the-cuff, like someone is ad-libbing these lines as it goes. I think we pulled it off reasonably well, and Stephen Merchant did a great job of making that happen with Wheatley.

PC Gamer:Our favourite line is “Machiavellian!”

Erik Wolpaw: Machiavellian! Misunderstanding Machiavelli. He’d read it, but didn’t quite grasp… or maybe he didn’t read it. It’s hard to say. There’s a running undercurrent that neither he nor GlaDOS can actually read. We didn’t really push it that much but it’s kinda funny.

PC Gamer: And quite apart from the hot voicework, the co-op bots managed silent comedy very well in their gestures and animations – how did you go about creating those characters?

Erik Wolpaw: In terms of the nuts and bolts, I mean the general idea was that we knew early on we didn’t want them to talk,because it would just add a bunch of noise to what is effectively a game about communication between two players that you’re going to be talking a lot. We didn’t want them competing with the player. So they would make their little robot noises.

And thinking back to the original design a lot of it is watching the other player do things or failing to and that is funny. It’s physical comedy. So they were kind of designed with the idea of the classic comedy duo, you know the short fat guy and the tall thin guy. In terms of the moment-to-moment animation I don’t really have any great insights to offer there, apart from the animators did an amazing job on it!

PC Gamer: It seemed a fairly happy ending for Chell, if you didn’t think about what was out there.

Erik Wolpaw: Depending on how… yes, generally speaking. There’s always that debate about ‘ooh we could pull the rug out from under you at the last minute’ which I guess we sorta did in Portal 1. I always feel that’s a little bit cheap, I feel you the player as Chell have earned a moment of grace, right?

We did three endings, it’s a long series of endings. We wanted to show you GlaDOS, show you Chell and then show you Wheatley – GlaDOS learns a lesson and promptly deletes it so she can set herself back to zero. You learn whatever you learn and you’re out and it doesn’t look so bad – but we know the Combine’s probably lurking out there somewhere. And you get the Companion Cube back – that could be good or bad, it’s not really clear. In my mind GlaDOS has given you the Companion Cube like “take your shit and go”, or the Companion Cube has been on its own adventure this whole time and just manages to escape at exactly the same moment you do, in which case it’s probably pissed.

And Wheatley actually is contrite. He potentially has learned an actual lesson – he’s up in space and relatively sad. I thought Stephen Merchant did a nice job of seeming actually apologetic. One of our dreams is to have a boss monster say sorry – because you kill boss monsters all the time, and they scream and they’re dead. Never really had a boss monster offer me a sincere apology for all the trouble that he’s caused me. I mean, he was a big pain in the ass for a large segment of the game!

PC Gamer: He didn’t sound sincere to us.

Erik Wolpaw: He’s sincere, he’s sorry! He’s floating in friggin space for christ’s sake! And he even makes a point to say ‘and not just because I’m floating in space!’ [pause] He may not be sincere. If we ever need to bring him back for any particular reason, all his traits are there. Personally I think he’s sincere – there’s authorial intent versus people’s interpretation of it. I think he genuinely does feel sorry for all the trouble he caused. Actually the only person who gets the unequivocal happy ending is the space sphere, who is now out in space and genuinely pleased about it – he loves it. No asterisk, no strings attached there, a happy ending.

PC Gamer: And is the Combine out there?

Erik Wolpaw: The only qualification is something we’re just kind of saddled with – you know that the world to some extent has gone to shit, right? It’s not a happy world she’s exiting into. Although having said that we don’t know how much time has passed – maybe the Combine have been beaten back and the world is nice. If nothing else we want to give her as happy ending as we can, entering into the Half-Life universe. It’s a fairly bucolic scene, it’s very nice. She gets serenaded on the way out, that’s always pleasant. She does get a happy ending, there’s no point in being negative about it, I just can’t let go of the fact that we know where she gets that happy ending, and there could be some danger out there. I’m an adult, terrible shit happens to me all the time. I want happy endings for everyone, the kind I’m not gonna get in real life – I mean, we’re all gonna die, let’s face it.

PC Gamer: It wasn’t immediately clear during the video which pieces of architecture you could climb and manipulate. Is there something that will be implemented to show players which piece of the environment they can interact with or climb? Or is it meant to be an experiment system that encourages players to try and climb over everything?
Chris Reinhart: One of the big things we have is that you can climb anything. If you it looks like you can climb it, you can climb it. That is our design philosophy.

In the future, everything looks like Blade Runner

PCG: So literally anything? Any building or anything you can see, you can climb it?
CR: If it looks climbable. There are certain things or ledges that you’ll say “clearly I couldn’t climb that.” So one of the things we are doing right now is user testing to make sure that it is clear. There’s a system in the game that will highlight ledges that you can jump to but that isn’t something we’re going to make a requirement.

PCG: So it’ll be a toggle switch in the options?
CR: Yes. We’re experimenting with that just in case we think the players will need it. It’s something that can be turned on, use it for a while ’til you get comfortable with what types of things you can climb and then they can turn it off.

PCG: What inspired that sort of game design? The acrobatics and climbing up everything–is that something you guys wanted to do from the beginning?
CR: It was very early, yes. One of the earliest things was when we connected with Bethesda, we were going through and bounty hunter emerged immediately. When we were looking at what types of things a bounty hunter could do in this alien world, early on was this idea of alien noire. We wanted this seedy, dark and nasty kind of world and as we were building out we said, “OK. We want to go horizontal and vertical as well.” And that came up at the same time when we were exploring the expanded movements.

No one said the life of a bounty hunter was easy

PCG: Is every single level vertical-orientated, or are there other levels that are focusing on a horizontal aspect?
CR: All the main, open-world worlds are very vertical. Say you are going into a hotel. In order to reach the hotel and capture a target that is in there, you’ll need to climb over things.

PCG: When I was watching you chase after one of the marks that was escaping, as you were pursuing he would stop every now and then and a couple of guys would attack you. Is it possible for him to escape completely?
CR: Yes.

PCG: Are there any immediate consequences from that besides not collecting the bounty?
CR: If you fail to capture him, he will escape and you won’t have to do the entire mission over, but just start at the last checkpoint and basically try to take this guy down.

PCG: So there is always that option.
CR: There is always that option, with one exception: the ambient bounties in the world. If you lose them, they’re gone. If it’s a particular alien who flees, he might show up later on in the game.

Sorry, alienphiles: your request for creepy alien side-boob has been denied.

PCG: How much has Prey 2 changed since you sat down and said, “We want to make this game?” Have you been surprised from the directions the game has taken?
CR: Very early on, we had the bounty hunter idea. We had alien noire. We had high level visions.

PCG: The big picture vision.
CR: We always stay true to that. Game design is about iteration. So as you’re going through, you’re trying things out and iterating on it. We didn’t have the full scope with the combat system, other than knowing that we wanted to make something action-orientated. Once the player movement started to come online, we were looking at this saying, “OK, we need to merge combat with this movement stuff.” That’s where the cover system came from. There’s a lot of iterating and building up high ideas that came up.

PCG: You had also said that the players get rewarded by moving fast from cover to cover. Can you expand on what you mean by “reward for the player?” What are they getting?
CR: If you do something risky, like vaulting over cover, sliding to cover and popping up, grabbing a ledge and popping up, or sliding on your knees, you become a little more powerful in the amount of damage your weapons do. We want to encourage doing those risky moves.

What Gordan Freeman wishes he drove.

PC Gamer: How has RAGE’s development differed from older id games?
Jason Kim: The main differences was that we needed a lot more people to make RAGE than we’ve ever needed for past projects.

PCG: How many people? 50? 100?
JK: I won’t give you an exact number, but its nearing 80. It’s about four times more than we had for Doom 3 when that was in development. When we start making a game, we start from the ground up with the technology. It’s awesome to have John Carmack. We also have a team of other programmers that are smart for gameplay and systems and now we have the ability to make the entire world on a per-pixel level unique.

PCG: For the multiplayer combat rally mode—where players race around in vehicles and blast each other silly, collecting points for kills and staying alive—is there going to be any sort of FPS driving mode? It looked like it might all third-person.
JK: You mean different camera views? We had toyed with the idea. We aren’t going to do an in-cockpit [view] because we aren’t going to be a driving simulation racer.

PCG: So it’ll be more Twisted Metal style?
JK: We want it to be very [arcade-y], with upgrades for the vehicles to make them feel more stable and beef up the armor, and items and more weapons and better ways to kill you opponent. We want to stick to that, we want to stay on the action side, and we want to stay on the arcade feel of the vehicles because we want you to have that as an extension of the FPS combat experience. We certainly know well that you can’t go guns a blazing and kill 10 guys with the pistol… so the vehicles go the same way, arcade-y. We gave them some options with different weapons with upgrades, but we still keep it on that action side.

It seems that all Authority members have Cyclops-vision.

PCG: Is there going to be a vehicle mode in the multiplayer co-op missions? Or are vehicles specifically for the combat rally deathmatch portion?
JK: [In terms of online,] the vehicle rally-mode—is the [only multiplayer] vehicle mode.

PCG: So in co-op, you won’t, for example, be running alongside a buggy as your friend drives it?
JK: No, we made a conscious decision there. Opportunities do exist all over when we’re talking about RAGE, and [some of] the fun things we can do… [but] there are so many different things we can do, it’s almost too much freedom to be able to do anything. Because you can think of anything and [say,] “Oh yeah, we should do that, it sounds like fun.”

But the conscious decision was that this co-op experience needs to be focused. You’re doing the same mechanics you had in your first FPS combat experience, but you’re using a buddy to help you out, and the cooperative experience is telling you side-portions of the single-player campaign that you wouldn’t [otherwise get.] Now you have this texture, this foundation that it belongs in the world and you have a buddy there to help you out. We call it “Legends of the Wasteland,” because they actually helped progress you, the player, in the single-player campaign to what culminates to a final battle with the Authority.

PCG: You mentioned that the co-op intertwines with the single-player. So if you play co-op to start with, will it spoil the single-player campaign?
JK: No, because I think we haven’t fully decided whether its going to be a progression you unlock as you go, or if it’ll be opened in chunks. Even if you were able to play the entire thing, it won’t spoil what you ultimately do in the single-player campaign, because these are little story-nuggets that can’t stand on their own. They’re an additive to giving you an understanding of where [your allies] came from, so we’re not going to spoil the entire game just by playing through the co-op.

Look out, he's wielding the ugly-stick that he just beat himself with!

PCG: Are there any Easter Eggs that you want to tease at?
JK: There are actually a couple, but we haven’t talked about them. Its up to players to recognize them. Those are the fun things: there’s no risk, we can do it [so] why not. So we have a couple of other things in there and if players want to go around a look around every corner, they can find these things. Just fun little, almost trivial factoids. “Oh, I recognize what that is.”

PCG: This might be more of a design question, but what’s the process for putting a story into an FPS? For example, do you design the game engine so you can make the basic game and build story off of that, or is it story first and you make the game [later?]
JK: Different companies do this in different ways and one of the ways that we’ve done it in RAGE is that there’s a foundation for very high-level of what we want to accomplish. The technology allows us to do certain things… the way to approach making an FPS from id soft where we have a high-level idea of what the story is, and ultimately, as we move forward,and make the next game and the games after that, we want to add more story. We’ve taken that next big step because in the past we haven’t been about story because it was directed, because story didn’t matter that much… we [wanted] the player to have a gun in hand, shooting dudes. That’s fun. If you can’t execute that, hows the story going to help?

But now we want to tell a story. Now we want to tell the narrative. We want that to complement that feeling, that combat feedback that we were known for and are still known for. We married those two things together, and with the technology that allows to create an FPS that’s different, that’s kind of pushing the boundaries of what we’ve been comfortable with, because we now have characters in RAGE that are deep and the story does go farther than we’ve taken things in the past and we want to push those boundaries in further… [we're aiming to make] something that really has a cohesive element from beginning to end.

PCG: What was your experience like on day one? Were most players ready to go with full groups, or were they skeptical?
Nate Birkholz: Players were more than ready to go as soon as the servers came up. I hopped onto Virtue, my home server, and immediately started using the Team Up Teleporter to run Incarnate Trials. I spent much of the day playing along with pick-up groups (PUGs) and enjoying the enthusiasm that people displayed for tackling the challenges. I also defeated a couple of Behavioral Adjustment Facility runs back-to-back late in the day, which was very satisfying as a player as well as a developer.

PCG: What size groups have been the most popular in Incarnate Trials so far?
NB: No particular size seems to be more popular [than the others right now]. The Behavioral Adjustment Facility requires a League of 12-24 players, and Lambda Sector requires 8-16 players, [so it's all within those ranges].

PCG: Are you happy with how the difficulty scaling has worked so far? Is one extreme of group size seeming to have an easier or more difficult time than the other?
NB: We’ve been very happy. The numbers, as well as our personal experiences in the game, indicate that the scaling is working very well. In fact, both the smallest groups and the largest groups have been able to earn the “Master of..” badges that we award for completing the Incarnate Trials as close to perfect as possible.

The trick is to travel in single file, to hide your numbers from the scaling AI.

PCG: What’s your personal preference for raid size?
NB: I like about sixteen players. I feel like that size gives a great cross-section of archetypes and gives a lot of tactical flexibility. Fortunately, the endgame scaling is working well, as I noted, so it’s fun with any number of players, but that size just feels right to me.

PCG: What boss encounter design do you think has been the most successful so far? Are there any encounters that you feel need to be tweaked?
NB: Players were regularly defeating the Siege and Nightstar battle first, but we expected to see that. The Marauder battle is more integrated into how successful you are with the rest of the Lambda Sector Incarnate Trial, so we knew it would take a bit longer to get into the groove of his fight. We are seeing players defeat Marauder now that more and more people are familiar with how the event works.

PCG: What are the most popular Incarnate Powers so far?
NB: The Judgment and Lore powers are very visual, and players are really digging them a lot.

Ready to jump into sure-death situations over and over again.

PCG: What are your personal favorite Incarnate Powers?
NB: As a tank, I really dig the Interface powers. The debuff proc I have been using reduces enemies’ chance to hit, and that quickly adds up to some real survivability for me and my team.

PCG: Looking back at the first week of the new endgame, what lessons have you learned already?
NB: We have had the Incarnate Trials in beta since last Autumn, so a lot of the really big lessons are well behind us. One lesson we learned during beta is that players are very determined to defeat any encounter, no matter how big the challenge. They will keep trying to win even after the tide of battle has clearly turned against them and they’re no longer making headway. Players underestimate their power and skill at times, but that doesn’t affect their spirit.

PCG: How are you going to apply that lesson to future content?
NB: We learned that every stage of an Incarnate Trial has to have a way of ending [good or bad], or players will just keep going–until server maintenance if they have to.

PCG: If you could summarize the average player’s feedback on the patch so far, what would it be?
NB: “We want more Incarnate Trials!”

What do you think, heroes and villains: Is everything peachy in the Incarnate Trials, or what would you like to see changed?

Evan Lahti: You actually got your start as a game composer while you were a member of the internet’s biggest videogame remix community, OC ReMix, right?

Danny Baranowsky: Yeah, I found the site 10 years ago when I first got started, and I would make CD-Rs of all of the remixes. I eventually got to be a judge on there, so I got to be a part of the quality control. Basically, starting there and starting to do remixes was kind of around the time I realized I wanted to do music for a living. I was curious if doing OC Remix would lead to a music job, but the general consensus from everyone I talked to was, “No it won’t.”

And in a strict sense it’s true, that by doing remixes you won’t get hired or anything, but you are getting into this community of people that are passionate about something that’s very specific to games, so therefore they are people who are all about games in general. I kind of just viewed it as a way to get better at the production of music without having to come up with my own melodies and stuff and also just because I enjoyed doing it. Getting things out there, getting things published and hearing some people tear it apart and some people love it. It’s just getting used to that cycle of releasing your ugly baby, getting it made fun of or praised, and repeat. I just did that for years. And since I was a judge I got to be a part of the quality control, so I had to just…learn how to do the impossible, which is objectively appraise something that is so subjective.

So, basically that all kind of led to me meeting Adam Atomic, who did Canabalt. He would send me games from time to time and I would send him s#*#$y stuff that would never work. But eventually he sent me this game called Gravity Hook, and there was no music—

Baranowsky counts Katamari Damacy and Plants vs Zombies as some of his favorite recent game music.

EL: —That’s one of my favorites. I think it’s, uh, I think it’s the “B” theme that I like the most?

DB: [vocalizing the melody] Nnneh, nnneh, nnneh, nnneh, bl-neh-neh, bl-neh-neh…

EL: [laughs]

DB: [laughs] …So, uh, he sends me this, and I’m like: “It’s cool, it just needs music.” And he said, “No, I think I’m going to go silent on this one,” and I literally told him “F$*# you, I’m writing music anyway.” And he’s like, “Whatever, dude.” And 40 minutes later I sent him Track A. I tell this anecdote because this is like the moment that it all started. From there, Adam, y’know, he’s told me since then that he was blown away, like he was really impressed by it. Adam had already been a pretty big player among the indies, so Edmund McMillen found out about me because of him, along with the Flash Jam guys. I got to go to TIGJam and meet him, so after a long, convoluted process, OC Remix got me to that moment where not only could I write music that was good, but music that was game music. Remixing music for eight years really forced me to understand what makes game music good.

EL: So, obviously, there are things that are different between game music and other music, but is there something that game music has to “do” for the user? Does it have to leave space for sound effects, and things like that? How would you describe that?

DB: My current theory on that is that game music should serve a similar service to film music but more…I don’t want to say generic because that seems like a negative connotation…but, you know, the music in Super Meat Boy, the idea was that, OK, you’re in this haunted hospital with creepy needles and all this stuff, and you have 90 seconds to loop this music, and anything that can happen on the screen during that particular track should be scored by the music.

"Game music does not always have to be incredible art—it can just be complimentary to something else."

I actually started in film. While I was doing the OC Remix stuff I was trying to get into film. I never thought I would be a game music composer. I thought I was going to get into film, be the next Danny Elfman and all that stuff. In film it’s very direct. It’s, “Oh, this guy is crying about some bull$&# so you should do some sad string stuff,” so it’s very one-to-one, but in games, you’re providing an atmosphere. And like you were saying, there are going to be sound effects so it can’t be super, super…

EL: It can’t dominate the experience.

DB: Yeah. So when I mix stuff, I usually cut off the top frequency of the spectrum because when you have a really high end… Like in club music when people have tweeters in their car, the high frequency, that’s the #*$& that pierces into you and you can’t escape it. Usually I roll that stuff off, because the sound effects are what should pierce out and the music should sit in more. So that’s definitely a consideration.

EL: I know it’s complicated—it depends on the game, it depends on the song, but how do you go about building a song, from conceptualizing it, to what tools you use, to the final product?

DB: First, I like to inundate myself—if I can play the game without music, or at least the game’s art, I love looking at art and rolling it around in my head until something occurs to me. But I guess it’s like any creative thing, where you just start doing it and things start happening. Sometimes the very first thing you write is awesome and inspirational and you’re good to go, but sometimes you have to write for an hour before something finally sticks out to you, and you delete everything else you did until finally you’re at that core idea. As far as my process, I click in everything with the mouse. I audition samples and I get an idea on how things are going to sound by pressing the keyboard but I don’t record them and I do recordings that are on guitar but other than that it’s all clicked in. So, it’s almost…me writing music is almost like a videogame, it’s almost like a puzzle game, because it’s all a big grid with all these parameters and stuff. I think I definitely do it differently than a lot of other musicians who will just get on their guitar or piano and just jam and record and let it happen organically. I’m more methodical and empirical. “This group of data is superior to this one, so I’ll take that one.” It’s like Mario Picross.

EL: How do you feel about the state of game music today?

DB: I mean, I think it’s probably like anything—there’s a lot of good stuff and a lot of bad stuff.

EL: What are some of your favorites?

We don't know how much Brad made in the deal, but that's a big smile...

Why did you decide to sell off Impulse?

Essentially we had to decide whether to become a retailer. Impulse is growing faster than any business unit at Stardock because digital distribution is taking off. I’m a technologist, I like making software. So once that became our conclusion it was a matter of, “Who would be the best partner for Impulse? Someone who knows retail and knows games really well.” And GameStop was the ideal candidate to team up with.

Will Stardock, or you in particular, still have a hand in the day-to-day operations of Impulse, or is that being transferred entirely to GameStop. Is it now their baby?

Over the next few months there will be a transitional period. But they hired Steve Nix from id to essentially take over what my role traditionally had been. It’s going to be a very PC gamer, or gamer friendly environment over there.

Now that you are disentangling Impulse from Stardock, are all bets off? Will we start to see Stardock games on other services?

In the near future our intention is not to make any changes. There’re already people worrying about things as is. So we plan on not making any changes in the foreseeable future.

How does this strengthen Impulse’s position in the online market in particular? Before, its main selling point was you can only get Stardock games here. What is it now?

There is a whole bunch of things. GameStop is the world’s largest game retailer so you are going to have millions of new people coming to it. It’s a great thing for PC gaming because Impulse has always had to fight with the other parts of Stardock for development resources. Now, they’ve put an amazing team over there on a development side and since the entire Impulse dev team is going over there, continuing on with Impulse Inc. things like Impulse reactor and other projects we’ve had under development will be greatly sped up in their development then they’ve had now, which will be great for gamers.

It’s going to have a lot more resources behind it?

Exactly.

What kind of things do you think we will see on Impulse in the future that we haven’t seen to date?

I can’t pre-announce anything on behalf of GameStop. But certainly in the near term, Impulse Reactor was always a big challenge for us. The game side and the Impulse side in terms of getting resources to move Impulse Reactor along on the pace we wanted. So as we do Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, and Fallen Enchantress, and other projects we will be able to make use of those increased resources for our own titles.

Are you relieved to be out of the retail business and be able to focus on your development duties again?

Yes and no. Digital distribution, from a technological point of view, is very exciting. I really like the amazing things about it. We are about to enter an era where, for example, social networking is becoming pretty mature. So there is a lot of more connectivity between users online with a much more open standard than say what we had a few years ago. High-speed internet has become ubiquitous enough to be able do a lot more cool stuff. From a technological point of view I’ll definitely miss it, but like I said, for Impulse to make the next step it really needed a retailer to be running it.

You need a sales force. For example, I need so-and-so publisher to adopt Impulse Reactor. Well, I don’t have a technical sales force that can just get on an airplane that can fly to LA or whatever and make that deal happen, right? If Stardock has a good technical guy, he’s making tech, not getting on airplanes. So whenever we wanted to pitch some of this stuff, I would have to send some of my key developers on an airplane to meet with some developer or publisher to show off this stuff. When you do that it’s really tough. I’m looking forward to being more focused.

So what else does this mean for gamers?

For PC gamers, this is gigantic. For years, guys like you and me have been complaining about the marginalization of PC gaming because as a practical matter, the channels for people to get games has been shrinking. We’ve seen where there’s been so many rationalization on why this is, but the fact of the matter is we’ve lost a lot of our channels. Now boom, GameStop is making a massive investment to bring the PC gaming market back into the mainstream, back into the thick of things. I think it says something that, up until now, we’ve been relying on a couple of PC game developers to carry this load. If you think about who’s been leading this market, Paradox is the one who founded Gamers Gate, and Valve with Steam, and Stardock with Impulse. Well, now the PC gaming market is going to have the world’s leading game retailer really backing it. And that’s going to help our market tremendously.

We love competition. You’ve got to keep people on their toes.

Right. As a consumer, I want to have as many choices as I can because that drives down prices. Gaming prices in general, if you look over the last couple of years—I think if someone in 2000 tried to guess prices in 2011, they would be shocked at how they are getting lower, especially when you adjust for inflation. And that’s awesome, because the more competition, the more that pushes that. And if you are an indie game developer, this news is amazing because this is one of the things that Impulse has really, if I may be so bold, Impulse has been the leader of getting new indie games up the fastest. We don’t always get the big AAA titles quick, but we’ve been getting new indie games up.

This is a big commitment to PC gaming from GameStop. What is your impression of their attitude toward PC gaming in general? They have generally carried a lot less retail copies of PC games in the past decade, but is this recognition that there is a lot more money to be made?

PC gaming, like with all media—and I’d say the consoles are just lagging in terms of where things are going in the long term—PC gaming is the first to make the transition from the physical to the truly digital. There are a couple of things that will become more apparent over time. GameStop put together a pure digital team; they found the best and brightest and brought them in over the past year. So they made this team that is dedicated specifically to digital distribution. There isn’t like a bunch of retailers thinking “how do these games seem like boxes?” It’s not going to be like that at all.

Do you think they have a renewed confidence in the PC games market?

I do. I definitely do. I think it’s a real recognition of where gaming is going, and where it’s been going for the last several years. They acquired Kongregate last year, and not a lot of people noticed that but it signaled to us they are taking this pretty seriously.

Jay Crowe, creative lead on Take On Helicopters and finisher of beer.

Evan Lahti: Why helicopters?
Jay Crowe, Creative Lead: Helicopters are awesome and were always an important part of our games. That aside, taking on a clear focus is something that really excites us, but–in truth–it’s also a little daunting! Combined-arms warfare has been the linchpin of the Real Virtuality engine for over a decade now. Taking one small aspect, stripping it out and completely rebuilding it with focus and attention–that’s a pretty motivating challenge.

Choppers are interesting for the surprisingly wide range of gameplay, and for the rewarding challenge that our flight-dynamics model presents. Combine that with our experience in building rich, expansive terrain and crafting wonderfully detailed models, and we think we’re on to something really exciting. We see a great potential for future instalments of the Arma series by moving much closer to reign of flight simulators; however, this would be impossible to achieve if we tried to do it in a project of the scale and variety of Arma 2, rather than a dedicated development.

PCG: Flight in Arma has some simulation-like qualities to it–you can retract flaps and gear, turn on autopilot, planes can stall, but the overall control dynamics are simplified–there’s little-to-no “switch-flipping.” How will that simplicity of control compare to Take On?
JC: Perhaps unsurprisingly, precise control over a helicopter is a vital piece of the game. We’re definitely taking the fidelity of our simulation to the next level, and we’re working hard on some in-cockpit features/functionality that we hope to gleefully present in the near future. Take On is built around a high-fidelity helicopter flight dynamics model, completely different to more the generic, simplified one used in Arma series so far.

That being said, our designers are “encouraged” to ensure that playing with the mouse and keyboard is just as satisfying as it is with a fully-blown flight control set up. Our focus is upon really nailing the experience of flying a helicopter. Authenticity, realism, fun – they’re all part of the same thing in our game.

PCG: I’m being dumb here, but: will I be able to shoot things? There’s nothing especially military that’s be shown in the trailer or screenshots, but with the damage and ballistics modeling that you already have in place, it’d be a shame if it went to waste…
JC: Take On is certainly a civil-oriented game, but–given our experience with military-based gameplay–we can’t help it if a few scenarios sneak in around the side! It’s a little early to talk about specifics, but I can confirm that Take On Helicopters exists within the context and operates within the rules of the Armaverse–and we all know that a war or two broke out.

It’s actually a stimulating challenge to have to think about crafting rewarding gameplay that doesn’t end up with an opponent dead. It makes us look again at our design, evaluate the motivations and rewards for any given player, and find a balance between authenticity and action. Sure, we all know blowing shit up is fun, but where we have combat-oriented scenarios, they’ll be in there for a reason.

PCG: Is your approach to terrain modeling in Take On identical to that of Arma 2, to take satellite-modeled data and tweak it to your purposes?
JC: Terrain on the scale of our American and South Asian worlds has required new technology and a re-evaluation of our map-making pipeline. For our games, we’ve never attempted to make anything this extensive, but–in simple terms–sure, we still take our data and apply careful tweaks, and yea, it still takes an eye-watering amount of time to get them fit for purpose! However, we’ve got some interesting new features in progress–in terms of the actual terrain and the human and physical ‘environment’ more generally – that we’re really looking forward to being able to showcase as development continues. Terrain normal-mapping alone is an exciting new feature currently under development, which has the capacity to change the way our environments “feel.”

What I would say right now, is that you can still land, get out your chopper and take a stroll around. In fact, some of our scenarios demand it! While our terrain is optimised for flying choppers, we’re yet to see a helicopter game with our level of overall visual fidelity in the environment.

PCG: A skeptical gamer might say that storytelling isn’t Bohemia’s core competency. What makes Harry Larkin and a single-player campaign a necessary component of Take On?
JC: Good old (and dead) Harry Larkin aside, a single-player campaign is important to Take On for several reasons. It provides a core focus for our development. It really makes us think carefully about the gameplay: evaluating how it’s introduced to the player; balancing the unfolding difficulty and freedom; focusing on the range and type of content we should create. More importantly, the narrative conveys a broader experience of helicopters to the player. We’re not a flight-dynamics model with a few cheap lines of dialogue bolted on, nor are we setting up the game up to be narrative-heavy, per se; rather, we consider it to be a conduit for all the awesome experiences available. It’s a thought-through, immersive showcase of our engine’s capabilities–a springboard for users to create their own interesting scenarios.

In pre-production we noted that, within this genre, criticism was often directed towards the lack of focus upon a campaign or story–the narrative motivation alongside the gameplay. We believe that even our perhaps somewhat more limited storytelling abilities in terms of action games are still able to provide much a deeper and more motivating campaign than what people might normally expect from flight-sim type of game.

Medical emergency heroism: confirmed.

PCG: You’re well-aware, but–we love co-op in ArmA. With multiplayer, what kinds of situations can we expect to find ourselves in?
JC: Well, we’ve certainly monitored PC Gamer’s recent forays into multiplayer with great interest! Yeah, when it comes to the Arma series, multiplayer has been a big part of its ongoing success. For Take On, we have multi PvP and co-op gameplay in development, and we’ll be evaluating the most enjoyable challenges and experiences from this and our single-player scenarios, feeding that analysis back into development when its appropriate to do so. At this stage, our legal team advises us that to neither confirm or deny the prototyping of a battlechopper.

PCG: An airborne cousin to our Battle Bus? Yeah, I can get behind that. Okay, then–how many air vehicles do you think you’ll have at launch? How many are helicopters that are already featured in ArmA?
JC: The stars of the show are definitely three core families of helicopter, within which multiple variants exist. All helicopters are brand new content, not seen in our previous titles. Focusing upon this range alows us to delicately adjust the feel and experience of each class of chopper. That’s not to say each family flies the same, within this structure we can add more subtlety. Our goal remains to convey the experience of flying, and a big part of that is revealing–in a very tangible way–that each helicopter has its own feel and handling.

On top of that, each chopper may have unique components that significantly enhance the gamplay possibilities. It’s too early to get into specifics, but we’re talking about gameplay you just can’t achieve within the Arma series. Similarly, the level of detail we’re achieving goes beyond what we’ve seen before in the engine; helicopters always looked great in our game, now, we’ve got the opportunity to push that even further.

PCG: Is Bohemia working on any engine improvements/optimizations to the Arma engine for it to be tailored for Take On?
JC: Nailing down the helicopter experience demands a lot of work in terms of adding brand new features, refining more familiar ones, and optimising the game for flying helicopters. The buzzwords circulating around our studios alone goes some way to reveal the extent of the work at hand: picture in picture, increased view- and draw-distance, interactive cockpits, sling loads. But perhaps we’ve said enough for now! In fact, another cool aspect of Take On project is that it’ll allow us to look at improving various aspects of our simulation technology that could potentially be integrated into some possible future games with a much larger scope.

PCG: What price point are you considering for Take On?
JC: Take On Helicopters is full-size game and, therefore, we expect it to have price point of a normal full PC game. Plus, we are considering some nice incentives online for our dedicated troops on the ground in Arma 2 that are interested in learning something new.

PCG: Thanks for your time, Jay.
[Jay Crowe begins to rotate independently from his torso up, then levitates out the window.]

PCG: Godspeed.

Hal Hanlin: One of the most powerful tools we have is our platform. Because our content is served globally by function instead of hardware based on game-geography, we can introduce new content anywhere in the world that we want. The question becomes how much new content is awesome and fun, and at what point does it damage the nature of the game. We will continue to push the boundaries in this area. Our goal is nothing short of proving Trion to be the most nimble and dynamic MMO developer in the AAA market.

PC Gamer: It sounds as though there will be an unprecedented number of rift invasions happening. Can you give us a sense of the scale of the invasion? Will there be Rift every few feet? Enemies everywhere?

Hal Hanlin: Player behaviour will determine how dense the rifts become. As you’ve seen, Rifts spawn invasions, which establish footholds, which spawn even more invasions… If you start with a bunch, things get tense in a hurry. I won’t spoil the events that lead to the opening of the raid themselves, but I will point out that planar types are not constrained by geography, either. Just because Silverwood has been fighting off Fire and Life does not mean that will always be the case.

We also gave ourselves the challenge of making sure that players in every zone in Telara get to participate in the event. Higher-level characters will get to see the actual opening, but players across the world will get credit for helping out.

PC Gamer: How will players access the River of Souls raid, will it be limited to players of a certain level?

Hal Hanlin: The raid itself is for high-level players who have acquired the best gear. The bosses, rifts and Colossi that were part of the opening event will stay in the rotation and increase the variety of enemies players throughout the game will face from rifts.

PC Gamer: Will Ascended only be able to fight Alsbeth in the raid, or will she be wandering the world as well?

Hal Hanlin: The final confrontation with Alsbeth will be in the Raid, but she will be out in each of the zones for a time during the event, too.

PC Gamer: What will Alsbeth be like to fight? What kind of strategies will players have to employ to take her down?

Hal Hanlin: LOL – No chance I am answering that one with spoilers. I will say that the raid itself is laid out in a non-linear way, so part of the challenge is figuring out which bosses to take out in which order.

PC Gamer: Are there plans to add more raids and raid bosses in future?

Hal Hanlin: Oh, my, if you only knew. As I said earlier, our platform lets us add things to the world at an unprecedented rate. We are adding bosses and raids over time, but we are also innovating new gameplay systems and content delivery methods that we will roll out as well. Scott [Hartsman, executive producer] and Russ have the whole design team on this and we are hiring more!

PC Gamer: Will low level players be able to fight back against the Endless Court?

Hal Hanlin: Yes! It is not a token effort, either. Their stand against the Endless is just as valid and necessary as that of the level 50s. Each player who is participating will be rewarded and have access to special vendors, too. This is a game-wide thing, not an end-game thing, though having an awesome new raid in the gear progression is great. We really want to let players understand the story of the Endless and feel like it is their fight from the beginning, not someone else’s fight they stumbled into.

PC Gamer: What kind of loot will players be able to get from beating back the invasion?

Hal Hanlin: All of the new invasions have loot on them; new items and equipment. There is a special mount available during the event and another available from the raid itself. Moreover, there will be merchants who are selling additional items in exchange for the currency acquired during the event. We posted some images of the ghost horse mount on www.riftgame.com and that is something I am trying for, myself.

PC Gamer: What advantages will the ability to look undead give to players?

Hal Hanlin: It’s a combat shape change, letting you fight enemies while looking like a skeleton. There are no stat changes and you continue to have all of your powers, so we’re not stripping from you the role you worked so hard to build.

PC Gamer: Will there be any competitive Guardian vs. Defiant aspect to the invasion?

Hal Hanlin: The events of this opening are not competitive by nature, but we are also not overriding your PVP choice. We are Telarans, first and foremost, so the invasions must be repelled. What we’ve found is that players tend to work in an uneasy peace while the event is running and immediately turn on each other when it is done. It’s awesome. So, if that Vigil-kisser wants to help out, fine. Once we’re done, I plan to punch him in the ear. Future events may include some more directly competitive elements, but the story of Alsbeth and what she is doing really does not lend itself to adding more souls to the River before facing her.

PC Gamer: Are there plans to expand Rift’s PvP content? What kind of additions would you like to make?

Hal Hanlin: We are absolutely planning multiple new ways to kill each other. I won’t go into details here, but PVPers will love what we’re working on.

PC Gamer: Can we expect more events like this one in future? Will they be a regular occurence?

Hal Hanlin: Nothing in Telara is “regular,” but you can absolutely expect more content. Moreover, we are implementing it in a way that is designed to increase the variety and boss-mechanics of the rifts and invasions, so the nature of the game itself will shift over time.

PC Gamer: Are there any features that fans have requested that you’re working on adding to the game?

Hal Hanlin: Tons. Scott has made the implementation of constant improvements a mandate. Some of the things are ideas that one or more of the designers had in their mind as a someday project, and they use this as an excuse to pull the trigger. Others are “Whoa, that’s a cool idea” sort of thing.

PC Gamer: How do you see Rift growing over the next five years?

Hal Hanlin: I see multiple tracks of content coming out, supporting the various core mechanics of the game. We will be adding raids, warfronts, in-world content, and some stuff that is really exciting, but that I can’t even allude to yet. I think that the game will shift in ways that even we cannot predict at this time, because of Scott’s focus on listening to the community and being nimble.

PC Gamer: Are there any plans for major expansions down the line? Are there plans to raise the level cap, or add extra armour tiers?

Hal Hanlin: Yes. ;)

If you’re tempted to try Rift, but aren’t sure whether you should take the plunge, check out our Rift review. If you’re already playing, swing by our forums

There is no Dana, there is only Zuul.

“It’s the next logical step for us, right?” Hartsman told us. “It’s taking everything we’ve done and cranking it up yet another order of magnitude.” Events, which are a regular occurrence in Rift, are massive in their own right. Players in a zone will need to close a dozen rifts, defeat a few hundred enemies, and protect the area’s cities in order to succeed the massive public quest. World events up the ante, with this first one bringing every zone under assault by Alsbeth the Discordant; undead will march on every city with a week of story-driven events that all players can participate in. With this event comes new loot, new mounts, and a riftload of new content to explore.

Depending on the server population, time of day, and other factors, different segments of the story-driven events will spawn in multiple zones at once, and players of all levels will need to work together in order to move it forward. Hartsman thinks these types of events will resonate well with Rift subscribers, just like traditional events have since launch. “It’s one thing to have you and your raid, or guild, all pulling for stuff. It’s another feeling of ‘holy crap’ entirely when it’s you and everyone else around you. It definitely brings a new sense of urgency, and I think it scratches an itch that really only this kind of stuff can.”

In fact, the event’s length was adjusted based on fan feedback. Originally, they weren’t sure how players would react to putting their quests on hold to fight off an invasion, but the reception has been so positive that they’ve extended the length of the world event from a few days to a full week.

The bigger they are, the harder they hit.

And even after the week is over, the event will leave a permanent mark on the game world. The River of Souls, a new 20-man raid instance, will be opened for the highest-level (and highest-geared) players, adding even more to Rift’s already robust end-game.  Hartsman says that handling updates this way gives players the best of both worlds, saying that, “Everybody gets to participate in the event, everyone gets to genuinely contribute to the advancement, everybody gets to feel they’re a part of the story, and then there’s new content for upper-level players.” He says that this is going to be their method on introducing high-end content, and that they want to make sure they have “constant content added on to the end of the experience.”

Trion plans to continue to adapt the game based on the reaction of players. They hope that this type of large, overarching event can become commonplace in Rift, if that’s what everyone wants. “For this first one, it’s as much of a learning experience for us as it is for the players. This is a brand new scale for us—we’ve never seen it played through at this scale. Just like we were in beta, we’ll be taking feedback, we’ll be taking reports, we’ll be watching server metrics and figuring out what we did right, what we did wrong, and, more importantly, what we can do better next time. We know we can always do better next time, and we’re never really satisfied with anything we do, so there’s always this constant eye on what we can improve for next time.”

Alsbeth surrounds herself with the biggest, baddest golems around.

But if you’re playing Rift and, for whatever reason, uninterested in rifts and events, Trion isn’t going to force you to participate in saving the world from the undead scourge. “It is not going to be 24/7, and it won’t put the rest of the game on hold. That’s not what we’re doing. This is an addition of new events into the circulation with new loot, new items, and new pages of the story.” Then again, if you’re playing Rift and not interested in rifts, Telara just might not be for you.

The update is currently slated for release this week, with all signs pointing towards the patch being available on live servers as soon as Wednesday. Hartsman said they would delay it if they feel they needed more time, but I’m hoping to be defending the planes from Alsbeth the Discordant sooner, rather than later.

Game The First: Osada

Osada is an interactive music video created by Amanita animator Vaclav Blin and composer Simon Ornest. Dvorsky describes it as ‘Czech psychedelic country music’. The graphical style is clearly influenced by Terry Gilliam, mixing surreal landscapes and photographic elements with what looks like at least a couple of special mushrooms. We’re told we’ll have to play the full thing to see exactly what it is, which is lucky, as we haven’t a clue from these shots. Luckily, we don’t have long to wait. It’s going to be a free download, available in just a couple of weeks from Amanita’s website.

Game The Second: Botanicula

This one is a more traditional game, with an anything but ordinary look. Botanicula is being headed up by animator Jara Placy, and is a point-and-click adventure about five tree critters on a quest to save their home’s last seed from a pack of evil parasites. Described by Dvorsky as ‘simple, but quite large’, it’s currently halfway through development, with release planned for the end of the year.

Game The Third: Samorost 3

No snazzy pictures for this one yet, unfortunately – it’s much too early in development for that. However, Samorost 3 promises to be much longer, much more intricate, and much, much, much more polished than any of the already plenty-shiny Flash instalments we’ve seen so far. This is Amanita’s big project as a studio at the moment, due for PC, smelly consoles and variably pungent tablet systems. No ETA on it yet, but we can’t wait to see more soon. If you haven’t played the series yet, here’s the place to start, and here’s a quick shot of the kind of world we might be seeing, courtesy of Samorost 2.

Five Minutes With Jakub Dvorsky

We sat down with Jakub to discuss indie development, the role of DRM (Amanita estimated that only 5-15% of Machinarium players actually paid for it, to the point that it kicked off a Pirate Amnesty to help them claw back some karma points) and being one of the artiest developers around.

Your games seem firmly on the ‘art’ side of the games vs. art argument, but which do you primarily see them as? Is there even a difference?

To be honest, I don’t care very much about this never ending discussion about games being art. I see games as just another medium like film, literature or painting so games definitely can be art. The situation is quite similar to the film industry, where most things are crap, but you can still find real gems. I don’t want to judge our games. It’s up to others to decide if it’s art or not.

Which comes first when creating a new Amanita game – the look, the story or the action?

In the case of our newest project which we just started we had first an idea about it’s gameplay design. We knew it would be similar to our previous games but we also wanted to change our approach and push the game design a bit further. With this clear idea I started to write the story and design, and now we are at the stage of finding the right visual look for the game.

Are there any concepts you can share that you’ve rejected for being too crazy?

We’ve had some of those, but usually just for fun, or from despair when we didn’t have any better ideas. I wouldn’t share them as as they’re usually quite obscene or disgusting.

Boo! Oh well. Do you think your background in the Czech Republic gives you a different perspective on game creation? On the flip-side, have you seen any interesting moments of culture-clash/disconnect when foreigners get their hands in your games?

It’s interesting because most of our team are artists who don’t have any prior experiences with video games. It sounds like a disadvantage but on the other hand these people are not influenced by other games so their approach to it is fresh and unaffected. As for the reaction of foreigners, many people tell us our style is very Eastern European or even Czech. It definitely wasn’t our intention to make it that way, so it’s probably deeply rooted in our subconscious.

You started off in film and animation – was there anything specific that pushed you to games?

No, no, I started with games! I grew up on my first computer Atari and later on grammar school I started making games with a couple of friends and we were relatively successful. In 1997 we published our first game, which was the first adventure game in Czech Republic with dubbed dialogs and also the first Czech game released on CD. Later I went to study animated film at the Academy of Art in Prague because it was the best place to go at that time if I wanted to make games.

Which current artists do you currently admire / draw particular visual inspiration from? Are there any other games you credit with equally artistic leanings?

I’m influenced by many famous artists and filmmakers, for example Max Ernst, Hieronymus Bosch, Russian animator Yuri Norstein, Czech animators Karel Zeman or Jan Svankmajer, Terry Gilliam, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Stanley Kubrick etc. As for games, I guess Myst, Gobliiins, Discworld, The Neverhood, Grim Fandango, Monkey Island, Dungeon Master… these influenced me a lot. Today, there’s Patrick Smith with Windosill. I also loved Limbo and I’m really looking forward to Fez and Sword & Sworcery.

Machinarium infamously suffered from heavy piracy. Has that (or the results of the Pirate Amnesty), changed your feelings on developing for the PC? Will your new games be equally DRM free?

Oh yes, definitely! I don’t see pirates as plain thieves as I also pirated heavily when I was younger, with plenty of time to play many games but very little money to buy them. Pirates can actually help to promote the game if it’s good and some of them even pay for it afterwards if they think it was worth it. Of course the piracy is still a big problem on PC, but considering how many PC gamers are in the world it’s definitely worth developing for PC. As for DRM, we just don’t believe it’s working. It’s usually only an annoying complication for paying customers.

No argument here. Is the PC still the best platform for indie game developers?

Yes, it’s very easy to develop and publish games for PC and that’s very important for small teams with limited budgets. You need a lot of experience, time, money and endless patience for developing on consoles – it’s a really painful process.

Correct answer! Thank you for your time. But we’re not done yet. Want to see more of these great sounding games? Head to the next page for a boatload of brand new images.

We are now able to post the entire transcript for your reading pleasure.


PC Gamer: With a lack of competitive multiplayer, how are you going to make sure that Operation Flashpoint: Red River stays fresh to play?

Sion Lenton: I think really I counter that by saying it’s online play that provides staying power. The distinction between competitive and coop is a fine one to make, but if you look at games like Left 4 Dead and Borderlands; even things like Counterstrike, I think coop has its place, and I also don’t think that utilised enough, really. I very rarely play competitive games. I can’t be arsed dealing with some kid on the other end swearing at me. I want to be playing with my mates.

It’s going to take off, I’m really confident that what we’ve got works as a product. The coop, the fire teams, the skills and so on. I don’t notice it’s missing, I don’t feel like it’s missing. And to be pragmatic, in order to be competitive in that area, it’s a lot of work, because, you’d argue that games like that have got it nailed. Cooperative is great because it puts us in a different place, which is always a good place to be, and I see it coming on leaps and bounds in the future.

PC Gamer: With a cooperative game, the longevity of the game often relies more on the volume of content available. Are there any plans for mod support?

Sion Lenton: Not at the moment, no. We actually went back to basics on a lot of our tools and tech, because there were several things we wanted to include. We wanted terrain manipulation into the tools, and actually making that into a public-facing tool was not something that we had scheduled in. It’s not something we’re ruling out, but we’re playing a longer game here, as it were. We want to go on record and say that Flashpoint is every two years, and now that we know that, we can build in a longer term plan.

I hate to use the word ‘reboot’, because I think it’s a bit of a cliche, but it is kind of a reboot, it’s kind of similar to what did going Colin McCrae to DiRT, Toca to GRiD. It’s a change, a modernisation, and the bottom line is, we wanted to start on an even platform on all platforms, so you get the same flavour of game on every platform. That’s not to say the future won’t be different, but for where we are now, that seems the most appropriate way to go.

PC Gamer: With that in mind, do you have plans to release your own missions and scenarios?

Sion Lenton: There’s going to be a press announcement about DLC in the next month or two, I’d imagine.

PC Gamer: There’s quite a hefty difference between the original Operation Flashpoint and Red River. Was that an active decision to move away from the simulation roots?

Sion Lenton: Absolutely. There are a couple of reasons for that. One thing of course is that the heritage of the franchise is PC. And, as great as PCs are, from a sales point of view, it’s not the market, there’s a bigger market out there, and if you get success, you can start to experiment more. You need to get the sales under your belt, and then that gives you the freedom to do other things, so again, that ties into the idea of the reboot of it.

Really, we want to steer away from any talk of it being a simulation. We’ve almost banned the word in the studio. Authentic is fine, because it gives you a bit of creative leeway in the studio, and that’s what we are, we’re creative. We’re making an entertainment product, and it should be fun, and I really don’t get much fun out of military simulations. They’re engaging, they’re immersive, but I wouldn’t call them fun.

I know we get a lot of people going ‘Oh, this is what I want, this is the kind of game I want to play’, but, to be honest, it’s out there. There’s ArmA, play it. There you go. And they do a great job on that, and best of luck to them. We want to do something different, and we don’t want the name, the brand, the franchise, to be tied down to that kind of thing. From where I am, at the minute, there’s no reason that we can’t do an RTS Operation Flashpoint game.

What we’ve done is elevate it from a single game to more of a DNA, rather than a feature set. So things like authenticity, global superpowers, future fiction; it’s enough to give us a bit of leeway with an Operation Flashpoint game, but it also allows us to do something different. You’ve got to keep moving; you can’t just do the same thing again and again and again. That would bore you silly, that’s not why I’m in the business of making games. I want to innovate, I want to do things that are new. Sometimes that means hitting the reset button, sometimes that means changing course and doing something different with it. At the end of the day, people vote with their wallets, and if they don’t like what we’re doing, I’m sure they’ll let us know.

I’m actually really confident that we’ve got something that’s going to be really successful, and it’s going to be really successful because it’s something different to what else is out there, certainly from a console point of view. I sense a bit of genre fatigue with the big shooters that are out there at the moment, I don’t think it’s going to end tomorrow or anything, but I do think people are yearning for something deeper, something a little bit more immersive, something a little bit more challenging, and if we can supply that sort of experience, and then build on it in the future, I’d be delighted with that.

PC Gamer: With a game so based around Coop, are going you to be using some proprietary software like Steamworks or Games for Windows Live?

Sion Lenton: Games for Windows Live.

PC Gamer: Ah, ok. Well, one of the things that personally really annoys me in some multiplayer games is that they’ll have unlocks, but they’ll be vertical upgrades, outright replacing the first guns you get, and giving an big advantage to existing players. Being coop, is that something you’ve been able to sidestep by not pitting players against one another?

Sion Lenton: So what we’ve really tried to do with the guns, and one of the things I’m really proud about Red River, is that we’ve got a really great behind-the-gun experience, really solid. You’ve played it yourself, it’s solid, it really is. But also, there’s handling. Like on the cars in DiRT or GRiD, they’re different, and they handle differently. I love the idea that you’ll be able to master the weapon, yourself, not by modifying it or unlocking attachments, but by learning it, learning the recoil, and what the actual bullet damage is like on that gun. Obviously things like scopes and sights give advantages, and we’ve also got the B-Mods and Specialisations, which I guess are about as near as we’ve got to that kind of thing, but they’re tuned to the classes, and giving them benefits, rather than competitive benefits. It’s a cooperative benefit, a teamwork benefit.

PC Gamer: With coop games especially, it’s often very difficult to play with strangers, because you’ve got to be so in sync with one another. How have you made the experience more streamlined?

Sion Lenton: One of the cool things that we’ve got, as you saw on the command radial, where you give orders to your AI guys, but it’s also how you give orders to humans on the team as well. The great thing about that is that if you’re playing with someone in Germany, your orders are translated to German. The really great thing we’ve got, though, is that the clients, (the host is the fire team leader), the clients all have their own quick command radial as well. It’s responses as opposed to orders. ‘I’m pinned’, ‘I need help’, ‘Corpsman!’. You can even paint a location, to tell your team that you’ve seen someone, and then put a marker in the world so they know where.

But at the end of the day, because of the way the game plays, you can’t just jump in and be successful, you have to work as a team, like with anything, and if it encourages teamwork, that’s great, and we try to break down those language barriers with the quick command radial, but, and it’s kind of a weird thing to say, but it’s not really up to us. We’re giving you the tools to play this game, we’re giving you the environment to play this game, but there’s not reason people who haven’t met before shouldn’t be able to play and get a really great experience out of it.

PC Gamer: Well one of the things you mentioned earlier was Left 4 Dead, where there’s automated voice commands to make it easier to understand what’s going on. So ‘Pills here!’, ‘Reloading!’ and the like. Is that something you’ve got in game?

Sion Lenton: That’s actually where we got the idea for translating the commands so people can play with people in other countries. I was playing Left 4 Dead with a French player, and I suddenly realised that they were getting the French version of ‘Ammo here!’, and I thought that was really cool. So for an authentic, US-army based military shooter, you’d be surprised how much Left 4 Dead and Borderlands actually inspired us from a gameplay point of view. ‘Cause it’s fun. We’ve got points in there, scores in there, because they’re fun. Those games were the big ones for us.

PC Gamer: In the last few weeks, there’s been a lot of activity in the Middle East, with protests in Libya and Bahrain. Has that made you anxious at all about placing your game so close to real world events and places?

Sion Lenton: No. I don’t think that the Middle East influence, as politically charged as it is, I don’t think it affects our world. What was interesting, and probably went under the radar, was the announcement that China is now the world’s second largest economy, and that’s actually much more interesting to me, because that’s in line with what we’re predicting with the game. People constantly ask why we keep on using the Chinese, why we keep using the PLA, and well, if you can come up with a better superpower in the world today, then go for it. But they are, they’re absolutely massive. Biggest army in the world, second biggest economy. Japan is the only economy larger than them now, and China is bailing the US out now left right and center with loans.

I think it’s interesting, but again, I think we chose well. There has been some news coming out of Tajikistan that has been bouncing over to us, where twenty four insurgents escaped from a prison and went on a rampage, stuff like this, and that’s kind of telling. The ECIN, mentioned in the game, that’s a real group, and for better or worse, we’re predicting that they’re going to get more hard core, and more well known in the next few years. But, as much as that stuff is going on, I don’t think it really effects our world, that Flashpoint world.

PC Gamer: You’ve got a limited number of Coop missions in the game. How are you going to keep them fresh to play every time?

Sion Lenton: Ok, so there’s a few ways with which we do that. First off you’ve got the classes, where you can play as a Scout, play as a Grenadier, and as you’re playing through, in any game mode, be it campaign, or one of the stand alone missions, you’re earning XP, which you can spend to improve your class. So whatever you play, you’re improving. So you’ve got progression through those character types.

The other really cool thing that we’ve got is that the games are literally different every time. So, take Combat Search and Rescue. First time, the pilots are there, the helicopter is there, you go in, you get them out (if you’re lucky, because it’s a hard mission), and then you play it again, but wait a minute, the pilots aren’t there, the pilots are in a different place. So while it’s not random, we have several areas where things can be set up. Another great example is in Mission 4, where you have to go up a narrow ravine, and again, the placement is randomised, it’s different every time. So from a replay standpoint, you walk in and suddenly something isn’t where you expected, and your gameplan has gone out of the window. They’re not here; they were here yesterday, but they’re not here today.

And that’s not just the placement; it’s also down to how our AI works. It’s not scripted, whack-a-mole AI, it’s much more autonomous. I’ve described them before as much more improv actors. They know what the scene is, they know they need to get from A to B, but when we say Action!, they have to react to what’s going on. So because we’re in an open world, and you come down the middle, they’ll try to flank you or get around you. Then if you go down the side, they’ve got to be able to react to that appropriately. So that randomisation, the class progression, and also just feeding back from what the player does. So if you play the game differently, the AI will react to the game differently. And that’s in the campaign, that’s in the stand alone missions, that’s everywhere.

Hey baby, howbout you and I go partipate in some PvP?

But first, a little backstory: RoI has an impressive list of features that you simply won’t find in other games of the hero-vs-hero variety. For starters, progression will be unique to each individual hero (called an Immortal in RoI), through experience gains, customizable skills, and persistent itemization. This is revolutionary—after you’ve been playing a specific hero for awhile, you’ll be significantly more powerful than someone who picked the same Immortal, but has never played them before. The other big surprise is RoI’s PvE mode, where less competitive players can enjoy co-op or solo play against AI monsters, learning the game as they go.

The novelties don’t end there. RoI will include a social hub (tentatively named the Stage of Conquest) where players can chill out and show off, much like a MOBA Orgrimmar. With plans for collectible pets and two-to-five player teams, it looks like RoI will be a welcome breath of fresh arena air. Still not convinced? Take it away, Steve.

PC Gamer: It’s clear that the game is inspired at least partially by other MOBAs like DotA. What areas of DotA in particular do you want to improve on?

Petroglyphs’s Steve Wehterill: We find that MOBA players tend to gravitate to a fairly small range of characters, so by moving persistence to the Immortals, we reward players who put significant time into a given Immortal. This also means that in matchmaking, a player’s rank is more likely to match their actual skill with a given Immortal. We hope to appeal to the hardcore MOBA players with our primary PvP scenarios, and to then broaden the appeal of MOBA games by introducing a less competitive PvE experience for more casual and first-time players. We’ve also included a social hub, where players can interact and show off their avatar and persistent statistics while they set up their games. This area also features vendors where players can equip their Immortals with persistent items.

PCG: How exactly does RoI relate to Guardians of Graxia, your previous fantasy turn-based game?

SW: Rise of Immortals is set in the same universe as Guardians of Graxia. Our backstory is that hundreds of years after the events of Guardians of Graxia, the power crystals of Graxia, which were very important in the Guardians game, have begun to fail, and this is leading to catastrophe as the floating continents begin to crash to the planet’s surface. Ultimately, a tournament is declared and Immortals are summoned forth—not only from Graxia, but from the known universe and beyond—to do battle. Winners earn the right to keep their crystals, but losers will have theirs destroyed (for the greater good).

Is it just me, or is there not enough water here to justify a bridge?

PCG: What games or myths inspired the character design?

SW: We were inspired by a wide range of media culture, including games of all kinds, movies, TV, sci-fi and fantasy fiction books and related poster art, comic books, and more. We wanted our Immortals to be diverse and visually interesting, while still functioning in the archetypal roles of Strength, Agility and Intelligence. Our characters are mostly fantasy based, but we have introduced various “tech” elements into the character design and general game art direction. A few of our Immortals have a sort of steam punk feel to them, which fits well with the backstory: the populace of Graxia is desperately trying to “fix” the falling power crystals by bolting on various electronic and mechanical doohickeys.

PCG: What can we expect from the PvE scenarios? Will there be any “boss” monsters?

SW: Our PvE scenarios feature typical MOBA laning, creeps and towers, but it’s combined with a dungeon crawl experience. So yes, there will be bosses and sub-bosses. We steered away from the “PvP against bots” approach for the PvE mode, though we are evaluating this as a possible additional scenario type after launch.

PCG: How much stronger will an Immortal with the best gear and highest level be when compared to a new player? Would they ever be matched against each other?

SW: There are two primary ways that players can persistently level their Immortals. The first way is through the acquisition of Artifacts, which may be found as item drops, or bought from vendors using our Prestige Points, which is persistent earned currency. Artifacts provide various stat boosts to the Immortals’ base combat attributes. The second way that players may persistently level their Immortals is through the Discipline Tree system. This allows players to spend Discipline Points to boost their combat abilities and attributes.

Ultimately, a high level player is going to have quite an advantage over a lower level player, so the way we tackle this is through skill-based matchmaking. We do also allow ad hoc games, which let anyone play against anyone else, though these games are not ranked.

Little do those soldiers know that they just stumbled into AoE range.

PCG: What kind of microtransactions do you plan on implementing? What made you decide to go with the F2P model?

SW: Our microtransaction system sits right inside the game, rather than being on a peripheral website. At launch, we’ll offer a number of Immortals for free, while others will be available via our Petroglyph Coins currency. Additionally, we’ll have a range of “skins” for the characters, ranging from texture swaps to full model, texture and animation swaps. We’re looking carefully at how to structure other potential microtransaction offerings, but they’ll likely include persistent elixirs and potions, as well as things like Discipline Tree build slots, additional Immortal slots and so on. Ultimately, however, we’re a F2P game, so there’ll always be a significant part of the full gameplay experience available for free.

PCG: Run us through the Immortal design process.

The first step is to roughly sketch out the general balance of Immortals across the three archetypes. Then we look for diversity within the archetypes, going for an overall balance of male/female/monster/other Immortals. It’s important to foster team-based gameplay (in both PvE and PvP), so we look carefully at how players might combine Immortals in different team makeups, and how their abilities might complement one another.

Once we have a good idea of the archetype and general role of the Immortal, we start conceptualizing its look as soon as we can. We often find that visualizing an Immortal gives us new ideas for how that character will move, the exact nature of their basic attacks and animations, and how the abilities should work. As we progress through modeling, texturing, rigging and animating, we will often make adjustments to the underlying design of abilities as the Immortal comes to life.

As a rule, the development team plays the game at least once a day, so we’re able to identify and resolve issues very quickly. We’ve settled on an iterative development process that combines our testing with feedback from the community that’s currently playing the game.

PCG: How many abilities does each Immortal have? How much do they vary?

SW: Each Immortal has five combat abilities, with the typical Ultimate ability available at level 6. The 5th ability is referred to as the “Signature” ability, and this is unlocked at persistent level 25 (which is halfway to the max persistent level of 50). The abilities vary quite dramatically between the various Immortals, though some abilities are themed to the specific strengths and focus of each Immortal and archetype.

What's longer: her blade, or her hair?

PCG: Who’s your favorite Immortal?

SW: I really like Kyrie at the moment. She’s an Agility character, so she has to mix it up with the enemy in order to gain XP and gold. Although she’s not well armored, she’s very nimble and has a set of complementary abilities that allow her to snipe (long-range Shurikens), and perform surprise attacks (her Rush ability combined with her Laceration Post make a great combination). She needs finesse in order to survive, but her basic attack is truly terrifying when she reaches level 20 and has the appropriate items equipped.

PCG: What kind of player is RoI tailored to?

SW: We definitely aim to appeal to the seasoned MOBA player with the PvP scenarios, while the PvE scenarios are aimed at those players who might be put off by the very competitive nature of PvP.

PCG: How many maps are slated for release?

SW: We’re still finalizing the map count, but we aim to support PvP 1v1 through 5v5, and PvE 1vE through 5vE. We’ll continue to tune our maps as we progress through our external beta testing and will announce more specifics as we get closer to release.

PCG: Anything else you’d like to add?

SW:Thanks for the opportunity to talk about Rise of Immortals! We’re looking forward to expanding our beta testing phase and seeing how new players take to the game. We’re considering much of what the community has to say, so keep those ideas coming!

Sounds like Petroglyph know exactly what they want out of the MOBA genre. You can keep tabs on the game and sign up for the beta at www.riseofimmortals.com.

An in-cockpit image taken from the waning moments of the trailer.

Evan Lahti: Not to be flattering in front of all our readers, but your footage is goddamned brilliant. Hawken looks bright but post-apocalyptic; the robot fighting seems as speedy as another modern FPSes. How on Earth did nine of you produce this in nine months?

Jon Kreuzer, Technical Lead at Adhesive Games: Haha, thanks for the flattery. It was nine months, but actually less than nine people for most of that time. Our studio is now up to nine people including interns. We have some talented artists and have stayed focused on our core game. Many parts of the levels are created by combining re-usable building blocks into unique structures, which can allow new levels to come together quickly. We don’t have the resources to develop an engine from scratch so we started with UDK [Unreal Development Kit] which turned out to be an excellent choice.

EL: Where are you guys based?

JK: We are based in the Los Angeles, California area. We have a studio that we’re all working at every weekday.

EL: Can you talk a little bit about your background as developers, artists, or other roles held by your staff?

JK: The four founders of Adhesive Games met while working on Project Offset. None of us were Project Offset founders, though. Most of us have been involved in the game industry and worked on our own projects but I have to admit we haven’t shipped a major title before. Our lead artist Khang Le has an impressive resume of movie credits.

EL: The mech game genre has a lot of variation in how mobility (armored suits/exoskeltons vs. slow, walking tanks) influences the design of the game’s mechs and therefore the design of gameplay itself. If we create an imaginary spectrum with, say—MechWarrior’s slow-moving, torso-rotating hulks at one end and something like Front Mission’s more mobile Wanzers at the other (with Gundam, Chromehounds and other games scattered in-between), where would Hawken fall?

JK: In Hawken we want the Mechs to feel fast and responsive but also heavy. I would describe the gameplay itself is fast-paced. Some controls like turn speed won’t be as fast as a typical FPS with human characters. I’m not familiar enough with all the games mentioned to give a good comparison.

EL: What kinds of mechanics (heat management, slower pace, torso rotation) from MechWarrior—if any—do you think wouldn’t work today in a game with mechs?

JK: The mech audience seems to be split between people who like slower (possibly more realistic) mechs and those who want faster and easier to control ones. I think there’s room for both although our games lean more towards the latter category without sacrificing the sense of weight. We do have overheating on weapons but not movement.

EL: What games—in the mech genre and elsewhere—do you consider as inspiration for Hawken?

JK: MechWarrior for the weight and suspense, and Virtual On for the arcade style action. Our development process however is mainly to just try stuff out from a wide range of inspirations and see what works.

EL: Back to the art direction—the trailer gives me the sense that you’re creating a futuristic world that’s rough around the edges, but never dips completely into feeling apocalyptic in the clichéd sense. How would you describe the setting?

JK: The world does resemble a post-apocalyptic setting but we wanted it to feel more like somewhere that was once vibrant rather than always destroyed. In the current video the levels are empty except for the battling mechs, but we plan to add some moving background elements or creatures to make the world feel more alive. There will also be more levels than the three in the trailer, some of which have their own unique feel.

EL: Are you seeking a publisher, or hoping to remain fully independent?

JK: Right now we hope to remain independent and are not seeking funding from publishers. We are open to working with publishers and other companies if the right deals come along.

EL: If everything went your way, what impact would you want Hawken to have on the FPS genre?

JK: We’re just hoping to release a unique mech combat experience. We think there’s room in today’s market for a good solid fun mech game.

EL: At the moment, you’re not sure what platforms Hawken will release on, but you’re hopeful that it’ll be available on as many as possible. Is it more likely to end up on PC than Xbox 360 or PS3?

JK: At this point we really have no idea. Ideally we would like to release at some point on all three platforms. We haven’t really started on the business side of things yet.

EL: Thanks for your time, Jon.

How many people are there at your studio?
I am, right now, a one man garage shop. However, I don’t do it all myself. I have a team of artists in St Petersburg, about half a dozen of those guys; they’re great to work with, really talented. A music composer and sound effects crew in LA – the composer, she works on Showtime and the crew works in the movie business. I’ve got the Saxophone player who worked on Up, the horns player who worked on Star Trek… so it’s not, by any means, a one man studio, just that I’m the only full time employee and that’s only until the game’s released and/or we find permanent funding.

Didn’t this start as an MMO?
The idea when I formed the company was to make an MMO, and I spent 6 months building a really solid prototype, a proof of concept to take to a bunch of publishers at GDC; Codemasters, Sony Online, THQ… and they all said “we love the prototype, but you’re too small for us to put this kind of money in and it’s an MMO and right now… are you making any Facebook games?” That was 2009, just coming off the worst recession since forever, so the companies were a little skittish. At that point Windstorm Studios took all the assets and tech, and scaled it down to a single-player game, thinking about Torchlight’s model; build a small single-player game, get it out on Steam, and see how it does. Once we get it out there, either publishers will say ‘we really like this’ or I should have the funds to hire a couple of people and push the project forward a little bit.

"He got on his flying bicycle and looked for work"

How close are you to finishing?
We’re very close. March will be two years since I formed the company; I retooled significantly the prototype after the first six months, to make it more for the singleplayer third person action kinda game. It’s not going to be a AAA big budget title until I find funding; it should be a very polished title on a par with Magicka or Torchlight. I’m maintaining relations with a couple of Korean publishers (Nexxon and NCSoft) because the Koreans are building these huge stables of free 2 play games; in Germany, Frogster and Bigpoint are doing the same, so there’s room there for a small title to get in and establish a distribution channel, and those countries are still more amenable to PC gaming. But, I’m so close now, that I really want to self-publish and get it out there. It’s designed to be very episodic, as it is. The first time through should be 8-10 hours of gameplay, with 10 scenarios and 6 different zones…

Is it hard, working on your own?
It’s huge amount of work, tremendous; you just don’t realise. I don’t recommend it. If I could go back and do any one thing again, I’d get a partner or two to come in with me. I’m real reluctant to allow other people to assume my risk for me; to my chagrin, because y’know Bonfire convinced thirty people to come work for them without a paycheck for six months. School of hard knocks, y’know. I’m actually 11 people, but I’m the only employee and publishers just look at that and go pffft… I wouldn’t recommend it, especially not if you’re trying to build a pseudo-large title. Scheduling can still be hard, even if you’re the only person. You can still suck at it really bad. I was talking to my friend Ian, the lead designer at Robot, and I said “I’ve consistently missed every deadline I’ve set for myself.” The artists are getting the art in on time, I just am not doing a very good job at estimating how hard so many things are. I was working on scenario 2, and a problem cropped up with the combat AI. With a team, you can say “you keep working on the scenario, I’ll fix the combat AI”. But with one person, it becomes linear, and when it becomes linear everything gets pushed out.

Cyber-mafia

Are you ready to talk about the theme?
If you got to my website, you’ll see the theme. It’s not just flying cars, it’s a retro-futuristic science-fiction theme. There are flying cars, but they look like 1950s chevvies. It’s third person action, flying round on vehicles, set in a city. Lots of vertical spaces. I’m a huge MMO afficionado, so I was there with Aion and flying in that was just jumping then coasting; I was a huge City of Heroes fan and everyone loved flying in that. My family; my kids and my wife, who is a complete non-gamer, loved flying and super-jumping in that; it was so satisfying. One of the original thought processes that came out of this was I want to do something contemporary; I want to do something where you’re not walking for the first ten levels because, if it’s contemporary, I should be getting in a damn car and driving from one bit to another. I want to bring in some of Descent and let people get in vehicles right away. Vehicular-based MMOs don’t let you do that typically; Auto-Assault, Tabula Rasa.

The over-riding design theme is that you always see your avatar; you’re not a jetship or a car, you’re a person. But you’re going to be given vehicles from the beginning of the very first scenarios. There is still on-foot combat – get out, go in buildings, blow stuff up, get out, go somewhere else – and fight things on vehicles as well. It’s not about giant robots, contrary to the screenshots on my site. I really need to update that.

The setting is fresh, I’ve been careful working with the artists on that retro-vibe, and the game is for dads and sons. Dads will love the old-style cars and the big band style music. I really believe in the design tenets that Bruce Shelley and Tony Goodman had at Ensemble; the first five minutes should build a world that people want to come see, want to see and stay in. Bright, primary colour palettes; no sepia tones in the whole game. Look at Metro 2033; it was an incredibly-detailed, well-crafted, bump-mapped world… all in the same shade. Not what I wanted it at all. There’s even a certain part of me that loves Film Noir and could see a Sin City kind of game, black and white with splashes of colour, like LA Noire, but that’s not this game.

The city of the future, yesterday.

How close to release are you?
At the moment, the programming is finished, I’ve just got to fill out the content, but I won’t announce the title until that’s done. I want to talk to Steam, I want to announce it with them. When you look at that market it’s Steam, with everyone else. They won’t allow you to pay for that page front space; it’s based on popularity, sales and so on. Look at Magicka, they just made an announcement. I’m going to host all the community stuff on Facebook; Sony did the same thing with DC universe and, while I’m not a fan of giving Facebook all my traffic, you do what the industry is doing.

You wont’ talk about the name yet; but what inspired you?
Like the first episode in a series; drawing on that Sam Spade 1950s detective serial, y’know, you’re a cop in a corrupt city, not even a cop, because the cops are corrupt too, and crime is rampant; right off the bat you get this case, it seems kind of odd; a lot of cheesy typical stuff, with The Dame and so forth.

Thanks for your time!
Thank you!

It’s a single and multiplayer fantasy-themed strategy game that takes the mechanics of collectible card games, but changes what the Mojang guys have always seen as their limitations. Markus’ long time friend and the lead designer on Scrolls, Jakob Porser, realises this is going to take people by surprise.

“It’s actually been quite interesting to hear the reactions from people in the business when we have presented the idea behind Scrolls. I think the most common question has been. ‘But why are you not focusing on making more Minecraft? Like expansions, a sequel or developing the buisness model on the current version?’

“Obviously, that would indeed be the best choice if we were only in it to make money. But we said from the start that the biggest advantage of Minecraft’s success is that it enables us to do the projects we really want to do. Scrolls is just that.”

Markus and Jakob have long been fans of collectible card games, but they both had problems with the genre. “We were discussing common gameplay flaws,” says Jakob. “The discussion quickly turned to what features would be cool to add to this genre, and before we knew it, the design process of Scrolls had begun.”

You play Scrolls online against other players, or offline in a campaign mode. Each player chooses a selection of scrolls, representing creatures, spells and structures under their control, and chooses where to place them on a game board.

“The board is divided so that you control one side each.” says Jakob. “As your units attack, they charge across your opponent’s side of the board and will damage him unless blocked. As every unit comes with a variety of different abilities, it’s not as simple as just placing your units in front of your opponent’s to feel safe. You will need to pay close attention to the positioning of you opponents units, siege weapons and building and adjust your strategy according to that.”

On a broader level, the game is about acquiring those cards: players can buy packs of randomly selected cards for real money, or earn them for free by playing the single player campaign against the AI. Some cards can only be bought, others can only be earned, but all can be traded on the auction house for in-game currency.

The swords-and-sorcery setting of Scrolls will be fleshed out with a backstory by Jerry Holkins, writer of Penny Arcade – a man with a taste for flowery prose. Jerry says: “Ever since Minecraft took root in the offices, it’s transformed once vital staffers into shambling hulks, concerned only with the construction of monolithic structures. When Notch said the Mojang guys had an idea for another game, I decided it would probably be safest just to join them.”

I had a few questions about how Scrolls works, and lead designer Jakob was kind enough to answer them.

PC Gamer: You mention Scrolls arose out of you guys talking about some common gameplay flaws in collectible card games – what were they specifically?

Jakob Porser: Although I like many of the elements of random typically used in CCGs, some of them can be annoying and ruin the game. Take resource management for instance. Resources are crucial to be able to play the game at all, and to make acquiring them based on chance can completely ruin a game, if you as a player simply have no chance to counter your opponents attacks. Its one thing to lose a game to a better deck, but to never have the slightest chance of winning because of chance is just bad gameplay.

PC Gamer: What features did you want to add to CCGs?

Jakob Porser: Scrolls features a game board where you place your summoned units. This adds another layer of tactics and opens up for some really interesting design opportunities for the scrolls. To be successful, you will need to pay close attention to the positioning of you opponents units, siege weapons and building and adjust your strategy according to that.

Also, since Scrolls is designed to be played on a computer and not as a paper version, we have the ability to add effects that would be to complicated to keep track of otherwise. For instance, the units in Scrolls does not heal up at the end of your round. Their life pool will diminish as they are being damaged and they will eventually die, unless healed or protected in some other way. Keeping track of that in a paper version would be really hard, but in a computer game where the computer remember this for you, its very much possible.

PC Gamer: Do cards represent things that you just deploy and then forget about, or are they like units in a strategy game that you can control after you’ve placed them?

Jakob Porser: You will certainly have to manage them to get the most out of your gameplay. Some can be moved around the board for instance, and as positioning is such a strong factor, you would be wise to keep an eye on it. Also, units generally carry some special ability – some are passive, others need to be activated – and timing these abilities right are certainly important. However, some things are managed by it self. Say for example that you have a unit that heals itself at the beginning of your round, this would be done automatically.

PC Gamer: Is the game free to play? If not, what kind of price range are you thinking?

Jakob Porser: You acquire scrolls by purchasing spell books which contains a set number of randomly inserted scrolls, but actually doing battle against other opponents is free. In single player you will be able to acquire items and scrolls without purchasing them, so its really up to the player how much they want to spend on the game.

As for the spell books we haven’t set a price yet, but expect it to be less then the cost of many other CCGs.

PC Gamer: Will you buy cards for real money?

Jakob Porser: The spell books, which contain scrolls, will be bought with real money, yes.

PC Gamer: Will there be cards that can only be bought with real money, or can you earn them all for free?

Jakob Porser: Some scrolls can only be bought, while other scrolls only can be obtained by playing the single player adventure. However, all scrolls can be bought and sold on an auction house, but that will not be a profit for us, as the profit of a sold scroll goes to the seller. I should probably point out that the currency used for buying and selling on the auction house is an ingame currency that players will not be able to exchange for real money. The ingame currency can also be used to buy new spell books.

PC Gamer: Will you be able to buy and earn specific cards you want, or will you always acquire them in random packs?

Jakob Porser: Well I mentioned the auction house already, as well as being able to acquire scrolls through single player. Apart from that, we are looking into being able to trade cards directly with other players. We are still not sure about this feature, as it would probably attract evil minded people who want to hack other players accounts and steal their collection of scrolls, but if we can come up with a smart solution for this, we will definitely implement it.

PC Gamer: Can you give an example of the kind of thing a card might do?

Jakob Porser: In the prototype, we had a unit that over time could grow very powerful, but a side effect to boosting its power was that you also increased the time until its would attack. On its own, this unit was quite harmless to the opponent. Sure it got very powerful, but as it never got to attack you couldn’t utilize its power. That is unless you placed it next to another unit who’s ability was that once it attacked, every unit next to it also attacked. Combining these units made for some awesome humiliation. (Notch was close to rage quit, and obviously I was mocking him to the best of my ability)

PC Gamer: Will there be different races or decks, or will all players take cards from the same pool?

Jakob Porser: You will take scrolls from the same pool, but the resource type used to play scrolls variate. It will be very hard to successfully play a deck that uses more then two different resource types. Possible, but hard.

PC Gamer: Is the game played on an abstract board or does it take place on maps that represent places?

Jakob Porser: It will be an abstract board.

PC Gamer: Presumably in multiplayer you and your opponent are on equal footing. Is that also the case with you and the AI in single player?

Jakob Porser: Single player will differ. Sometimes matches will be similar to facing another player only your opponent is computer controlled, but sometimes you will face a large creature with special abilities that doesn’t resemble anything you would see in a multiplayer game. The single player part is very flexible that way and a lot of fun to design. For example, some bosses will require the player to apply tactics they would never think of doing when facing another player.

We’re all intrigued to see how this works out. It’s such a clean break from their current game that there’s no guarantee Minecraft fans will go for it, but Mojang do have a rare knack for fun. Jakob says, “I don’t believe that gamers are so one dimensional that they only enjoy a certain genre. I myself love everything from platform games to MMORPGs, and I dont think I am that uncommon.”

PCG: So let’s clear up some facts before we get into anything else. There doesn’t seem to be a reward for completing the starred options in group-finder queue.

Chris Cao: That was a total bug. We just put in the fix with the Feb update, but you [should be] getting a tier 2 badge if you are doing the Alerts or Duo dailies–you’re actually getting the highest armor badge. If you do a Duo daily, you get 1 tier 2 badge and if you do the alert you get 2 tier 2 badges.

PCG: And that’s a one-time-per-day reward?

CC: A one-time daily reward. It lets you slow boat your raid armor. Some of our guys playing here don’t have as much time as others running around in tier 2 batsuits but we are getting up there to start buying our pieces. Even if you can only play with one other person it gives you a route to get that end game armor

Together we must stop the giant bird people!

PCG: How do raid lock outs work? When do they reset? Are you locked to a single instance?

CC: This is actually something we’re adding in the near future: an in-game help resource which will be explaining a lot of things including these things because there are a lot of subtleties that are unique to our game. Actually what’s interesting is some of the players don’t understand roles fundamentally because they haven’t played MMOs before. While we do list them and show them the abilities, we need a clear place that goes “OK, here is how this works”.

So in the case of the lock out timers (which are actually victory flags), when you look at your UI you’ll see that red flag which means you’ve actually taken loot off a boss. Coming up in this update or the next we are going to tell you per instance when you queue for an instance if you have victory flags for bosses in there. Our loot system doesn’t actually lock you out of the instance, it just keeps you from getting loot off a boss. The reason we did that is because we wanted people to group with their friends so you can raid as much as you want per week but you can only get loot off a boss once within a given a week and then it resets. The dailies and the weekly victory flags reset on the cycles so you can do that stuff but you can’t get loot off that given boss.

PC Gamer: I often see readers comparing the amount of content or polish in DCUO to MMOs that have been out for 5+ years already. It’s gotta be tempting to go for that quantity approach just so you can say, “Look we have as much content as these other games”, right?

Chris Cao: Exactly. I think those games had more [at launch]. If you’re taking about City of Heroes or Champions, its interesting because if you compare it to WoW (which only had 9 classes at the beginning, total)–I don’t often compare game to game but the reason I’m doing it is because they controlled the number of interactions. That’s what made their game fun in the endgame. They presented diverse classes that had different combos, that players could play test and have fun at endgame with. It’s never been tempting to me [to go for quantity over quality].

Batman didn't know that Captain Uppercut would soon betray him.

Some people may go for the popular side of that choice, but we know that in order to create an endgame that will have robust raiding and awesome pvp, Mark, our lead combat designer, I and a few other people are going to have to play every combination. And so we already have 300 something combinations in-game. If you take our movement types, our weapons types, our power set–that’s already a ton, not even counting roles. We did a good job, but we found a few things that didn’t work out. Super strength can do a ton of damage and if you’re Bane in the legends system it creates this awesome, kill-the-other guy scenario. Which is another layer upon top of it, but to answer your question, I’m always wanting to go with a quality experience over a quantity experience, because it goes with the content we built in the game.

Ultimately it has to get to an endgame and the games the [players are comparing DCUO to] don’t really have an end-game. We built a game that would be fun to play with your friends for months. There is gear at the end, PvP, the Legends stuff, Collections. There’s a bunch of stuff that’s fun. But why make the process take longer to have your fun? Yeah, it’s [shorter than other some other MMOs], but what’s funny is that it’s still longer than most action games you play. I think, honestly its funny our reviews are polarized: some are really good, some are really bad. And I think its because people go “OK, I’m going to compare this to the other thing that’s like it”. Which is completely natural. But when you do so, you don’t just play it and see if you have fun with it. We decided to make MMOs more fun to play moment-to-moment and those are the guns we are going to stick to.

Collectables don't prevent you from being hit really hard.

PCG: Another major element of endgame is collecting. But collections haven’t really come into their own yet, because of the lack of auction houses. You’ve said before that crafting professions don’t make a lot of sense in a superhero world, but do you ever foresee crafting professions being added to the game?

CC: First off, the Broker is going out in the February update so that will help in the collection side–a lot–because people haven’t discovered what cool things there are from collections yet. Collections give you things like temporary pets, unique abilities, superpowers and clickable things that you can get. There’s a lot of stuff there and there isn’t a great way to trade them, so its hard to complete those collections.

At the end of the day, MMO guys get into the checklist side of things: I’m an MMO gamer and I see this new game and I go, “OK does this new game have this checklist?” and then I play it and then I complain that its exactly like everything else I play. At the end of the day we changed combat, we changed movement and we changed it to some degree that we still have very classic endgame very classic PvP matches. We have badge hunts and the rest of it. But it’s the interesting [elements] that are specific to DCUO.

First, in DC you move quickly, which is the reason collections are so big. If you notice when you stand to them, they are half the height of a character because its hard to see things at the speed that a superhero is moving at. I bring this up, because what I like out of most trade skill systems is the harvesting side of it, not the combining side of it. That hunt and peck for something you do in the universe, we’ve got that. Its not just, hey go out and go pick the same thing to make the same thing. That’s the part we don’t have.

We want you to go look for the stuff, trade with your friends and get cool rewards on the other side by collecting it. I can see putting [crafting] in there. But there’s fundamentally two types of games: Games that have cool harvesting and that’s part of the regular gameplay, and games that have trade skills where they dedicate time to the actual crafting of items–I don’t think that’s ever in DCs future. That isn’t the superhero style.

That doesn’t mean the harvesting side won’t be there or we might not continue to build on our collections. But I think its still gonna be something you can do at your superhero speed in those cases that ultimately get you those rewards. I’d like to see how collections pan out for people. I think ultimately, because they are not making armor repeatedly or making a hat, the hardcore people will go, “This isn’t trade skills!” But at the end of the day what you really want is something else to do besides fighting.

That’s what you’re looking for: rather than “trade skills,” you’re thinking, “Hey what is something else I can do?” Like I said ,downtime is a different kind of fun. Not an end of the fun. It’s gotta be something else you can do that’s fun that you can do while you’re waiting for a queue or your friends. There needs to be something more that you’re doing that isn’t necessarily beating on a guy.

We have races and we have this collections and investigations, and we are going to continue to fatten out that side of things as well as add more dudes for you to punch in the head. That’s our tactic. I’m not going to say “never,” but I think when you go with the MMO checklist, you get locked into the MMO checklist and you don’t look at what it’s going to make a great experience based on the game you’ve made.

And the flip side of that it works as the same thing, we are just at the beginning of this game. This game is evolving and what we are talking about at launch is just the tip of the iceberg of what players are going to experience.

Chris Taylor: Yes I am!

PC Gamer: Last time we talked about Kings and Castles you were going on about how awesome AoE was.

Chris Taylor: Yes I was, and how it would be great if we could go back to some of those really great gameplay elements, and guess what, Robot Online was doing that with Age of Empires Online and Microsoft.

PC Gamer: How did you get involved with that, or did they come to you? We’re told that they were always scheduled to hand this project off after 24 months.

Chris Taylor: I didn’t know anything about all that, what I knew about was that they had a lot of content to build. Last year I was approached to help out, and quite simply to use my team to build some great content for the game. There’s all sorts of stuff that need to be built, Civs, what we’re calling boosters, and other content packs that basically enhance the game. So that’s where we started, that’s what we were doing, and then as things evolved and as things got further along things started to look like “hey, we’re capable of taking the franchise and doing right by it.” The stuff that we were developing looked really good, and it just came up and we were thrilled. We said “sure, we’d love to.” Tremendous responsibility, a scary responsibility in some regards because you’ve got a franchise that sold 25 million copies, so this is not something to take lightly. You don’t say “oh sure, I’ll drive the lambourghini, I won’t crash it.” So there’s a lot of responsibility there. We’re very excited about it. So far so good, we’re having a ball and loving the game, and can’t wait to talk about all the stuff we have in store.

PC Gamer: What was your favourite AoE 2 civ?

Chris Taylor: That’s a good question. It was the English. My parents were both born in England, but it wasn’t that, it was the archers. I loved upgrading. When I got the castle upgrade, I’d get the super mega long range archers, and I’d get as many as I could in a clump, and I think I could destroy anything with archers in one volley. That was fun! I took John Romero down at a tournament we played at Ensemble’s offices, like ten years ago, and Romero attacked me with a bunch of War Elephants, and I took them down with my archers. I’ll never forget that night.

PC Gamer: So we can expect to see the English out of you sooner or later.

Chris Taylor: [laughs] I think so!

PC Gamer: What about AoE Online caught your attention and made you want to be part of the project?

Chris Taylor: It’s the fact that you know as well as I know that RTS has been around for nearly 17 years since Dune 2 hit the scene, and RTSes were in a rut where we were seeing this pattern, and this is a really important corner we’re turning because we’re going online. We’re going from the packaged goods model, we’re going to a live team model. We’re going to a model where we can listen to the fans, listen to the community, and then include it in the next patch, and it’s not like “oh we’ll do one more patch,” no, we’ve got another patch coming, and another one. We’ve got boosters, we’ve got content, we’ve got all this stuff. So you can call me on the phone and say “hey Chris, I’m really excited about this” and I can say “thanks Dan” and make a note, and you could see it in the coming months.

PC Gamer: I will probably take you up on that.

Chris Taylor: That’s a fun way to mid-develop games.

PC Gamer: So it’s more a service than a boxed product.

Chris Taylor: Yeah, and it’s got more soul to it. It’s got more heart, you know. When you look at the game, there’s layer upon layer upon layer of the game, there’s so many dimensions, so many places to go. I don’t even know how we could fully explore it in two or three years. You take a look at WoW. What are we in right now, the seventh year? There’s new things happening. That’s the difference between the boxed game and an online game.

PC Gamer: So you’re viewing this as a long term project for Gas Powered Games?

Chris Taylor: Absolutely.

PC Gamer: Not going to hand it off any time soon?

Chris Taylor: No, no. I mean, it’s all based on success, but we hope it’s very successful and we expect nothing less of a franchise of this magnitude, and the wonderful work that Robot has done, all the guys down there have been really great. It’s a design I wish I’d thought of.

PC Gamer: On that note, there was the recent announcement that Company of Heroes Online is shutting down before it even officially launches. It’s obviously a very different model for the online free-to-play RTS. You obviously have more confidence in this model, why is that?

Chris Taylor: You’ve got to really look at where the market is going, and the kind of people that are playing games. Really, the world is starting to come online, and people everywhere are enjoying videogames. It’s an exciting time. We’re seeing our whole business change and Age is the perfect franchise to reach out to all those people online, and we’re not saying “hey you have to pay before you play,” we’re saying “hey you can come online and have dozens and dozens and dozens, hundreds of hourse over this next year of free gameplay,” and that is such a great model. No subscriptions, no nickel and diming folks, just honest to god free-to-play with these packs that people buy when they become fully invested in the franchise. It’s a real winning approach, I believe to the future of gaming and online gaming.

PC Gamer: What else can you talk about for the game, what part of the design strikes you as the most promising?

Chris Taylor: I like the fact that we’re going away from the traditional RTS. The single player campaign, skirmish mode and then you get the online matchmaking mode. What we’re seeing now is something more co-op where you do comp stomps and stuff like that, which is great, but being connected through the Xbox, with the social graph from Xbox that came over to Windows Live, now all my friends are there and I can play with them co-operatively, I can PvP with them. That’s really cool. We learned a lot about social connectivity. You have to have that there in order to bring the experience to the next level. That’s a really fundamental part of what’s going to take this game and kick it up a notch.

PC Gamer: Do you hope to someday pick the Kings and Castles project up again?

Chris Taylor: You know, when I saw Duke Nukem Forever go to Gearbox I realised that nothing’s ever really done. Spielberg could go make ET part 2 30 years later, that’s a dumb example, but it shows that these things are not done until they’re done and we could come back to that game any time in the future, but right now it looks like we’re going to be heavily invested in Age Online, and that’s not a bad thing for anyone. I sometimes wish there were more of me, but there aren’t. This was the right thing to do right now.

PC Gamer: We also wish there were more of you, Chris.

Chris Taylor: Awwww. You know how you kind of wish sometimes that you lived multiple lives so you could go off and do that thing as a surfer dude, or whatever, and things you also wanted to do. I don’t know, whatever! You can only do one thing at a time of this scope and scale and that’s what we’ve chosen to do. It’s great for us, and it’s going to be a place where we can invest a lot of our creativity and a lot of our experience. We’re going to be 13 years old in May, as a company. I’ll have been in the business 23 years. We’re excited about bringing a lot of our experience to this franchise.

PC Gamer: I tried, and I couldn’t think of a better developer to take up from where Robot left off.

Chris Taylor: You know what’s terrific, too is that we’re good friends with the guys at Robot. This has all been really synergistic. Everybody’s really happy with the way it’s gone, so what more could you ask for?

PC Gamer: One last thing. How does it feel to be the first Microsoft published PC game since viva Pinata?

Chris Taylor: You know, PC gaming picked up some heat in the last few years, and I have to laugh, because PC gaming is one of the biggest businesses right not in the world. Whether you look at what’s happening in China, whether you look at what’s happening in Europe. Whether you look at Zynga, whether you look at Steam, whether you look at Blizzard. Everywhere you look, there’s success, and it’s on a PC. Last year folks asked me what I think of gaming, and “listen, the future of gaming is on the PC.” I love being a part of it. I’ve never given up on the PC, always believed in the PC, I’m talking to you, one of the last vestiges of PC gaming magazines, where we’re all totally devoted to it, and realise now that it was really the retail experience, and that’s okay, that can die, that’s not something we need. We don’t need people to go buy a box with a disk. People can get it online now, they can get it fast, they can get it easily, and it’s free-to-play, and it’s triple A, deluxe all the way down the line, no-compromises gameplay, so what the hell, eh? It’s good!

PCG: Mod support is a great way to let the players’ create their own workarounds for UI issues. Are there any plans to add mod support in the future?

Chris Cao: Possibly. We made a decision to not have a modifiable UI because [it's easier on] the development side. We already cleaning up some issues with the UI, but the updating the UI on the PS3 is the unfriendliest thing that there can be. So we’ve had to be really careful with it. What we thought we would do is, “First off, let’s launch the game and figure out what works well, then [see what] options we have to work with it.”

I think that’s a good reason why we split the two platforms. Not the UI specifically, but because sometimes there are things that need to go to one audience that doesn’t need to go to another. That said, there are things we could do that are much more PC-sensible, without necessarily trying to create a disparity between the products. [For modding in particular], we want to make sure, that that we’re allowing it because we really value it, not just “Hey, the PC guys want to be able to mod their UI,” but more, “As a product, how are we going to make DCUO for both audiences? And what can we do to customize it to each one?”

Curse you, social menu, bane of my existence!

We had discussions internally about allowing modding, but haven’t come to any decision yet. It’s the obvious that a lot of other games allow modding, but they don’t have the same constraints that we do: we have to keep making stuff for both audiences. I don’t have a final word on it, but we’re watching and seeing what’s going to be the most important thing.

I think i some cases [we'll do platform-specific changes] even the little things like, we’ve now added support to make it easier to use a keyboard if you have a Bluetooth keyboard for PS3. Quite a few people are using it for text chat, so we’ve said, “OK, for that audience we need to do PS3-specific things to make it easier to communicate there.” On the the PC, we’ve done some of the same things to help people have better access to slash commands. Overall, for the customization, we’re going to start off with careful steps to improve the UI, and then look at the other things. I don’t want to say there won’t be mods, because these games live for years and obviously more stuff is gonna be added, but we have to be careful that it doesn’t create such a disparity between the services that suddenly the game gets different at a root level.

We may not be able to mod, but they can't stop us from DANCING!

PCG: Do you think it’s possible to keep the two platform versions similar in the long run, with only small deviations along the way?

CC: I think the big deal is that there will be camera and control and UI changes that will be at the forefront of everything as we find what works better [for both platforms]. Moving social elements to the Quick Menu is a good example: having a few extra steps of delay whenever you wanted to look at your PDA [or friends lists] was clunky. So we moved it to the Quick Menu, because the Quick Menu has become a great place for us to put the things we do repeatedly.

Those types of changes are easier to make because what it comes down to is: if we do anything that starts to affect gameplay balance in PvP or PvE, we have to start balancing the game in two different ways, and that starts to create two different experiences. As soon as I start to imbalance the experience on the PC vs the PS3, one is easier than the other. I think a good example of this is our races. Some people find races easier on the PC than the PS3. We didn’t intend for that to happen, but because of the nature of the race [which you hurdle around the city at break-neck speed following through a series of rings -Ed.], having a mouse point where you want to go directly is easier, with some movement modes, than controlling the camera independent of movement with a stick [on a gamepad].

My personal favorite graphic in the game at launch: placeholder rockets!

In those cases that [the controls cause the difficulty to] actually diverge, and we have a case where in some ways its easier on the PC than the PS3, we aren’t gonna try to forcefully lock-step them. We’re going to take that in stride and do what we can, but we want to be careful of those because we don’t want it to be so radically different that when you’re talking to your friend about playing DCUO and he looks at you funny because on the PS3 it was completely different. We still want it to be one universe conceptually, because then its easier to tell the story and keep things going.

PCG: A few of my comic book-savvy friends are upset that they can’t perfectly recreate a character like Superman or Flash because the game’s six power sets don’t really match those characters. Do see that as a problem that needs to be addressed or is it just a side effect of turning a comic book universe into a fun MMO?

Chris Cao: I know there are a lot of people who want to make a specific character, maybe you have a character concept in your head. There are other comic hero MMOs that create power sets that have no powers because it lets people do certain things. We are looking at it, but what it comes down to is that there are two types of people playing DCUO: those who want to create a specific character concept and that’s more important than the game play or cosmetic variety, and those who want rocking gameplay and abilities that tie together. That’s the spectrum: I don’t think players are one way or the other, you’re somewhere between that.

For us, the developers, we’re staying towards the gameplay more than anything, because adding a new Power type is the biggest change we can make in the game. A new power type affects literally everything we do. So our options are either give you a Power set that really isn’t very different because that’s the only safe way to add to it (giving you something that you already have and put different effects on it). Those character concept guys [want that sort of thing]: they’re like, “I don’t care if it’s different, at least cosmetically, I can get more into my character.”

I want to be just like these guys, except that Grundy fellow. He's kinda gross.

The other alternative (on the gameplay-leaning side) is to say, “Hey, if we’re going to add more powers (and we will), let’s do it as totally different powers that feel different and provide different gameplay choices.” I think our weapons show how different we try to make things. Two-handed feels very different than Bow or Dual-wield and the rest. We’re trying to strike that balance [between new types and truly different types], and I think we’re always leaning on the gameplay side of those options. I’m not trying to stretch the answer out, but it’s really about different people playing the game and a lot of different points of expectation that they’re going to have. And we are always going to err on the side of things that makes the gameplay rock and gives it tactical combos and tactical multiplayer choices, rather than just trying to satisfy a player’s specific type of hero/villain concept.

One particular case is the Superman and Wonder Woman thing: they have power with no powers. We have their powers in the system, its just people want it called something else. We have Brawling in the game, and if you want to punch guys and smack things around, take the Brawling power set and Super Strength skill and you’re doing the Superman thing. Yes, you may have to pick Ice as a Power set, because we made a balanced system where everyone has a weapon, power, and movement mode. But if you want to get into that debate: we do have flexibility in our system. You can role play Superman no problem. You don’t have to use the Ice powers that are offered to you for tanking and those sort of things. You can mix your Power and Skill points, but its fundamentally a MMO, and that means it needs to play well as a multiplayer game with roles and abilities. That’s always going to be our first foot forward. On the cosmetic side, we’ll always try to put stuff in for it, but its gotta work as a game first.

Bop! Bet you didn't learn that trick in martial arts school, Batjerk.

PCG: The iconic powers that everyone can access seems to be a good container for things like Superman’s laser eyes and Wonder Woman’s lasso.

CC: If you made a system that was perfect on the customization side, it would fall onto the gameplay side because they are at odds. You can choose one or the other. Really, DCUO’s the kind of game you want to play and we want to make it fun to play with your friends as well as give you the cosmetic side of it, but that’s secondary.

PCG: As far as adding new powers in the future, the most obvious one currently missing is the Green Lantern’s light powers. You could also do Cyborg’s techno-augmentation. Are there any power sets that aren’t implemented yet, that you peronsally want to see added sometime in the future?

CC: Designing power types based on one specific hero or villain is the main paradox in making a superhero MMO–if you’re making a game that only has one main hero: like a Superman game or Batman game, its probably less of a problem, because the abilities are customized to that character. But anytime you create something that’s more broad (like a power set in DCUO): your inspiration is specific, but your results have to be general.

Superman is a great example: he breaks all the rules. He’s super strong and super smart (he’s actually an incredible scientist). His story is full of alien technology, heat vision, cold breath, all of the sonic clap abilities, the pounding and ripping, and everything else that goes on. He’s a very specific case that people identify with and if you’re making  a game about Superman, you can replicate those abilities one for one. If you’re making a system of abilities [for players to pick and choose from to build their own character] you have to generalize and ask yourself, “OK, what bucket does this ability fall into?” Like th Ice power set in our game: ice is actually two sets of powers (all of the power sets are broken up into two main buckets of abilities). And even though they’re different from each other, they are not radically different, so we put them in the same bucket so, anybody who has elemental-like powers will be using, at the start, either Ice or Fire.

The Bee Knee's wardrobe for this episode was provided by GAP.

PCG: Did any power sets get cut during development?

We tested Earth internally, but we couldn’t make it different from those two just yet, and we didn’t want to put some kind of brown ice out there, so we put it on hold. It wasn’t cut, but personally I would love to add Light. We’re actually talking right now adding Light. It has a fiction and a lore–especially with the movies upcoming, there’s a lot of support–and when we do it, we want to make sure it’s cool and not just, “We colored some other abilities or we changed the particle effects.”

I think this is pretty key to our game and what’s interesting about it: there are other MMOs, superhero or not, where fidelity is traded for variety directly. You get something that’s lower fidelity because you get more of it. It goes back to your earlier question: Do you want fidelity or variety? Obviously everyone wants both. I think a lot of times, MMOs pretend to promise both. In an action game, [a type of combat or game feature] means something completely different fidelity-wise, and when in an MMO, players [may make the excuse] and go, “Oh, well ,that fidelity isn’t there because they had to make so much of it.” Whatever we put in DCUO, we’re going to put it in carefully and we’re gonna make sure it has its own value. Whether it’s another power tech or weapon–whatever we add, you can be sure that it will make a totally different experience. We figured as long as you like the existing game, we can build more over time. But we’ll only get that once chance to make a good first impression, and if two of our powers are too alike, you’re going to think that we cheaped out.

At one point, they had almost double the number of weapon types that made it into live.

PCG: Do you think there’s room for more weapon types to be added as well?

CC: Totally. We had 15 or so weapons that we played around with in development and we boiled it down to 9. In some cases, we did stuff creatively–like we had this Wand weapon type that’s a little bit like a Harry Potter superhero. And while it was cool and there are characters in the DC universe that used wands, we just couldn’t come up with enough badass combos. At a certain point, the guy with the wand is bicycle kicking and back flipping. It just didn’t work. So the quality-over-quantity thing came into play and we said “OK, lets boil down”.

Another example is we had Single Pistol in for a while, instead of Dual Pistols because there are a lot of DC characters that use just a single pistol. Again, we looked at it and ask ourselves, “Whats cooler? OK, dual pistols it is.” And how different are single pistols going to be from dual? We thought our time was better spent making a Two-Handed weapon type or making a Hand Blaster that will really be radically different [from anything else], rahter than making a Single Pistol.

A good example [of making weapon types feel unique] is Martial Arts vs Brawling. They’re different, but both are hand-to-hand. So really, we wanted to be different. We wanted you to be cool because, there’s a lot of weapons and powers that we give you, in addition, there’s a lot of cool stuff in movement types. Like the Flash is a great example. A lot of the Flash’s abilities come from Super Speed, not a power type. If you try to re-make Flash in DCUO, you’re gonna be bigger and better in a lot of cases, because you are gong to have more options.

But where are the kitten mittens?

PCG: The original plan was to release major content updated every month. But you’ve said more recently that the quality of the updates is more important then releasing them exactly every four weeks. Do you have an idea of what the absolute longest time you’d be willing to wait between updates, and what’s a realistic expectation for fans to have?

CC: It’s a tricky question because people are wondering, “Am I going to get something every month?” The general answer is, “Yes, we are going to try to get it to you every month.” But because we have internal processes we need to go through as well–especially because being on the PS3 inherently means there’s more [hurdles to release] than if you were just a PC game. Typically on a PC game, you can just build your own thing and put it out there, and no one else checks on you. But with the PS3, that’s obviously not the case and we have a higher standard to hold to.

So really, what we’re trying to do is: it takes X long to build an update; let’s get ahead of ourselves. As we are now, we’re building stuff for April and May potentially right now. Again, based on where stuff is going to fit [in the updates], we try to package it up and go, “OK, where does this fit best?”, but sometimes we cut stuff. There was actually stuff that was suppose to go in the February update that when I looked at it, I said that hasn’t cooked long enough, or in one case, it just didn’t end up being fun, so we cut it.

The reason I’m trying to expose our internal process to the player base is because it’s not as simple as saying, “Hey, here are these things that we’re gonna plan and they’re all going to end up being fun and cool.” At the end of the day, we play what we’ve built and go “Wow, that wasn’t or was cool.” And sometimes we go, “That’s good enough–we could have made it 10x better with 10x the time, but we aren’t going to invest that.” And other times, we go, “Wow, we’re lucky that worked out.”

What we’re tying to do is [release the major content update] roughly every month. The main reason for “roughly” is that it can’t be “X day of every month”, because different months have different number of weeks, so it starts to get off cadence. But basically, you are paying us a subscription fee each month and we want to make sure to give you value each month, and give you fixes in every update and add more and more stuff to the game. I don’t want to set players expectation that, “Yes its this,” and then they’re disappointed because we didn’t meet the date, but met the content. Judge us based on what we add, and not when we add it–and we will add it as fast as we can at a regular pace.

I will grind this instance for months if that whip has a chance to drop.

PCG: Are these content updates going to be targeted to end-game or low-level content? The February update seems to have a bit of both.

CC: For the first one, we knew that we had to give everybody a little something because we’d still have people hitting max level. Right now we don’t have exact percentages, because we are still running to the end of the month. But more and more people are hitting end game than there were in beta, obviously because they’re invested in their characters and are going along with it. There are still a large amount of people who are still leveling up. As funny as it is, you have the sort of MMO guys who are like, “I’ll eat the whole game in one day,” but then you have the other guys, like the PS3 players saying, “Cool, I come back a couple times a week, and there’s still more for me do to!”

So with that breath of an audience, that’s why we have everything in this first update, from the holiday events (whatever level you are you can get in) to the level 30 stuff. If we’re going to add new stories, we want to have it be available to the most people. So while we are still looking at a few things we’ll add in the leveling game to broaden it out, we want to make sure to add the new stuff at the end. That’s where we have the raid and the duo and we’ve actually added even more than that to the endgame [in our plans for content updates].

A good example by comparison is in the March update. We are looking at our metrics and see that most people are Duo’ing or are about to dou–we really see where the audience is and where the bubble is. Since we’re growing and people are still coming in, there are a lot of people who are still leveling, but they want to see what happens to them in February [before they decide to subscribe or not]. And so that’s why we made it as broad as we did.

PCG: Thats got to be tough, at this point to not even be sure what you are going to be doing in March. That’s gotta be crazy.

CC: Actually we’re building March [content updates] right now, so while we haven’t released the details on it yet we’re watching the metrics [to see what players are enjoying most in the game], so we can build the stuff into the game that’s popular–whether that’s what you do by yourself or friend or a couple of friends or a lot of friends. So we have these sort of LEGO building blocks of content than we can go, “OK, lets add one of these here or there.” We’re obviously going to add more Batcave [the hardest Raid in the game right now], because even in beta, people played the Batcave.

We have to finish that series of Raids, but we’re building other stuff all the time: Alerts or Duo modes or whatever. And that way, at any time, we can go, “Well, which ones do we want to fit together to make March, based on the audience?” Some of the updates we’re building are dedicated to the focus character [like Catwoman in February], while others are meant to add to what we already have. So for example, we had to pull Bane into the February update because we saw that people were liking Duos, but we didn’t have a Duo lined up for February at the time. We were working on making Bane into a Duo alreayd anyways, but we didn’t know when we were gonna use him. So we pulled him into February, so people would have stuff to do with one other person. It’s a flexible strategy, because we have to react to what the players want. And if we don’t react to what players want, then we’re going to be off in left field and everyone’s goings to wonder why we’re building more X when they want Y.

No word on when giant electric hamster balls will be released

PCG: You’ve mentioned that the February update will add multiplayer races. Is that going to be like Mario kart, where we’re cruising around shooting people? Or how is that going to work?

CC: What’s funny is that we have multiplayer races in the game right now, but I don’t think most people realize what they are, because we put them in a starting stage [and you can play them by yourself]. There’s these races that turn you into great apes in the city that actually are multiplayer races. So if you got together with your friends, you guys would all get shape changed into one of the evolved or devolved (how ever you want to look at it) apes that you can race as.

In the February update, what we’ve actually done is taken it a step further. In the Valentine’s Day event, there’s another one of those multiplayer races, but it has “good” and “bad” hearts along the way. The good heart will give you speed boosts and the bad hearts will drop you out of the race. So think of it as our way of moving towards the Mario kart side of racing. You’ll still have to get together with your friends to do it, because its in a shared zone. Ultimately what we’ll do, if player think they’re fun enough, is take them to private zones and let people queue for them. It’s basically: superhero movement is so fun that races are a natural downtime activity for it.

PCG: Is the amount of content in the Catwoman update, not including the holiday part, going to be fairly standard for what players can expect to see on a monthly basis?

CC: It varies. The last time I played it, [the Catwoman storyline] took 35–45 minutes to complete. It’s a tricky instance, because it has 5 boss fights in it. Its not hard, but each boss does have different elements to fighting them. There’s some shared world part, but what we found was working well for us, is the instances give us higher fidelity content. There isn’t a lot of ways to have players be in a shared world with someone who’s as exclusive or elusive as Catwoman. She’s very much a one-on-one type of character. A lot of the stories that circle around her are robberies and what you’re doing with her. So we chose more of an instanced approach.

In the future we might choose to do more of the shared world content and less of the instance-based character stuff. Really what we’re doing is telling a story with individual characters. Our efforts are always going towards what’s going to play best for this character, and of course for Catwoman, that’s going into a place she’s robbing to beat up on the guys and finally face against her.

Sorry, Grod, Marketing just isn't a fan. We're gonna have to let you go.

PCG: One character that really stood out to me as I was playing, that didn’t think got his due was the Penguin. He got one tiny cut scene saying, “I’ll be here in the future!” What are some of the DC characters that you are personally looking forward to seeing how they pan out in DCUO?

CC: I can say this with Penguin: I understand where you’re coming from, because we treated him doubly unfairly because his restaurant got bottled up by Braniac! You can actually stand there and look at his poor house inside. But I can tell you, coming soon in the near to immediate future, Penguin’s coming in.

We have a lot of those characters–even Catwoman is funny, because you fight alongside her as a villain, and you see her a few places, but you don’t get to see her back story. So we definitely are punching her side of it up and we’re really looking for the highest profile characters that maybe didn’t get as much treatment as they would. Ambush Bug got way more mileage then he ever had [in the comics], but that’s because he’s a cool character that fits in the gameplay we added him into. And we are just going to keep pulling that up.

For me personally: The Rogues. A lot of cool stuff happens with The Rogues. We have them in a boss fight in Stryker’s Prison, but I think there’s more we can do with those characters and the Flash stories in general. We have a couple of Flash story arcs in there, but Flash is obviously a high-profile guy. Of course the Justice League stuff: we put two of those episodes in there, but we actually have reserved some JL stuff, because we want to keep it for awhile and make sure we do it right. We’re working with DC to figure out how to get that in. Some stuff, we built before launch but didn’t ship with it, because we looked at it and said, “Is there a better way to fit it in the game?”

And other than that, we’re going to be playing up a lot of those characters that we’ve introduced but not a lot of people really know. The big 6 everyone knows. They are classics and we used them well in the stories, but I think people like the Flash–maybe not Gorilla Grodd because marketing would kill me if I put more monkeys in the game–but I think that that tier of character is there [for us to use]. They’re not “secondary”, because they have their own book series–it’s just that they haven’t been in the forefront of the public because they haven’t been as big in movies or anything else.

PCG: What do you see as the top priorities for the dev. team to address?

Chris Cao: Well, I can tell you that we don’t’ spend a lot of time making a list–we just start working on fixing problems. Right now we’re actually working on chat actively and we released some more fixes this last weekend and early Friday morning [to help improve the stability of chat on live servers]…. We’ve found that [the problems with chat] have been very population-dependent. Because our leagues are so big (like I’m in a league that has 750 people in it) its’ basically stressing our systems so we had to put in more tech to make sure that that whole thing works.

Voice chat is the same thing. We’ve done a bunch of changes there, but there are more coming in the February update. Communication is the number one thing. for us right now. Actually to that point, as a part of the March update, we’re re-designing the social pane and moving a lot of aspects currently in the social menu out onto the quick menu, so that they’re much easier to get to, instead of it being buried in the PDA.

Grouping is fun, but it could definitely be easier to get started.

Basically, right now, the thing that’s making everything not work or more annoying is the chat and communication. Right after that, is grouping and group queuing. The queuing logic that we have in there right now, we actually had hot fixes go out for it–I think it was Friday again. We’re starting to address these issues. We tried out a configuration for launch which favored Duo Modes over Alerts–it let Duos suck up all the available cues instead of letting more of the alerts show up. We’re looking at re-balancing that right now. [Balancing that sort of thing] is just a matter of finding out what people like to do and whose using what. We’re also adding in logic that makes sure that incomplete or dead instances get killed off faster, because they are also taking way too long right now.

So those are the two biggest things, because (1) If you can’t talk to people, it isn’t an MMO. And (2) If you can’t do things easily with other people then, that’s an issue. Now of course, there are lots of issues. Like we sped up the load time on the PS3 for a lot of menus which will speed it up on the PC even faster. That’s just basic usability stuff. That’s the thing: we have a great fun game, but there are some bugs and stuff that’s making it hard to use, and that’s really what we are focusing on more than anything.

And of course adding more stuff for everybody to do, but the focus is really split between making it easier to group and easier to see whats going on. Swapping group loot and cycle stance, which is a minor thing, but you look for group loot a lot more often than you cycle stance. So it’s those little things. We’re playing end game, we’re playing the leveling game, trying to get those things that we just want to smooth out and not like a rough edge to you.

PCG: That’s a lot of the changes that I, personally, was hoping to hear you mention.

CC: Yea, and there’s a ton of other fixes going in there, like in some cases, there were duos where you could get locked out of a boss fight. There are a ton of that type of changes going in. We usually don’t wait for the [major monthly] updates for those, because its server side. We actually change that stuff as fast as we can. If it involves physical assets that we have to do in the game, though, then we have to patch those and we wait for the update for that.

I could really use some help right about now... guys? Anyone?

PCG: Another major problem that you didn’t mention is the animation glitching that people are seeing in PVP, which lets cheaters chain together a crazy number of abilities. Is it going to be difficult to fix that? Is that even fixable?

CC: Well we’re actually trying to find out what’s going on, to be honest, because what’s interesting is that what people are calling “animation glitching” [isn't really a bug at all]–it’s inherent to our system. It’s complicated to explain, so let me know if it comes across. Our system allows you to interweave weapon combos with abilities in your ability tray. That means that, in some cases, your ability tray needs to override your combo animation. In other words, if you gotta heal, you gotta heal right now because someone is about to die. So what we do is actually cut off the animation you were doing with your combo, and just instantly play the healing animation.

So sometimes people see what looks like a “glitch animation” which is actually our fail safe for when you need to heal or when you need to taunt or when you need to stun right away. We’re gonna override our own animation and make sure that that ability gets played, [but it's not resulting in additional attacks]. The reason I bring that up is that this issue has actually grown [out of proportion] in peoples’ heads in the community, because we didn’t communicate well that “Yes, our system actually does allow inner animations to get interrupted.” Now at the same time, we’ve been watching the YouTube videos and doing detective work to figure out how the guys are doing 20 attacks a second. We’ve actually found in some cases that its a data problem, because we’ve allowed abilities to continue through [weapon attacks].

If I were animation-glitching, I might actually be winning.

So we fix some of those. We also have cheat detection which I won’t go into the details on how we do it. But we’ve been logging and learning a lot of that stuff and fixing it back end on our side. In an MMO, you are always racing against the people. The game’s evolving in both gameplay and technologically, we have our logging in place and are applying fixes (which I won’t talk about specifically, but we are addressing these types of glitches). We don’t seem to have anything duplicating what we saw in beta, where we had a few exploits like the track and field ones or the specific one with the Amazonian gauntlets where you could stack stuff up.

Obviously, when you’re in PvP and you get unfairly ganked, it’s one of the most emotional things that can happen. That’s just gonna piss you off. But what’s happening right now is that I’ve been playing a ton of PVP and I’ve never had [animation glitching] happen to me; and I’m on a pvp server! Obviously, this is anecdotal, but what I have seen is people calling out what I already do (which are my normal combos and abilities) and call that glitching.

The way to really tell if someone is glitching is to look in your combat log. If you see that you got hit repeatedly by someone in a span of time–instantaneously twenty or thirty times or constantly dodging or rolling–that’s the exploit that we are hammering down on. We’ve already done a bunch of fixes on it, but because of our combination of systems, we gotta make sure we’re covering all the holes. We don’t have them all yet but we are working on it.

Russobit-M: In CF3 the war is still as much fun as before.

Read on for other exciting revelations.

PC Gamer: The first Cannon Fodder game was beautifully simple and compulsive. Are they planning to retain that?

Russobit-M: The core gameplay is still simple enough: I came, I saw, I shot them all. We’ve kept the original gameplay, but we’ve also added more diversity to it – many weapons, bosses, smart enemies. There is no time for the player to get bored – as soon as he or she solves one problem, another one arises. The player is allowed to move across the location as he or she desires, so there are different ways to complete a level. You can use water to get across a chasm or swamp the enemy base with only one dynamite stick.

PC Gamer: I assume you’re fans of the first two games: what is it about them that you like so much?
Russobit-M: The music, the humour and the way developers made players take care of their soldiers and even empathize with them.

PC Gamer: Cannon Fodder 2 got a lot of criticism for its alien levels. What made you decide to go back into space for Cannon Fodder 3?
Russobit-M: We did that to make the game locations more diverse. According to the game story, the main villain hurriedly leaves the Earth, and the soldiers have to follow him.

PC Gamer: Have you had any contact with the developers of the original game – Jon Hare, Stuart Campbell, or anyone else who was once at Sensible Software?
Russobit-M: We haven’t had any contact with the developers of the original title.

PC Gamer: The original game is also famous for its music – both in loading screens, and the opening song. Are there any plans to record a new song for the sequel, or bring back any of the old music?
Russobit-M: We’ve already had a new soundtrack recorded for the game, but in some places we’ve kept the old music as well.

PC Gamer: Do you have any plans for a release outside of Russia and the CIS territories?
Russobit-M: Yes, negotiations are currently in progress.

PC Gamer: One of the best things about the first game was that your soldiers had names, and their little graves would appear on the hillside on the main menu. Are you keeping that, and will old names return?
Russobit-M: Yes, the soldiers will have names. But Jools and Jops have already retired, although one of them became a general. In total, 500 unique newbies with unique names will be available.

All sounds good, but it doesn’t completely answer the obvious question: why? What made them want to make a new Cannon Fodder game?

Russobit-M: The GFI company purchased the CF3 license and made an agreement with Burut CT about the beginning of the project development.

Sniff. Brings a tear to the eye.

The grisly demise of Miss Muffet's husband.

Beginning the project, what was your biggest goal? Where did you want to take Magic?

Mark Tuttle: With Tactics, our biggest goal was to make a game that appealed to both Magic players and fans of tactics games. It’s easy to take a game as rich and detailed as Magic and go down the rabbit hole of complexity, but you lose casual players. If you chase the casuals, then you risk boring the Magic players. We hope that we hit the sweet spot somewhere in the middle. We’d like to have Magic players enjoy this iteration of the universe that they enjoy, and maybe introduce more casual players to the concepts that embody Magic.

How do you plan on expanding the experience in the future? More card sets, campaigns, etc?

Tuttle: As Tactics is a live game, content is extremely important to us. Our first release tells the story (though our campaign chapters and missions) of your avatar’s ascendancy as a Planeswalker. We plan on adding more chapters to that tale within the months following our launch as mid-release content. Roughly five months from our initial launch, we’ll begin releasing regular expansions which will add anywhere from 150-180 new figures and spells into the mix. Magic players will feel the familiarity with this model, and new players will be constantly challenged with new gameplay.

How many cards are there in the current set?

Tuttle: Right now we’re looking at roughly 180 figures and spells. Of those, 60 percent represent content taking directly from the trading card game and 40 percent was created exclusively for Magic: The Gathering – Tactics. There are also a handful of promos, rewards, prizes and such that we’ll be mixing in.

What is the level cap? Do you foresee this eventually being raised?

Tuttle: The current level cap is 50. It certainly can be raised, and we have accounted for that, but we have no plans to raise it in the near future.

Cost of the real Black Lotus: $2000. If only we could print this one out.

What was the thinking behind reintroducing the Black Lotus to Magic? How is it balanced? Do you think it’s less powerful in a tactical setting?

Tuttle: The fact that you’re asking me about the Black Lotus is the answer to your question. We wanted to make sure that we gave players some of the powerful and iconic cards they have experienced in Magic for the last 17 years. The Black Lotus in Magic: The Gathering – Tactics is powerful, yes, as it gives you three additional mana, but its use happens on the turn after you activate it and using it is a turn-ending mechanic. It’s hard to explain out of context but it’s a great artifact and we hope we’ve done it justice.

What do you think Tactics’ most powerful card is?

Tuttle: It’s probably a little early to say, but Tooth and Nail is a really popular green spell that allows you to play two figures into play for free. One of my favorites is the common Drudge Skeleton. Due to the tactical nature of the game, it’s amazing how powerful a regenerating creature can be in blocking your opponent’s largest advances.

How is XP handled in multiplayer? Do your talents from the skill tree carry over into multiplayer?

Tuttle: Talents do carry over into multiplayer for the most part. They are used in pick up games as well as open and constructed tournaments. Talents are not used in draft. Since players never know for sure what spellbooks they’ll make for drafts, having talents might influence players to draft according to their talents rather than what they think will make a good draft spellbook. Plus, we also like to think of draft as the purest skill form in Magic: The Gathering – Tactics.

When angels start slicing and dicing, you know it's on.

Will co-op ever be added either for campaigns or 2v2, etc?

Tuttle: Co-op is absolutely something on our drawing board for an upcoming release.

What happens if you drain your library before the scenario/game is over?

Tuttle: You keep playing! We don’t have the concept of decking in Magic: The Gathering – Tactics so if you do empty your spellbook, you should still have figures in play to continue the fight. It could just come down to the two Planeswalkers beating on each other, but sooner or later someone is going to win.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Tuttle: I’d just like to thank the folks at Wizards of the Coast who were so great during the development process. It’s always a scary thing to let someone else play with your toys, but they were very forthcoming with access and assistance. They were actively involved in the development and I think together, we’ve made a terrific game that we hope gamers of all types will find appealing.

Stay tuned for our review of Tactics, but until then, keep on tapping lands and casting creatures.

“Grief, loss, guilt, faith, illness… But it’s also about love and hope and redemption” That’s how Dear Esther’s designer describes his game.

Imagine a Source Engine title without any guns or physics puzzles. Dear Esther emerged from a research question proposed by Dr Dan Pinchbeck in Portsmouth University: “What would happen if a game was to focus purely on storytelling, to the exclusion of more traditional interactive elements? The project has gone from humble mod to commercial release on Steam, redesigned by one of the team behind the stark environments of Mirror’s Edge. It’s got potential to change how you think about games forever.

Issue 224 of PC Gamer UK has an in-depth feature on innovative title, but we like you so much that we’re giving away our interviews with the designer, developer and sound designer for free. Click more to get the scoop.

Dr. Dan Pinchbeck – Designer

How has Dear Esther come to be heading for a commercial release?

I was harassing Rob about going for a [Source Engine commercial] license a while back and we kind of agreed to hold off on the discussion until it was a bit more together. Then after the update on 30th June, Rob pitched the idea to the community and we got very positive responses, so we started talking to Valve after that.

So my reasoning behind it was that Rob was creating something so extraordinary with the remake, it deserved a wider audience than we could give it as a mod. I love the mod scene, but it is limited in terms of reach, and I also knew quite a few people who really wanted Esther but for a bunch of reasons either didn’t want Half Life 2, or weren’t exactly technical in terms of mucking about with SourceMod folders and all that. And I also knew if we went to indie, I could leverage some funds to rebuild all the audio, which I was keen to do. It was always really, really strong, but I just thought with Rob’s work, it deserved a facelift too.

Underlying this is my wider research agenda. I think games researchers and academics have this amazing opportunity to explore high-risk areas of game design and development, and we have almost an obligation to run with ideas and push them as far as we can. Commercialising Dear Esther just extends that, so we started off saying ‘will this kind of thing work as a game?’, and the answer was pretty resolutely ‘yes’, so the next question is ‘what happens if you commercialise that?’. And if that works, then it means we are generating income we can use to underwrite the next experiment, and we’re moving towards sustainable, practice-led research in games. Which is massive – it’s a completely new thing for the UK. We’re doing something that has actual, absolute relevance to industry, and we’re proving it has value, not in some obscure journal, but out there, in the marketplace.

Dear Esther is an unusual concept. How did the idea come about originally?

So Esther is basically about ambiguity in game stories. It came from this idea that you could do more with storytelling in games if you stopped worrying about everything making sense and adding up, and that when you read a book or watch a film, you are filling in a lot of those details yourself. Games are like films in that regard – you have these cardboard cutout sets and no-one worries about that, we focus on the front, not the back. So we can apply a similar thing to story, and stop giving as much away.

And I’m really interested in stuff like William Burroughs and the Strugatsky brothers, and was reading a lot of big, dark romantic poetry, and listening to a lot of quite odd but very beautiful music and wanted to make a game story like that. So it’s all about the feel, the flow, the mood and actually it’s full of holes and contradictions and abstract ideas and symbols, and you don’t even understand a load of it, but it somehow all still hangs together and creates a really extraordinary experience. And I wanted to know if you could do that in a game, but a game that had quite a traditional voice-over approach to story. Because I’m a writer, I love text and words, and didn’t want to go fully down the Ueda route, but was trying to fuse that kind of sense with a more traditional approach to how you deliver story in a game. Which also relates to what kinds of stories you can tell, and how, and the range of those stories in terms of emotional, mood, character.

I guess the driving force behind it was, on a structural level, that games offer an unprecedented and totally unique space to explore what stories can be… and then on a more content level, this attempt to tell a completely different type and style of story than had been attempted in a game before.

How did Rob’s remake come about?

He wrote to me out of the blue and asked if I had a problem with him remaking it. So I looked at his portfolio and wasn’t about to argue – the fact he was on the Mirror’s Edge team, which is one of the most beautiful games of recent years helped too! I think he’s an exceptional talent and I feel really lucky and proud to have made something that someone of Rob’s ability was into enough to want to spent a year of his life working on.

What do you think he’s added to the Dear Esther experience? Obviously it’s prettier, but what about more fundamentally?

There’s a lot of subtle stuff going on in there, and what’s really cool is how he’s responded to the original version and put his own spin on stuff, rather than just carbon-copying it. I sent him pages of random notes and a descriptive walkthrough of what I thought I was probably trying to get at for each VO trigger, and then I’ve been looking at the alphas and feeding back, but right up until the deal with Valve happened, it was mainly Rob’s gig.
Since then, I’ve been working with Jess on the new soundtrack, writing and recording some new VOs with Nigel and working with Rob on some new features and things in the landscape.

It’s going to be quite different in a few ways from the original. The visuals are the most obvious thing, as that’s going to have a massive effect on how immersive the island is, and that’s really important. There are some new landmarks and fragments of story attached to those; the caves are really quite radically different. If you thought the original soundtrack was good, the new one will take your breath away. And there are some new voice overs to discover that add new depth to the story. There’s quite a bit more focus on exploration, properly rewarding the player for leaving the obvious path. And the great thing about going indie with the remake is we’ve been able to do all of that, to make it more than just a visual overhaul – which to be fair, never really did justice to Rob’s amazing work anyway.

The story’s obviously a key point. Summarised, and without megaspoilers, what’s Esther about?

Grief, loss, guilt, faith, illness. Cheerful stuff. But it’s also, and this is really important to me, about love and hope and redemption, and how people cling to each other in the face of a brutal, uncaring world.

Central to the concept of Esther is the idea that there’s no central truth, no absolute interpretation of it at all, and it is whatever you take from it. And it’s been great how players have really responded to that, there’s some amazing versions of it out there.

So on a superficial level, Esther is about a man who finds himself standing on the jetty of a remote Hebridean island. Some time before, he lost someone called Esther, which seems to have driven him here, although he’s not sure why. He seems to be following the story and journey of a 18th Century explorer, who was convinced the island had some kind of almost supernatural power, of healing or redemption, some special function in the world. But then it’s also about whether any of what is happening is real, whether it’s a coma dream, or repressed memory, or fantasy, or a final moment before death, a final release. That might even be giving too much away, but there’s also a lot more going on in there. As much as anything else, it’s a fog of images and ideas and symbols that can be stitched together in a whole bunch of different ways, depending on how you take them.

It’s an extremely tragic. I think we’ve spoken a little about this before, but do you think there’s room to explore more negative emotions in games?

Yeah, although I don’t think that’s necessarily necessary or a sign of a greater emotional complexity or sophistication. Emo teenage poetry isn’t inherently better because it’s depressing and self-absorbed. A game that makes you cry is not inherently a more emotionally sophisticated thing than one that captures many subtle shades of joy or rage or fear, all those more traditional game emotions.

But what is important is that we all keep pushing at the potential emotional range of gaming, and how subtle we can make a player’s emotional journey. I mean, what I hope about Esther is that although it is fairly dark, there are subtle tones to that, an ebb and flow that makes it an interesting journey that we can all recognise in part, rather than just us standing there hitting the player with the tragedy hammer until they give in. I think there’s a really uplifting core to how Esther ends, that last sequence is really all about this sense of release, of wonder. Even marooned in the darkest places, there is hope, humanity.
Having said that, I thought Conscientious Objector – our Doom 3 mod – was funny as hell, but everyone else seems to think it’s really depressing and nihilistic, so maybe it’s just me.

What is Esther? Is it a game? An “interactive experience”?

I spent a long time agonising over this when we launched it, I think because I didn’t think it would be accepted as a game. I was wrong about that, and I’m really happy to be wrong. Esther is an experimental game, unless you want to get really technical about rule-systems and interaction feedback loops and all of that. It looks like a game and plays like a game, so it’s a game. Just a very odd one.

But what is acceptable as a game now feels quite different to when we first launched Esther in 2007, which is really weird. So maybe that’s the answer. The question of whether it was a game was different in 2007. Back then, I’m not as sure, now, yeah, I think it is.

And how do you see this game space progressing? What state is it in now, and do you think it has potential to go somewhere?

I think we’ve been in an amazing period of creative expansion in games for a couple of years, and that ranges right from really left-field indie titles to mainstream AAAs. So the space seems to be in a pretty healthy state right now, I’d say. Despite the usual frustrations in terms of content being by-and-large a bit derivative and the usual suspects, there’s a fair bit of often quite subtle change in mainstream titles. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of room for improvement, but credit where credit is due.

And indie gaming is just fantastic right now, there are so many great titles and developers out there, and some really experimental work, which is finding a place in the market. One of the many things I love about gaming culture is that players are not just happy to pay for innovation, they actively want to. Games get a lot of stick for being derivative and all the same, but the reality is that it’s one of the most amazing mediums on the planet in terms of the audience actively demanding experimentation and innovation and being really happy to fund that themselves. So that’s really encouraging for me.

In terms of progress and potential, well, I’m slightly more nervous. Up to now, mostly big players have been working in retail, and it’s meant that a lot of more niche products got to play online without that kind of competition. If the trend for publishers to move to digital distribution, and developers to self-publish continues, then that means indies may have to compete more with big marketing budgets and that’s going to make things tougher potentially. I think it’s really interesting how all of a sudden, these really big, established studios are all starting to proclaim their indie roots, or call themselves indies, which is hilarious really. I’d love a deal with EA or Sony, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t think I’d have the balls to then go around calling myself indie if I got one. What it does show is that the term ‘indie’ has value, and that’s really important, because it’s innovation, individual vision, and not being willing to compromise that drives that value. That can only be a good thing.

I’m rambling, as usual. Times have been good, times will get tougher, but games are finding a momentum in terms of innovation, diversity and experimentation, and that’s only going to increase. So I think the future is looking good.

Robert Briscoe aka. LittleLostPoly – Developer

How did you come to be remaking Dear Esther?

Back in early 2009, after an exhausting couple of years working in Sweden, I decided to take some time out to recuperate back in the UK and perhaps work on a small project of my own for a while to keep me occupied. Originally I had planned to build upon a small prototype I had been tinkering with for some time called The Willows – a zombie survival horror mod based on the Source Engine. However, shortly before my plans came to fruition, there was a sudden surge of zombie games which eventually led to my decision to put the project on hiatus until the zombie genre was a little less saturated.

This left me with the dilemma of finding an alternative project to work on. I needed something original enough not to have to compete with the mainstream games market, and something simple enough which would allow me to concentrate on my skills as an artist and not be hindered by other limitations such as coding. Struggling with ideas I began trawling through my games collection, and later, through ModDB searching for some kind of inspiration until eventually stumbling across the veritable gold nugget that was Dear Esther.

What appealed to you about it?

It was the inspiration I’d been looking for: a simple, highly original idea which was singularly focused on telling a story through the environment. I found that although the original design and visuals were, quite frankly, a little rough around the edges, it excelled in every other conceivable area. On my first play-through I was completely drawn in, feeling emotions I’d not felt in any game before or since. It stuck in my mind for days afterwards and although I toyed with the idea of translating Dear Esther’s core mechanics to my own designs, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was so much untapped potential in the original, if only for a proper coat of paint and a more polished design. I eventually decided to take on the remake and haven’t looked back since.

What do you feel you’ve been able to bring to Esther that the original version didn’t capture?

I think one of the areas that the original fell short on was the potential depth of the story that could have been told through the environment. One of the most common complaints about the original was the tediousness of trudging through the simplistic landscape between audio cues and landmarks, which made exploring rather unrewarding, and sought to emphasise the linearity of the game. To be fair, it wasn’t really a failing of the design per se, but an shortcoming of the Source Engine and how it handles large outdoor environments. Luckily I had worked with Source for over five years and had a few tricks up my sleeve, which has allowed me to create a much more rich and detailed world than ever attempted before in the Source Engine, which encourages and rewards exploration with the incentive and uncovering small clues and details about the history of the island, its inhabitants and our protagonist.

What is Esther, to you? Is it a game? Something completely different?

That’s one question I’ve been wrestling with for some time now, which makes it especially difficult when trying to explain to your friends and family what exactly it is you’ve been working on for the past year and a half. I often find myself avoiding the use of the word ‘game’ in context with Dear Esther, at least in the traditional sense of the word, preferring to describe it as more of an experience or a story. I always ask people if they have ever stared at a painting and wondered what the story was behind it, or imagined being able to transport yourself through that small window into the world and explore it. Most people connect with this, but when forced to revert to a more traditional ‘game’ context, I will usually fall back to describing it as a first-person adventure game where the goal is to figure out why you’re playing it.

What are your thoughts on this sort of “not-game” space at the moment?

I think it’s extremely important and highly beneficial to games development as a whole. ‘Not-games’ tend to focus on, and dissect, important areas which are tragically overlooked in the modern game design philosophy. I believe they allow us a greater understanding and insight into how and why we empathise and interact with our games. Dinner Date, The Graveyard and Every Day The Same Dream are great examples of this.

Jessica Curry – Sound Designer

The music in Esther is obviously a really key component in its emotional weight. What was your process for composing the soundtrack?

What was nice about this project, unlike films that I’ve worked on, is that the soundtrack, the island and the script were all being built at the same time, so we were talking a lot about the ideas that Dan had, then I’d go off and write some music and he’d listen to that and respond with some script. Or he might come and say “this bit of the island needs to have this feel”, but often before he’d actually worked out what exactly was going to happen there. So it was a very organic process, but I also had a lot of freedom. It wasn’t that I got handed a basically finished product and then had to score around that, but I actively got to held sculpt what that experience was. Maybe it’s because Dan is a writer and often the writing and the soundtrack for games come after the design, so he wanted to try really integrating all of those things.

And I believe it’s all being re-recorded for the new release, correct? How exactly are you going about that?

It’s really exciting. The original score was done on a shoestring budget, so a lot of digital sounds were used rather than real instruments, and you can always hear the difference in the final piece. So it means I’ve got the opportunity to bring in a string quartet, a concert pianist and a vocalist; and that will make a huge difference to the music. It will add so much depth and warmth to the sound, and that’s really important to me and to the game, as the music really provides a lot of the emotional backbone to what is going on. There’ll still be a lot of the digital soundscapes, which lots of people really loved about the original, but getting to use live musicians is just going to make a big difference.

Also, going back to the soundtrack means we’ll be able to add in some new pieces and variations. In the original there were parts where there was no music because we’d have just had to have repeated it. So what we’ve got the opportunity to do is break up some of the themes and have fragments, ideas, fleeting bits of music in other parts of the island, which will really add to this sense of a haunted landscape. Dan is keen on that too, that it will encourage exploration as you won’t have the situation where you go off and explore but then have to retrace your steps, trudging back across the same bit of ground in silence. Rob [Briscoe] has also been adding new features into the environment, so I get to respond musically to that too, which is great.

What is Dear Esther, to you? Is it a game? Something else entirely?

I see this as a work of art, as much as I do a game. I’m not a gamer or from that world at all, so I’ve always seen it as a piece of digital, interactive art. What is interesting to me is that Dan sees it as a game, but neither of us really think you have to make a distinction between game and art. For me, art is about an experience which touches people deeply, and if a game can do that, it’s art. I really think and hope that Esther achieves that – it certainly seems to have done.

The music that I’ve written for Esther is the first time that I’ve inspired fan mail- every few days I get a lovely email from someone who has had a really strong reaction to the music. As a composer, that means everything to me and it really touches me that people from all over the world take the time to write and express their feelings. I’m very grateful for that and it’s utterly thrilling.

Whatever it is, where do you see this “not-game” space at the moment? And where’s it heading?

I’m just not into traditional games, as I don’t really find them interesting, mainly because of the subject matter. So if games are expanding beyond zombies and chainsaws, that’s always going to be a good thing for me! When we won the award at Indiecade, what was fantastic was meeting all these amazing developers, who were doing brilliant, artistic and beautiful things with games, and that was very inspiring. So I’m glad we are part of that.

At this year’s GameCity event in Nottingham, I sat down with Blow to talk about The Witness, how he’s avoiding the design flaws that killed adventure games in the mid-90s, and why, in his opinion, social games are evil.

PC Gamer: You described The Witness as an adventure game modernised?

Jonathan Blow: Yeah. I used to really love adventure games back when I first got computers. One of the first games I ever played was an adventure game. Turns out it was not a very good one, but I still liked it, and I used to play the old Infocom games all the time, those were my favourite things.

And then some time much later I became a professional game designer, like in the nineties, and learned by doing a lot of things about game design. Now when I look back I realise that game design has improved a lot in the past couple of decades.

If you go to conferences, designers are always talking about how they’re doing things and how to make games more fun. And that’s true, it’s pretty obvious. If you go back, get an emulator and play some games from the eighties on home computers, they’re kinda unplayable. You know, people say, “Games were just as good then as they are now.” It’s just not true. Things are way better design-wise.

PC Gamer: I assume there won’t be a lot of combine item A with items B through Z then?

Jonathan Blow: There will not. Right. This is what I’m trying to get to, though. It’s that, for most genres of game, gameplay has really been streamlined. A lot of problems have been fixed, things are better.

So, if you play Super Meat Boy for example, it’s a lot like an old-school platformer, but it’s refined. That game could have been made in the early nineties technically, but the design sensibility is very modern. So, it’s a product of modern design ideas.

That happened to all the genres, but it never quite happened in adventure games. The core gameplay of a racing game, for example, has been refined. It’s way more interesting than Pole Position was in the arcade, you know. Much more sophisticated. A first person shooter is a lot about knowing what’s happening on the map. Especially if it’s multiplayer, like, who is where? And all this stuff. It’s been iterated and refined.

Adventure games are still what they used to be. And what the core gameplay actually is, is very different from what the designer intends. The designer wants it to be, “It’s going to be cool puzzle solving. There’s going to be a story and stuff.” But really what’s actually going through the players head in adventure games is, “I don’t know if I should be clicking on this thing” or “I don’t know if this is a puzzle” or “I don’t know if I need an item to solve this that I don’t have yet, or if I’m just not thinking.”

Adventure games are all confusion. If it’s text, it’s “Why doesn’t the parser understand me still?” So the core gameplay of adventure games is actually fumbling through something, right? And that’s true with modern [versions]. All the episodic stuff that’s coming out. And there’s a whole community that makes modern interactive fiction games and all this stuff. And it’s true for all these games.

So the long-winded way of getting to the point is that one of the design ideas behind The Witness is that it is inspired by games like Myst and… even text based adventure games, even to an extent of the feel of the world. But adventure gameplay is fundamentally broken so if you’re going to take modern design ideas and modern design sensibility and change adventure so that they’re playable by modern standards, what does that genre turn into? And there’s a bunch of different things that it could turn into and [The Witness] is just one of them.

PC Gamer: A lot of fans of old-school point-and-click games would probably take instinctive offence – not at refining the genre – but at assuming that they are broken and inaccessible.

Jonathan Blow: Yeah, but it’s true. And I’m sorry, you know. I love those games. I grew up on adventure games. Even graphic adventures I don’t love as much as the old text adventures, but there are a few like Loom is a really compelling game in a lot of ways, it was a really ground-breaking game.

But there’s this whole thing that happened in the mid-to-late nineties. Adventure games kind of died, commercially and a lot of people felt really sad about that. Like, “Oh, I’m nostalgic for the days of adventure games. They died. It’s such a shame.” It’s not an accident that they died. It’s absolutely not. If you look at it as a modern game designer there are obvious reasons why adventure games are not played by as large an audience as these other genres of games. And it has to do with that core gameplay of what’s going through their head.

The uninhabited island from The Witness.

PC Gamer: You said in a recent lecture that your goal is to make games that “speak to the human condition.” If Braid did that in terms of Time and Memory – in terms of those themes – in what way do you hope The Witness does that?

Jonathan Blow: Well, Braid isn’t about Time and Memory or anything like that.

PC Gamer: It is a little bit. Come on.

Jonathan Blow: The time thing. Yeah, it’s the mechanics of the game– Sorry, I’m choking on this croissant. It’s very dry.

There’s some level where you could say Braid is about Time stuff. But at a deeper level – and this is only slightly deeper – it’s about you going into world after world and there’s a rule set that’s different. Like, the laws of the universe are different in every world. It happens to be Time that changes a little bit.

But at a slightly deeper level it’s about looking at and understanding those new rules and those differences and using them to do things that you couldn’t do before, that maybe looked before looked impossible. You could make a statement about what Braid is about that doesn’t even have the word Time in it. That is less immediate because the immediate thing in Braid is that you’re hitting the button and you’re rewinding, but I think it’s closer to the core of what it really means.

With The Witness it’s about asking oneself that kind of question that I was talking about. Like, why am I in the world? What’s the world for? Why is it that there’s this universe with light bouncing off objects and things in 3D space and this seeming progression of time and what am I doing here and what could be the reason for all this existing?

The purpose of the game is not to provide an answer to that because I can’t give you the definitive answer. But it’s about the process of asking the question seriously. And it’s about different ways in the modern world that we’ve refined the process of asking that question and about different approaches that people have asked this question very seriously, different approaches they can take.

PC Gamer: So, it’s almost a game about philosophy.

Jonathan Blow: A little bit. It’s a very specific part of philosophy. It’s a very existential game. It’s about the question of what am I doing here? Which is a very old question.

PC Gamer: That’s presumably why Myst is an inspiration?

Jonathan Blow: It’s a classic video game trope. I mean, you start the game. You don’t exactly know who you are –

PC Gamer: Or you’ve got amnesia.

Jonathan Blow: Yeah, or you have amnesia or whatever! And then through the course of the game you find out who you are. Like, BioShock did that. Tons of games do that. This game does it but in a very self-conscious, self-referential kind of way.

PC Gamer: About that lecture you gave recently. I wanted to ask you about social games. And I know you don’t like that as a title.

Jonathan Blow: Did I say that in my speech actually?

PC Gamer: Well, you called them evil.

Jonathan Blow: No, I mean the name “social games.”

PC Gamer: I think you said you don’t like it being attributed to some of those games?

Jonathan Blow: Well, they’re not very social. A game like World of Warcraft or Counter-Strike or whatever is way more social. Because you actually meet new people in clans or guilds. You go do activities together and help each other out, right?

[With certain social games] it’s about the game exploiting your friends list that you already made, so it’s not really about meeting people. And it’s not really about doing things with them because you’re never playing at the same time. It’s about using your friends as resources to progress in the game, which is the opposite of actual sociality or friendship. Maybe not exactly, but it’s not the same thing, right? They’re really just called social games because they run on social networks but they’re way less [social] – like sitting down and playing a board game with friends at a party is a way more social game. That’s an intensely social experience, right? So, like whatever. I hate that name.

PC Gamer: Do you still think social games are “evil” then?

Jonathan Blow: Yes. Absolutely. There’s no other word for it except evil. Of course you can debate anything, but the general definition of evil in the real world, where there isn’t like the villain in the mountain fortress, is selfishness to the detriment of others or to the detriment of the world. And that’s exactly what [most of these games are].

PC Gamer: Do you blame the player? I mean, is it the player’s fault for getting involved? Even if they don’t realise they’re being harmed?

Jonathan Blow: One of the things that we have to deal with in modern society is this duality. We want people to have personal responsibility, right?

But the thing about these games though is they’re made to look really light and friendly or whatever. So it’s very difficult especially for someone to think about games and how their design affects the world – which is most people in the world, they don’t think about that, right? It’s very difficult for them to see how this could possibly be detrimental in any way. They’re just like, “Oh, I’m clicking on the items, I’m having fun”. You know, whatever.

It’s like I was saying in that talk, I don’t necessarily like to approach it from that question “Is the player having fun or not,” because I’m usually talking to designers at these lectures. I go at it from the designer’s side and I ask “Are you trying to take advantage of your players and exploit them? Or are you trying to give them something?”

Some kinds of games are very clearly made [to give something] – like Dwarf Fortress is definitely trying to give the players something and not exploit players. That’s very obvious to me in the way that it’s made. [Most of these social games are] the opposite of that. It’s trying to take the maximum amount while trying to give the minimum amount. So that’s an ethics of game design question. To me it doesn’t matter if people feel like they’re having fun or feel like they want to play the game, because the designers know what they’re doing.

PC Gamer: Some might say it’s a bit paternalistic to say that people playing don’t really know what’s good for them?

Jonathan Blow: No, because it’s true. If you go up and you say that to somebody, then you’re just kind of being a jerk, right? That you don’t know what’s best for you. I’m not trying to be that strong about it. I’m not trying to say “I know what’s best for players and they shouldn’t play these games”. It’s okay to play social games to an extent. Like it’s probably okay to smoke cigarettes to an extent, but what these designers do – and this is why I always go to it from the design standpoint – they very deliberately design the game to not give the player everything that they want, to string the player along and to invade the player’s free time away from the game.

Designers know what they are doing. They know when they show up in the office – “My goal is to degrade the player’s quality of life”. They probably won’t think about that exact phrase. But [will think], “My goal is to get people to think about my game and to put more money into my game and get other friends to play my game to the exclusion of all other games and all other things that they might do with their free time.” That is the job description of those designers. And that’s evil. It’s not about giving people anything. It’s about taking from people.

PC Gamer: Would you say then that the indie community is sort of the antithesis of this?

Jonathan Blow: Often, but not by necessity. Most indies are into games because they like it and not because they’re trying to IPO with the social game company. But some indies are definitely very money driven that way.

PC Gamer: The indie gaming scene is obviously young when compared to indie music or film, would you say that the word indie is still a good way to describe the scene? If you defined “indie” what would it be?

Jonathan Blow: [Laughs] I don’t like getting into that discussion. Everybody’s like, “Does indie mean this? Does indie mean that?” I don’t know and I don’t care that much. What I care about really is people that are being thoughtful in game design and are making interesting games. They might be indie, they might be funded by a publisher with tens of millions of dollars – even though that’s kind of rare. But sometimes that happens. I just like it when people are making interesting games.

Gareth sprang to prominence earlier in the week after a frustrated series of posts on the Overclockers UK forum, as he struggled with EA’s Dead Space 2; through this, he’s managed to raise the profile of disabled gamers and persuade EA to patch in support to Dead Space 2. We’ve come to his family home in Leicester, UK to talk to him about the campaign, the difficulties he has with gaming, and the wide variety of support he’s received. Due to his palsy it’s very hard for Gareth to talk, so his answers are short and sometimes his mother and full-time carer, Jacqueline Garratt, has to interpret for me.

Gareth and Jacqueline

PC Gamer: The set-up you have here is amazing. There are two huge screens, more DVDs, CDs and hard drives than I’ve ever seen, a good surround sound system, and a top-end custom PC; have you installed this all yourself?

Gareth: “Yes.”
Jacqueline: “I’m his hands. He tells me what to do, and it goes in one ear… he knows what he’s doing though.”

PC Gamer: What games do you play?

Gareth: “I mainly play FPSes and racing games; I’ve been trying to play Dead Space; Dirt 2 was great, and I’ve been trying F1 2010 recently as well. I like Fallout 3 – New Vegas as well. I can play most genres, but it all depends on what options it gives. It’s hard. I like to play multiplayer games with friends from Overclockers.”

PC Gamer: You play these with the mouse, and you use your chin to control the mouse. Using custom configurations, you assign walk forward to the right-mouse button, is that correct?

Gareth: Yes, and the fire button on the middle button. I play racing games on the Xbox controller, over there.

How Gareth games

PC Gamer: How do you play reaction based games like that?

Gareth: I can use the sticks one at a time. On most driving games there are some buttons that you can’t customise. The Codemasters games are okay. Grand Theft Auto; I can’t change the controls, so it’s impossible to play because you have to use two keys at the same time.

PC Gamer: How did you get into PC Gaming?

Jacqueline: “When he was small, dad started him off on them.
Gareth: “I’ve grown with them; at school, I used a lot of computers there, that’s how it started off really.

PC Gamer: What was the first one you played?

Gareth: I think it could have been Sega Rally or something like that. Or perhaps Golden Axe

PC Gamer: That had multiple simultaneous inputs though; is there anything else you’d say, apart from single inputs and key configuration options, that would make it easier for you to play?

Jacqueline: “Add more buttons on the mouse, on the top, not the side”
Gareth: “It’s very hard to find a mouse with buttons on the top. All the customisable mice focus on the sides.
Jacqueline: “They’re really for people who can use their hands.”

PC Gamer: Do you have any specialised bits of kit that help you game?

Gareth: Nothing: Everything’s off the shelf. We have to fight for it at we get. Nobody helps, or advises us. Since I posted this on Overclockers UKforum, the OCUK community have been giving me good advice and some have offered to help.

PC Gamer: Have you ever tried contacting Special Effect (the UK’s disabled gaming charity)?

Jacqueline: “No, I’ve  never phoned Special Effect.
Gareth: “The things are so expensive; the head-tracking hardware is so expensive. It’s hard to afford that kind of money?”

PC Gamer: What do developers do that makes it easier for you to play games?

Gareth: Not much. What annoys me is that they should have it on the back of the box.

PC Gamer: Do you feel that this is something government should be legislating about? A bit like the Age ratings?

Jacqueline: Yes. You pay out for the game, but when you get it back home you can’t play it; it’s not on the back saying whether it’s got customised controls options.
Gareth: And then you can’t take it back, because of the no-returns policy. It should be on the back, and it should state if it can be customised or not.

PC Gamer: You’ve paid for all this yourself? If it’s not rude to ask, how much did it cost?

Gareth: Yes. £1,800; no help from government.
Jacqueline: He’s got two monitors. Sky and Freeview. It’s taken a lot of time to get up to this standard. It used to be his dad helped him, but he passed away two years ago and I’m still learning.

Playing Back To The Future

PC Gamer: This Dead Space 2 campaign has taken up a lot of your time; were you expecting a response?

Gareth: No. (laughs) I had an email from the Dead Space developers saying they are working on a patch to enable customised controls in the game and they will send me out some goodies. About a year go, I sent an email to Rockstar about GTA IV again; I didn’t get any reply back.

PC Gamer: Will you be carrying on your campaign?

Gareth: I’ve only contacted those two before, just those two for now. Yeah, I’ll be contacting a lot more people. I’m getting fed up of wasting money every time.

PC Gamer: Do you go to the shops to buy them together? What do you do if you want to return a game?

Jacqueline: Yes, we do, but if you can’t play it, you can’t take it back. You’ve wasted the money. Four times we’ve had unplayable games we can do nothing with. It makes you angry, really angry.

PC Gamer: That’s British trading law; who do you blame for this?

Jacqueline: “It’s the got to be down to the developer; it’s not the shops fault; they’re only sellling it. You’ve got to go to the source of it.

PC Gamer: Do you try before you buy?

Gareth: “A lot of games are not on demos. It’s like FIFA 11; I can’t play that, but FIFA 10 I can. They removed mouse controls on FIFA 11; I can’t understand why they removed it. If it’s already in FIFA 10, why take it out? I don’t know. It happens frequently. Codemasters is very good at customised controls. EA is reasonably good but just lately they’ve gone downhill. Rockstar; the second GTA was okay, San Andreas, but GTA IV was bad. Rockstar: Get your arse into gear.   (laughs).

PC Gamer: Do you use remapping programs?

Gareth: People say to you remapping programs and all that, but I shouldn’t need to; it should be in the game itself. It would benefit everyone. With remapping programs I can get three buttons working, but I can’t get the other buttons working. This Toshiba mouse has two mouse buttons, three extras on the top, and two buttons on the side but I can’t use them.

PC Gamer: What would you do without games?

Gareth: I’d be bored out of my head. (laughs)

PC Gamer: Do you get any therapeutic benefits from games?

Gareth: No. It’s purely entertainment.

PC Gamer: Do you think it would be difficult for smaller companies to implement all the different supports needed for all the different types of disabilities?

Gareth: They could include options in the game menu to make it easier for all kinds of disabilities. If the small companies start doing that, then more people will buy their product and then they will grow into bigger companies!

PC Gamer: Have you received any messages of support for the campaign?

Gareth: We’ve been overwhelmed by the support; we’ve had messages from Thailand, Poland, America, and Russia… Lots of people have signed the petition. Another guy (AskACapper – quadraplegic Comedian Chuck Bittner) started the campaign – he did the petition first and then I joined in later. I helped him to get to 40,000 signatures – he’s going to see someone important about it, and now he’s got something to take. I think he’s going to meet all of the developers for consoles and PC. At first he was focusing on consoles, at first, now he sees the PC side of it.

PC Gamer: What will you focus on next?

Gareth: I just want all the new releases that are coming out to include the option for customised controls; I’m not asking much. I’m not asking to change the whole game or anything; it’s something simple to do, if you do it at an early stage. Everyone will benefit from it instead of using the mapping software.

Gareth's set-up

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/02/11/interview-dead-space-2-disability-campaigner-gareth-garratt/feed/ 67 http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/24/the-making-of-eve-online/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/24/the-making-of-eve-online/#comments Mon, 24 Jan 2011 10:56:00 +0000 Rich McCormick http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=33698 [..]]]> Ingólfr Arnarson left Norway in a flimsy boat made of wood and beaten metal in 874 AD. He left to find somewhere colder, harsher, more unforgiving than his cold, harsh, unforgiving homeland. He found Iceland. A millennium and a century later, in the country Ingólfr forged, another set of pioneers got an idea in their heads. It was an idea of similar insanity and danger, one that demanded they brave high water to create a new existence. Like Ingólfr, they sailed off in the darkness of the Arctic winter for a new home. They found EVE.

The Reykjavik head office of CCP, creator of the galactic bastard sim, EVE Online, feels like an outpost on the edge of the world. Look at the right angle from the main boardroom’s giant windows and you’d swear human beings had never laid foot in Iceland – if it wasn’t for the few CCP staff members mid smoke-break gripping solid steel railings on the balcony outside and bracing against the wind.

Inside the boardroom, the only wall that isn’t made of glass has an image of two men in a room half a world away. They’re Reynir Harðarson and Hilmar Pétursson – CCP’s co-founder and creative director, and CEO respectively – and they’re trying to explain why they created EVE Online, sat in their company’s Atlanta office. Hilmar begins.

“I was playing Elite when I was 11 on my BBC, and I wished the other ships were real people.” Reynir nods – his justification is the same: “I was playing Elite when I was 12, and that dream stuck. I had a dream of making this game – to be called Cosmos.”

Hilmar speaks quickly and plainly, demystifying his colleague’s frequent dips into the philosophical and theoretical with solid reasoning. They interact like old friends, Hilmar as the reliable buisnessman, Reynir as the dreamer-with-a-work-ethic. Their sensible demeanours belie quite how insane the decision to make EVE was.

“Iceland the country was connected to the internet via a modem at the time. You had to wait for the country to dial in.” Hilmar laughs at his own joke, but stresses how near this absurdity was to the truth back when EVE first germinated as a concept. A volcanically unstable rock equidistantly far from both of gaming’s biggest markets, Iceland is not a country anyone would peg as a development opportunity. Until 874 AD and Ingólfr, nobody even wanted to call it home. “We didn’t know anyone who had even worked at a game company,” says Reynir.

“People asked us when I told them our plan for EVE, ‘Why even try? You’re going to compete with Sony and Microsoft and EA. Who do you think you are?’ I don’t know, but I just really wanted to do it.” He turns to face the video camera, and smiles. “And we did.”

Cold as ice

Bars in Iceland stay open until six in the morning, but the streets look deserted. If you can brave the wind and stand on Reykjavik’s main street, you’ll see an evolved dance of humanity: the Icelandic intra-pub sprint-huddle. It’s a strange penguin shuffle that takes people through the bitter cold to their next source of booze. It’s bloody-mindedness on a national scale. I first saw it 12 hours after my interview with Reynir, and connected it immediately to the discussion I had earlier in the day.

“Why did we need to do it? It was the impossible thing to do.” Another smile. Reynir knows the universe he helped found existed in the heads of players and developers across the globe. “It was kind of inevitable – it’s a common cultural thing to dream about this type of space opera.” Break EVE down to the one-line pitch – multiplayer spaceships in space – and it’s not a unique concept. What was unique was CCP’s ability to actually pull it off.

When Reynir and his friends found their minds consumed by plans for EVE and not their day jobs, they quit. “I thought I could easily hire all the guys from my previous company. The problem was we had no money.” Reynir was drifting without financial propulsion. “‘Where are we gonna get money?’ We decided to make a board game.” They thought it would give them the capital required to jumpstart EVE’s thrusters. Reynir explains how they got that first cash injection. “We mortgaged my friend’s grandmother’s house.” Their game was getting more dangerous, yanking in outsiders on an optimistic theory.

Astoundingly, it worked. “We published the board game in Christmas 1998, and it sold about 10,000 copies, enough to get us programming on EVE and hiring people.” Its name? Hættuspil. ‘Danger Game.’

Hard graft

That was where the hard work began. Reynir recalls the early days. “The blood and sweat – and especially blood – that went into creating EVE was monumental. We almost killed ourselves in the process. We lived at the office for almost three years, we worked 15 hours every fucking day. We slept under desks.” He turns to stare at me, eyes haunted across the ocean. “It was absolute madness.”

Later, I speak to Torfi Frans Ólafsson, EVE’s creative director and fellow survivor from the company’s inception. I bring up this early development period and he slumps back in his chair. “We used to work 80-hour weeks. Sometimes we went without salaries for months and didn’t make any money.” From the outside, EVE was ticking along in its first years. From the inside, employees were being stretched by a vociferous fanbase. “All we had was an internet forum full of extremely angry gamers who were pissed off at how bad our game was. All you got for it were players who were furious because of random defects. That was our life.”

Of course, the internet was a different land back in 2003, when wild lollercopters still patrolled the sky. I ask Torfi what would happen to EVE, launching today. “The market is less tolerant of lower quality products. You can’t ship with as many defects as we did in 2003.” But they still had their pressures. The only way to hold them off was dogged persistence. “Sometimes you’ll hit hard times and you’ll just have to weather them.”

EVE was a project born of love – but also of manic, traumatic focus. There’s video evidence of this, Reynir explains. “On the website there’s videos of me and Hilmar trying to do a marketing sell on the game two weeks before launch, and you can see we were emotional wrecks. You should watch it, it’s terrible.” (If you want to see them, the videos are here of Hilmar and Reynir).

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/24/the-making-of-eve-online/feed/ 15 http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/11/tf2-student-art-gallery/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/11/tf2-student-art-gallery/#comments Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:00:33 +0000 PC Gamer http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=31455 [..]]]> Steam forum member ‘thedefiant’ – student Christopher Wyant – used Valve’s FPS as a medium to display an art project for his university degree. In an attempt to create some kind of mad feedback loop that’ll doom the whole galaxy, he set up a server in TF2, displaying custom sprays of ceramic pots. Having taken screenshots of the carnage that went on in the serene virtual gallery, he then set up a real gallery in Auburn University, displaying both pictures of the ceramics in-game as well as the actual physical ceramics themselves. Everybody present at both events had their brains explode.

As making people’s brains explode is an unusual thing to do, especially with art, we asked Christopher directly what his motives were.

Why did you decide to do this?

Christopher Wyant: This whole idea of community and the effects community has had on this project really tied my artwork together and allowed it to exist. I have always wanted to put my artwork into a game. It was just a matter of timing and developing a good portfolio to place into the game.

Why TF2?

Christopher Wyant: The community and the tools valve has given us to easily accomplish our goals. I really enjoy the setting of the game and all the customizable characters. Without these characters, I feel my virtual gallery would have seemed stale and bland. The characters in TF2 are really expressive and I had a lot of people at my exhibition looking in amazement and laughing their asses off because the characters are believable.

Just like the polycount pack, placing my work inside of the game fused both my artwork and the game.

How does the PC facilitate art?

Christopher Wyant: For me the PC allowed me to create a virtual gallery, bring all my friends and the community into that space, and then show the world. Digital work is like no other medium. Because this work is virtual, I am able to share it with the rest of the world faster than any ancient Roman potter could have dreamed.

As a ceramic artist I have to look at the historical context of my work. Why should my art be relevant in a contemporary setting when people have been making pottery for thousands of years? By placing my pottery into a video game, I hoped to bridge this vast gap in time.

Do you see gaming and art intertwining more in the future?

Christopher Wyant: I think that it should and will. Unlike non digital artwork, the digital must be accessed and not just observed. Things like the wii controller, playstation move, and Xbox Kinect are allowing users to access these game and interfaces in a more intuitively. The sad part about all those devices is the fidelity of movement controls which will eventually break a person’s immersion.

On 2Fort as a scout with a mouse, keyboard, and a force of nature I can jump from my battlements into the water, back up to the ground from the pipe, then onto the enemy battlements all while only moving my mouse maybe a few inches. This is not possible with any other controller and probably never will be until I get a Playstion 9 (as seen in this old PS2 advert – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rSchSyYdH4&feature=related).

This same problem of movement controls and intuitiveness in the gaming community is also one of the things holding back both game development and art creation. I think that the intuitiveness of model/texture creators and development kits will be what will drives art/game interaction. What I fear though is that if we do make developer kits easier to use will they be just as powerful of tools. The only analogy for this would be Maya is a mouse and keyboard, and Spore creature creator is a Kinect.

Do you want to do more in this field?

Christopher Wyant: I am currently in the process of creating a second virtual gallery. I am in the process of curating artwork from the gaming community via the tf2 art/video sub-forum.

Artists are strongly urged to submit any type of artwork (any 2 dimensional art, and 3 dimensional models as long as they follow the submission rules detailed on the forum post. In the future I hope to be able to learn the modeling tools so that I might be able to create and place 3d modeled pottery and other models into the game.

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/11/tf2-student-art-gallery/feed/ 9 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/12/17/witch-destroy-dungeons-with-path-of-exiles-new-playable-class/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/12/17/witch-destroy-dungeons-with-path-of-exiles-new-playable-class/#comments Fri, 17 Dec 2010 19:08:40 +0000 Evan Lahti http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=28386 [..]]]> Hail, traveler! You seem the adventuring sort. Pause your passage through our website village, and look: a dungeon lies before you. You’re not just going to sit there and let it lie uncrawled, hmm? Not when we have a new, magic-throwing girl for you to use to purge its dark citizens, surely.

We’ve already had hands-on with Path of Exile. It’s dark. It’s good. And it’ll be free. Today, we reveal a new class: the Witch. Sorcery-filled interview and video within.

PC Gamer: What sort of dungeon-crawling person does the Witch suit?

Chris Wilson, Producer at Grinding Gear Games: The Witch’s typical playstyle is “blasty.” She’s generally a glass-cannon class who deals a lot of damage but is very vulnerable. Some players love the combined fun and risk of herding groups of monsters together and trying to kill them in bulk with area-of-effect spells. A lot of fans on our forum have been begging us to announce the spellcaster class. Hopefully they’re pleased with the style of gameplay that the Witch offers.

PCG: How does the Witch’s backstory fit into the game world? How does a magic user in Path of Exile differ from a magic user in, say, World of Warcraft?

Wilson: Path of Exile has a dark aesthetic. The continent of Wraeclast is a very hostile environment, where the player fears not only the monsters, but also other players and even the environment itself.

The Witch, like all our character classes, was exiled from her homeland because of her crimes. Her society does not tolerate any magic use whatsoever, so her fate was sealed when she murdered those who threatened her for being different. The backstories of all the classes (including the Witch) highlight the stark unfairness that afflicts many characters in our world. She’s not implicitly evil, but committed a violent crime due to her inability to control her powers. Being exiled to Wraeclast is intended to be substantially worse than a quick execution.

In terms of a specific gameplay comparison, magic users in traditional MMORPGs select a target and then cast spells on that monster in the same way that a melee character would use skills on their target. In Path of Exile, magic users can cast spells into the world and have them affect whatever they hit. The path and impact of projectiles are tracked correctly, and area of effect spells can be thrown around rapidly, chilling or burning groups of monsters that are calculated based on exact positions.

Squids that don't need water. Yeah, you should kill that.

PCG: What specific abilities does the Witch possess, and what are one or two examples of how they change after being augmented by gems?

Wilson: None of our characters possess any exclusive abilities, but are intended to use highly synergistic skills appropriate for their core attributes. For example, the Witch is highly encouraged to use intelligence spells such as Fireball, Ice Nova, Cold Snap and Raise Zombie. Because she’s the intelligence class and these are intelligence skills, it’s far easier for her to meet their attribute requirements and equip items that have intelligence sockets.

In terms of augmentation, here are some examples of support gems that have not been publicly discussed before:

“Chaining” support gem: Once the linked spell has hit one target, it replicates itself and targets another nearby valid target. For example, the fireball would explode and then launch another fireball at a nearby monster. Higher levels of the Chaining support gem cause it to target additional consecutive monsters. This support is useful for more than just the obvious damage increase, because it makes the skill somewhat fire-and-forget. The player isn’t locked in place like they would be with the “Multiple Casts” support gem (which causes several copies of the spell to be cast in series).

“Protection while casting” support gem: Puts a temporary additional Energy Shield on the caster for the duration of the linked spell’s cast time. This is very useful for skills such as Ice Nova where the player is generally in the middle of a group of monsters. It’s also useful for use with the “Multiple Casts” support gem where the player spends longer than normal casting a sequence of spells.

His chocolate hands will be your end.

PCG: When we were talking with Blizzard about Diablo III, they made the interesting remark that they’re not altering any of the PvE balance of their classes to make PvP more fair—they don’t want to turn Diablo into a hypercompetitive e-sport, to paraphrase Blizzard. Not that there’s one right way of doing things, of course—but with the addition of different leagues mentioned in the press release, how much of a focus or concern is PvP balance for Grinding Gear?

Wilson: Leagues are separate game economies within one realm. They can have additional rulesets that modify gameplay. For example, in a cutthroat league, players drop all their items when they die. Some leagues are short-lived and offer opportunities for players who want to compete at levelling quickly. For example, an attrition league could last over a weekend, and would eliminate players periodically (based on who has the lowest experience) until only one remains. There’s a much more detailed explanation of leagues here.

There are specific active skills, passive skills and support gems designed with PvP in mind. It’s likely that dedicated PvP players will create specific PvP characters that have taken into account appropriate meta-game concerns. The items that are found in PvE (or awarded in PvP) are usable in both modes, and although they may be better suited to one style of play, there aren’t many stats that are only useful in PvP or PvE alone.

An example of a PvP-specific support gem is the “Resist Skill” gem. If linked with an active skill gem, your character will have some degree of resistance to attacks made against it with that skill. For example, if you expect that a PvP tournament is going to have a meta-game consisting of many fireball wielding characters, it might be sensible to link “Resist Skill” to “Fireball” in addition to the usual fire resistance gear you’d wear.

We do care about PvP balance and will try to make sure that it’s a fun, fair playing field. It’s not that we want Path of Exile to become an e-sport, but it’s not healthy if there’s one dominant PvP build that everyone has to either play or beat. We’d prefer that it’s a constantly changing environment with many different viable builds.

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/12/17/witch-destroy-dungeons-with-path-of-exiles-new-playable-class/feed/ 8 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/12/15/monday-night-combat-devs-on-steam-pc-development-bacon/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/12/15/monday-night-combat-devs-on-steam-pc-development-bacon/#comments Wed, 15 Dec 2010 23:55:01 +0000 Evan Lahti http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=28134 [..]]]> I’m not going to be shy about it–I’m damn glad that I’ll be able to play Monday Night Combat on PC. We need more downloadable-sized shooters on PC; I’m still miffed that EA let Battlefield 1943 drift into PC-port limbo-land.

Anyway. MNC sizzles onto Steam January 17; we thought we’d take a moment to get to know Uber Entertainment, the bacon-loving men behind the game. We spoke with Chandana Ekanayake, executive producer and art director about the special guest coming to the PC version, the dev’s background, and how Uber’s experience working with Valve has differed from its cooperation with Microsoft.

PC Gamer: MNC was Uber Entertainment’s first game, but the studio is made up of  people with a PC development heritage. Your founder and president worked on one of our most-loved titles of 2009—Demigod—with your creative director John Comes. You worked on Morrowind. How has that background helped or influenced your decision to bring MNC to PC?

Chandana Ekanayake: Great question! Here’s a few others:

Steve Thompson, Cinematics Lead – Dungeon Siege, Dungeon Siege 2

John Comes, Creative Director – C&C Generals: Zero Hour, LOTR:Battle for Middle Earth, Supreme Commander, Demigod

Tim Cox, Environment Art Lead – Neverwinter Nights 2

Jon Mavor, CTO – Total Annihilation

With our combined background in both RTS and action games, we wanted to make a hybrid shooter game that we all wanted to play as developers, keep it more accessible and light hearted. That’s how the idea of Monday Night Combat was born and developed. We’re big believers in “find the fun first” method of game development which means get the game playable as soon as possible with the most minimal art assets. For the first year of development the game was in white box mode.

MNC's textureless white box mode.

Keeping the art simple allows us to iterate on the gameplay fast, experiment with different ideas and throw away mechanics that don’t work. Early on during development, our daily process started with ideas we want to throw in the game, once it was in, we all play-test it as a group, and the ideas people like stay in and things that suck get thrown out.

We still play-test the game everyday and feedback from everyone at the studio as well as fresh eyes from people that we bring in gives us good information as to what to adjust and balance. This is why we wanted to do a beta to further tweak balance for PC and also make sure the game runs well on the various PC configurations.

PC Gamer: At what point did you decide to bring Monday Night Combat to PC?

Eka: We always knew we wanted to bring MNC to PC as it started it’s development there but we could only concentrate on one platform at a time with our smaller crew. We initially chose XBLA as it seemed like a great place to get noticed for a smaller indie studio like Uber.

Uber's first studio: a shared apartment.

PC Gamer: It’s not uncommon for a developer to delay or cancel the PC version of a game and say that it isn’t willing to dedicate the resources—even with content as seemingly simple as DLC. Why is it worth the time and effort to bring MNC to PC? What’s attractive about the platform?

Eka: Our basic philosophy with Monday Night Combat is that it’s a game as a service. Since it’s primarily a competitive multiplayer game, we feel it’s important to listen to our community and keep updating the game with balance adjustments and new content. What’s attractive about Steam is the ability to push content and changes out to our players in a fast manner as well as experiment with ideas and get fast feedback from our community.

We’re also impulsive and if we get an idea in our heads that just makes us go “awesome!” then we want to get it into the game as soon as possible and get it into the hands our our players. Just today, we had this crazy idea for a special guest character that just makes total sense in the world of Monday Night Combat (at least to us). We ran the idea by creators of this special guest and they loved it. So said special guest character will be making an appearance when the game launches on January 17th. I know, I know, stop teasing but it’ll be awesome!

Even game developers need some bacon love.

PC Gamer: What’s the reception been so far on the announcement?

Eka: So far the reception has been very positive with some concerns about support for our console version. We’re on our forums daily and we’ll continue to be as well as supporting both the PC and console versions of the the game.

PC Gamer: You’re planning to add “editor support” to MNC on PC sometime in January. What form will that take? Is it a level editor, modding tools, or something different?

Eka: Monday Night Combat is built using Unreal3 and it’s suite of powerful tools. Players will be able to edit levels and create mods with the same tools we used to create the game.

PC Gamer: In October, Penny Arcade wrote about an experience that you guys had trying to push an update for MNC through Microsoft certification onto XBLA. Has working with Steam and Valve, so far, been a different experience than working with Microsoft?

Eka: Traditionally, consoles have been fixed hardware closed platforms without too many software updates to make it simpler for the end-user while PC gamers are used to more frequent updates. The consoles are evolving slowly but they have some ways to go before catching up with Steam and its ability to put out content faster.

MNC character statues guarding bacon-covered donuts from Uber's favorite shop.

PC Gamer: What other changes are you making/have you made to the PC version of the game? Did any portion of the interface require significant reworking? Did any weapons or levels need to be tweaked or rebalanced?

Eka: On top of supporting higher resolutions, bigger textures and tweakable graphic performance, we reworked most of the various menus to better suit the PC version. The biggest changes went into the Multiplayer Lobby, server browser, favorites and custom games. We spent a fair amount of time setting up a good default control scheme for keyboard and mouse and adding hotkeys to our skill purchase and turret buying menus. Some of the classes have gone through balance changes and we’ll continue to balance them throughout the beta.

PC Gamer: We share your open, romantic enthusiasm for bacon. What kinds do you eat? At what point did eating it turn into a conversation of “Hey, this stuff is pretty good. We should put it in our game.”

Eka: Bacon is a steady part of our balanced diet here at Uber and putting it into the game wasn’t even a question of “if” but “when.” Our favorite bacon right now is Country Smoked Cajun Bacon from The Loveless Cafe in Nashville. We just ordered 30lbs of it last week!

PC Gamer: Keep fighting the good fight. Thanks for your time, Eka.

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/12/15/monday-night-combat-devs-on-steam-pc-development-bacon/feed/ 17 http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/warhammer-40k-dark-millennium-online-a-grim-dark-future/ http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/warhammer-40k-dark-millennium-online-a-grim-dark-future/#comments Sat, 04 Dec 2010 14:13:40 +0000 Rich McCormick http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=24418 [..]]]> Remember that bit in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook where that Space Marine went into a Space Marine village and was cornered by a commoner with a yellow exclamation mark above his head? The one who told him to go out to his garden and kill ten snotlings that were terrorising his space-crops? No you don’t, and neither does Mike Maza, creative director on Warhammer 40K MMO Dark Millennium Online.“We just couldn’t wrap our heads around a Space Marine killing ten wolves for their pelts. It’s just not 40K. We don’t want to give those kinds of quests to the players, we think it takes you out of the fiction. The objectives of our quests are far more epic than that.”

Two wheels good, tank tracks and ten guns: better

Warhammer 40K’s grim future of inter-species war is perhaps the only universe you could get away with a ‘kill except the number would be well into the thousands. But traditional online RPG models – all stilted combat and ritualistic toolbar presses – are anathema to a universe based on the sole unifying principle of smashing the faces off everything that ever existed. Dave Adams, founding father of developers Vigil, adds his perspective: “at first we said ‘let’s make a standard MMO. Guy goes in, dude’s standing there, patrol walks by. I tap, select him, and hit one.’ It was lousy.” It didn’t fit with the game played on tabletops across the world, it didn’t fit the team’s imagined experience, and most importantly, it didn’t fit with 40K’s endless, rapid-fire carnage.

Dave explains his vision of the universe, developed from 25 years of familiarity with Games Workshop products: “We’re designing a cinematic, action-oriented MMO, balanced in terms of player-on-player and player-versus-environment battles. There’s a lot of ranged combat, but also a healthy dose of melee. You’re not gonna have a bunch of static spawns, you’re not gonna have a bunch of random patrols.” Vigil are playing in a universe defined by a quarter of a decade of development, tightened but enhanced by reams of backstory. Were they to produce a retextured WoW, they’d be chainsworded to death by armies of angry fans – and rightly so.

Don't feed Dreadnoughts curry.

Fortunately, Vigil are aware of this. Dave has got serious complaints about the whole MMO genre. Whole genre, look away now: “You just pretty much hammer on the number keys. They’re the same mechanic over and over again.” Vigil previously worked on console-oriented action beat-’em-up Darksiders. It was heavy on the reactive combat, full of man-stabbing and bloody moments calculated to make people shout “yeah!” and want to play air guitar. Dave argues the team learned more from that experience than they have from their MMO peers. “There’s a lot more finesse in what you do in a console game. The moment-tomoment, the weight of the animations, the response, the effects. It’s really all about the pace.”

Strong words from a team without a finished MMO of their own. But it’s not like they’re novices paddling in the genre pool: Dave himself left online specialists NCsoft in 2005 to found Vigil. I asked him whether he thought any other online worlds got combat right: “It’s just not been a priority for them. A lot more attention is put into console games: if you sit down and you play an MMO, and you actually compared it to a triple-A console game, a lot of the stuff would never fly.”

He's either really close, or that's the world's dinkiest Titan.

I asked him why he thought that was. “A lot of developers see that as an opportunity to cut that corner because there’s so much to do on an MMO. They think people care about X, Y and Z. They don’t really care about the feeling of the combat.” But Vigil have to make the same world, the same economy, the same community as other online world- builders – how will their MMO break this apparent corner-cutting culture? “That disparity isn’t going to be tolerated for too long: eventually someone’s going to do it and everyone else is going to have to follow suit. We want to be those people, and that pushed us toward a more action- oriented formula.”

Dave began to describe what he meant by this, but not before sticking a final power-armoured boot into MMO contemporaries. “If you see an MMO 20 feet away you know it’s an MMO. There’s a million icons on the screen, the interface is the same. They’re so predictable. Our goal is when some guy’s walking past DMO they won’t instantly know it’s an MMO. That depends on a minimal interface: it’s not a full FPS but it looks more ‘actiony’.”

Actiony is not a word. Define ‘actiony’, Dave! Mike Maza stepped in to help: “We’ve done away with the action bar icon from the screen – we’ve kept it down to essential elements for ranged combat.” That’s not to suggest that it’s all shooting – half of Warhammer 40K is focused on getting within spitting distance of your enemy and then jabbing the pointiest thing your race knows about into their eye. But Mike says that’s simpler to handle than gunplay. “Melee combat is relatively easy, we have tons of examples of how it’s been done in the past.” It’s similarly easy to see how it’ll be approached in DMO – a middle ground between the kinetic feedback of singleplayer fighting and the arcane dance of MMO combat. How the team will deal with frantic battlefield crossfire is less obvious. Internal discussions are still ongoing about shooting specifics, and subject to rapid change.

I dunno if I want to get in, have Health and Safety checked it over?

John Mueller is DMO’s art director, and gave me an insight on the portions of the gun-game they have locked down, describing the design that’s gone into 40K’s signature sidearm: the Space Marine bolter. “We spend a lot of time just making those feel awesome. It’s really one of the universe’s primary weapons, it’s important for us that it handles and sounds the way we and Games Workshop think it should.”

Space Marines are sorted then, but the still-unannounced races and classes not blessed with such a well-defined firearm won’t be getting cast-offs. John’s art team have spent time poring through the tomes of 40K history for gun-spiration, and crikey, is this a universe that likes its guns. “There’s a lot of documentation about the weapons in 40K, but there’s also things like a belt-fed stubber that might not have been drawn before. With these, we’ll extrapolate it visually from other things in the canon.” New guns will be canonical cannons, then.

Taking tinfoil hats to extremes.

Your mouse-handling skills will play more of a role than they would in a standard MMO, but the team agree that it’s not going to be a twitch-centric shooter. Dave clarifies: “It’s still an RPG. There’s still stats. Your ability as a character is related to your level and the kind of loot you have.” Loot! See, other MMOs: DMO might flip its middle finger at you when you turn around, but it’s still one of the guys.

In terms of design, how this pickuppable junk will change your character is defined by GW’s dictation. John explains how the relationship between the companies affects aesthetics: “You have these character archetypes that Games Workshop have set. But at the high levels we want see how far we can go with the awesomeness of the gear.” Calibrate your awesomeositors to register unprecedented awesomeosity.

The intrinsic need for loot and gear means no jettisoning of the usual systems of shopping and crafting – though how they’re going to be portrayed hasn’t been explained yet. I asked John Mueller what Space Marine towns would look like, and his response was simple: “Space Marines don’t have towns. It’s not like our cities are specifically a ‘Space Marine town’, it’s more just like a settlement in the Imperium, instead of a branded area.” Artistically, how do they ensure that a generic settlement stays interesting and true to the fiction? “Everything is really old! That’s what Games Workshop always say, whenever they put something in 40K, just make it look really old.”

Painting a target on yourself is asking for trouble.

As 40K’s overlords, GW are protective of their invention: it wouldn’t do for a tech priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus, servants of the Emperor and born from the ancient forge world of Mars to be wearing a funny hat. Space Marines wear power armour; necessity states you could end up looking like your friend if you play the same class. John explains how to get around this problem and still foster a sense of identity. “Character customisation is about progression, where you go and what you do in the world changes how you look. Space Marine armour is so heavily adorned, you can imagine how the progression might go: a marine who’s been on campaigns will make all kinds of adjustments to his armour reflecting his experience.” I’m mentally accessorising my marine already: a nice Tyranid tooth necklace would bring out the red in my power armour.

You’re not going to be working from scratch, either. The Imperium is the only confirmed race so far, but every starting option has players coming into the game as a hero – there’s no Space Marine toilet cleaning duty to earn your stripes. A good thing when you’re  up against genetically superior backsides. Mike quickly outlined a typical opening to a newly minted character: “There’s scenarios that introduce you to your character class. We’ll throw you into your very first instance, to get a feel for a very player directed experience. Then you’ll go to your trainers and merchants, then drop down onto the over-world from orbit.” The team kept schtum on how travelling between worlds would work in-game, but planet-hopping is necessary to advance – the Sargos sector in which the game is set is a big chunk of space.

Vigil have only mentioned the Imperium of Man as playable so far.

It’s not just your character you’ll be customising: mechanised war machines are central to DMO, as they are to the 40K fiction. The game’s first trailer teases viewers, ending on footage of a five-storey walker romping across a blasted landscape. That two- legged monster was a Titan, one of 40K’s largest and most killy war- bastards – and Dave confirms that a player was controlling it. “You’ll use vehicles in PvE, you’ll use them in the general over-world, and you’ll use them in PvP.” These vehicles can be run with a crew, separate players taking on the roles of gunner, driver, and man who stands on top and yells “DRIVE FASTER!”

Or, you can go it alone. “In a tank, you control the primary turret, but you don’t have the full command of all the weapons on the tank. If someone jumps in the primary turret then you might just be driving.” 40K’s grab-bag of lethal vehicular toys makes this prospect a tasty one: the game’s first trailers clearly point at a number of the universe’s iconic battle-tanks, such as the Predator. Handling is pitched somewhere between simplistic and simulation, but Vigil are keen to keep the physical connection: glide toward another player on a turbo-charged bike and you’ll thunk into them: “you can’t drive through another tank like it isn’t there. That just looks weird.” Mike singled out the PvP battlegrounds as a particular hotbed of vehicle use, but wouldn’t be drawn into explaining quite how they’ll work when used against your fellow human.

Vigil promises content for groups of all sizes.

Developing a game in Warhammer 40,000K’s universe brings specific challenges. Traditional MMOs are built around downtime, longer periods of peace, shopping and chatting between raids. You stop to chat in 40K’s fiction and you get sliced apart by shurikens, turned into a gibbering inside-out mass of muscle by Chaos gods, or biffed in the gob by a powerfist. As the sourcebooks regularly remind us, there is “ONLY WAR!” in the 41st millennium. Dave has a philosophical way of handling this issue: “I imagine the 40K universe as a giant machine who’s output is war – but it’s still a machine. There’s still cogs and pistons, there’s still all the internal machinations and workings of a machine that makes the war.” Neat concept, but let’s frame it in the hour-to-hour of playing the game. “There’s a lot going on off the battlefield. Sure, war in the battlegrounds and PvP conflicts are a big part of the game. But another big part of the game is just exploring what’s going on off the battlefield, following the fluff and stories.”

War in DMO is stratified, taken further than just the pew-pew in direct conflict – it’s about the thrill of the chase, the long-game in questlines. Even just for the Imperium, one of many not-yet confirmed races, there’s different types of war: “the war on the battlefield, the psychological war the Imperium engages in to maintain this giant organisation and prevent rebellion, the war against Chaos.” Life in Dark Millennium Online is intended to be constant struggle, full of constant threat that – Vigil hopes – will provide enough of an incentive to live in a constant universe where war reigns.

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/warhammer-40k-dark-millennium-online-a-grim-dark-future/feed/ 46 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/23/pondering-the-cataclysm-with-blizzards-j-allen-brack/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/23/pondering-the-cataclysm-with-blizzards-j-allen-brack/#comments Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:11:19 +0000 Josh Augustine http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=24320 [..]]]> It’s a crazy time for WoW fans. We’re all looking to forward to the Cataclysm expansion that’s coming in early December, and this morning’s patch will change Azeroth forever. To make sense of everything that’s happening–and see how the development team is feeling with Cataclysm just around the corner–we sat down with J. Allen Brack, Blizzard’s Production Director, earlier this week to find out how everything’s progressing, where it’s all headed, and why he just can’t stop making boxes light up.

PCG: Let’s start simple: what exactly is happening in the big 4.0.3a patch?

Brack: [Today] is basically the day that the world is going to change. So, right now, everyone has two copies of Azeroth on their hard drive. They have the copy of the world that they’ve been playing for many, many, many years, and then they have the differences between the old version and the new version. The big thing for 4.03 is to change what data we’re using, what data we’re referencing. When you get 4.0.3a and launch the game, you should get the new intro, the new login screen, and you’ll log into the post-shattered world.

PCG: Even if this patch isn’t bringing the new races and the new zones, is this patch–the reshaping of Azeroth–the bigger change for players, you think?

Brack: I do, because the number of zones that you’re going to get, and the number of zones that are going to change is just hugely significant. You’ll be able to experience that immediately. Additionally, all the new race/class combinations that we’ve talked about, those will go live with 4.0.3a and the shattering as well. You don’t have to have the expansion to get those. So if you want to roll the Tauren Paladin or the Gnome Priest, then you’ll be able to do that on the day that we release 4.03a.

PCG: So for you personally, is there a race/class combo you’ve been itching to try?

Brack: I’ve played a lot of classes and I’ve played Warrior, but I’m thinking of doing more Warrior stuff. Maybe a Blood Elf Warrior, because they haven’t been able to be Warriors up to this point, and that’s exciting. And obviously everyone is excited about the Night Elf Mage.

PCG: What do you think players are going to do first after this patch and after Cataclysm goes live?

Brack: Well, I think most will take their main character and start working that up to 85. You’ll have some people that want to do a race change to either the Goblin or the Worgen, which we’re not restricting on day one. And you’ll have people who want to start a legitimate path to basically being the Goblin or Worgen, enjoying the new race experience. The new race experience for both those are the best new starting experience we’ve ever done, and that includes the Death Knight, which I thought was very cool. So, I think a majority of people will be doing the 80 to 85, and then there will be a second segment doing the new race, and the new race combos.

PCG: There’s a lot of exciting stuff for players, but as a developer, what’s the most fun part of seeing the patch and expansion go live?

Brack: Well, there’s just an intense satisfaction whenever you’ve got something you’ve been working on–I mean, we’ve been working on Cataclysm for close to two years now. So the idea for players to actually get to start experiencing that… You have some of that in beta, where you get to sort of unleash it, and you get your fans and friends giving feedback. That’s a great moment, but then actually having it on the shelf, and having people “doing it for real,” as the case is… that’s a really exciting piece, and a really exciting time.

There’s also, I think, one of the more appealing aspects for doing Cataclysm was this idea that we get to go back to the old world and make things right. Make them the best that they can be. Being able to redo Azshara, and making it really exciting and really good for once–that’s awesome. Having the questing being triple-A in Darkshore is just incredible and awesome to think about.

PCG: Yeah, when we ‘ve talked before you often mentioned that, as the developers at Blizzard, you were your own biggest critics, and you loved being able to go back and remake the world to make it greater. Are you content with it now? Is it as good as it can be, or do you still see things that you want to tweak?

Brack: Oh, there’s never any part of the game that we feel is perfect. We always have things that we’d like to do. If we had five more years to go back and work on the old world we would do it, and it would be the best old world ever. But, would there be stuff that we could still do after that? The answer is absolutely. So, no game is ever what any one developer wants, and there are always ways to improve. Particularly at Blizzard, where our whole culture is based around this iterative development, based on working in passes and making things better, you know, there’s always more passes you could take to make things better.

PCG: But you’re pretty content with the way it is? You don’t have any misgivings with putting it out the door the way it is now?

Brack: None whatsoever. This is the best expansion that we’ve ever done, and it’s the best content that we’ve ever made by far.

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/23/pondering-the-cataclysm-with-blizzards-j-allen-brack/feed/ 12 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/19/interview-guild-wars-latest-love-update-giveaway/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/19/interview-guild-wars-latest-love-update-giveaway/#comments Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:14:31 +0000 Chris Perry http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=23741 [..]]]> Guild Wars 2 is getting closer and closer to launch, and ArenaNet’s been updating Guild Wars with all sorts of great content to kick-start players’ transitions into the sequel. These content updates, packaged under the banner of “Guild Wars Beyond”, are meant to bridge the gab between the two games’ story and characters. The latest addition, Heart of the North, will be hitting live servers later this month and lets you help you bring two lovers together…with your sword.

Contest: See how you can win in-game Guild Wars items after the interview!

Heart of the North’s new batch of quests, which require your character to have completed War in Kryta in order to access, is more light-hearted than your typical MMO questline. They let you walk alongside two of the main characters from Eye of the North–Gwen and Kieran Thackeray–as they conclude their courtship with a wedding. And, of course, you get to help ‘em reach their important day.

I talked with Guild Wars’ lead designer John Stumme about the update, how players will participate in the events, what it plays like in the game, and what it all means for the future of Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2.

PC Gamer: What is the main theme in this next step for Guild Wars Beyond?

John Stumme: If I had to pick one theme for the new content, I’d say it’s best described by transition, and moving forward. This is the first sizable story content the Live Team has done since I’ve come on board as lead designer (I consider Halloween to be more of a “getting started”) and I wanted to use this chance to bring resolution to one of the biggest questions remaining from the War in Kryta, and make this as a bridge for where I’d like to take the story in the future.
It’s one big ending, setting us up for some very compelling new beginnings to come down the line. I think people are going to be pretty excited about where Guild Wars Beyond will be going [in the future]-–those of us on the team certainly are!

PC Gamer: What’s the basics of the story told during Heart of the North?

(For those unfamiliar with the story in Eye of the North, Gwen is a character that players encounter several times during the game who can eventually become a Hero, and Keiran Thackeray is an NPC that player’s first encountered during the Wintersday 1078 celebrations as he sent players on quests to help him cheer up a lonely Gwen. -Ed)

Stumme: The main portion of the story being told is where Keiran Thackeray has been during his disappearance during the War in Kryta and what he has gotten himself involved in. Once we know Keiran’s story, there’s the matter of reuniting him with Gwen—as it’s very hard for a relationship to move forward (in any meaningful way at least) when one person is missing.

PC Gamer: What type of quests will be involved?

Stumme: The main portion of the quests involve finding items that hint at where Keiran has been and what has been happening with him during his disappearance. These items are then used at the scrying pool in the Hall of Monuments to relieve portions of his story through his own eyes and to learn firsthand what happened to him.

PC Gamer: How many quests are there in this update?

Stumme: When everything is said and done, players will be looking at…six added quests, along with four new repeatable missions.

Those 6 quests will thankfully not revolve around which flowers to use in bouquets.

PC Gamer: Is the Heart of the North completely tied into the preparation and ceremony for the wedding, or are there other quests as well?

Stumme: We will have some content tied into wedding preparations, but the bulk of the content focuses on where Keiran has been and what has been happening. After each of those mission segments, there’ll also be scenes with Gwen occurring in the Hall of Monuments (as she is also watching the events unfolding in the scrying pool!) showing her reaction.

I felt like it was a really strong way of showing the growing and changing relationship between Keiran and Gwen by splitting them up, and giving each of them a chance to reflect on their situation independently. In the case of Keiran, he has been rejected, lost friends in battle, and suddenly finds himself faced with a new opportunity in life that could be just the thing he needs. Meanwhile, Gwen realizes the person she has worked so hard to push away may in fact be alive and, to her dismay, may be moving on. In the end, the story arc is about two people finding out what they really want from life, and why.

PC Gamer: What items will players collect by completing this content? Miniatures, armor, weapons, etc.?

Stumme: After the wedding is done, a new Hero will be joining the player’s party. In addition, some of the rewards along the way should help players get more work done on their Hall of Monuments.

PC Gamer: What evil is Keiran hunting down when he’s away from Gwen?

Stumme: Keiran has gotten himself involved with a last-ditch plot from the White Mantle that could have some fairly long reaching lore repercussions. The question [players will be answering in the new quests] is, who’s behind it all?

PC Gamer: How will this tie into the next chapter of Guild Wars Beyond?

Stumme:: Keiran’s story has him crossing paths and becoming involved with someone who will be a key player in the story of Cantha: Winds of Change [the next chapter in Guild Wars Beyond]. I’m not going to spoil anything just yet, but I will say that it’s going to be a very different kind of experience from the War in Kryta, as I want each chapter of GWB to feel unique. Winds of Change is going set into motion events that will be an important part of history for the timeline of Guild Wars 2.

I can at least say that Winds of Change won’t be a sweeping love story. I think that’s best saved for when we do Mhenlo’s side story, which [has the story elements] to] be played like a dating simulator game where he needs to decide which eligible lady he ends up with. (We aren’t actually going to do that, for the record.)

Even Keiran's enemies dressed up nice for the occassion!

PC Gamer: Which side will the developers be sitting on at the wedding: Bride’s side or Groom’s side?

Stumme: As for me, I suppose I’d have to be on Gwen’s side. I’ve written a lot for her over the years, starting with her quests to deal with her past in Eye of the North, the scenes in the Underworld, the Bonus Mission Pack, and now I find myself returning to write her once more for Keiran’s return and the wedding. I have a special fondness for writing Gwen, because the angsty teenage girl within my heart can really relate to what she’s going through. Wait, what? Did I just say that? Never mind, let’s just forget anything about that last part, there.

As for everyone else on the Live Team…

Andrew Patrick: I will be sitting on Keiran’s side. Gwen reminds me too much of just about every girl I dated before I was 17, so needless to say, I’ve had my fill of angst-filled emo girls. That and, as a Monk, I am allergic to Mesmers!

Michelle Juett: Gwen ~ we’ve known her since she was a child. She doesn’t have her mother in the audience so we can fill the role to tell her how much that fancy pants Thackeray boy isn’t good enough for her and he better treat her right. /typical parental ranting, etc etc.

Zachary Nickerson: I’ll be sitting in the Keiran pews. The poor man just lost two of his closest friends: Captain Langmar and his own trusty ponytail. I’m sure the guy is an emotional wreck and could use a friend right about now.

Some of the new looks available with this update. Win 'em in our contest below!

Joey Knight: Joe Hostile would most certainly be sitting on the bride’s side. He’s like an uncle to Gwen and fondly remembers a more peaceful time when she would follow him around the Ascalonian countryside picking flowers and dizzying herself until she fell down. What time has passed since her only concerns were playing her flute and prancing around in her little red cape. He’d be proud for all she has endured at the hands of those mangy charr and so happy to see her joy restored. He’d also most likely have a man-to-man with Keiran, something along the lines of, “Hurt her and I’ll shove a Sack of Random Junk down your throat!” Congratulations, sweet Gwen!

Joe Kimmes: (responding to Joey) The flower picking was like, one afternoon, dude.  When she was six. I think she remembers the falling death crystals a lot more than wandering around with you for an hour.

As for me, isn’t Kimmes the Historian already present in the wedding? But I’d go with Keiran, I don’t think he’s got any relatives to show up either, and he doesn’t even have the benefit of visiting his mother in the Underworld.

Robert Gee: As a fellow Mesmer, I’d be with Gwen.  If that’s not enough, she beat a siege devourer with a freaking ROCK before she escaped from a charr slave camp. She didn’t need any fancy instant-kill bow attack or assassin helper to get the job done like Keiran did in his bonus mission.

Mike Zadorojny is currently occupied in Korea, but he would undoubtedly say that he is on Keiran’s side. He is, after all, responsible for the character in the first place.

PC Gamer: Thank you for your time.

Contest: Has this Q&A gotten you in the mood for love? We want to facilitate your compulsive need for in-game roleplay weddings, so we’re giving out 10 codes! Five will grant you one groom’s tux and one bride’s dress, while the other five grant the full costume pack with all five epic wedding outfits for you characters. Just tell us in the comments of this post what you’re going to bring as a wedding gift for Gwen and Keiran Thackeray. We’ll pick 10 winners tomorrow afternoon and email the codes!

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/19/interview-guild-wars-latest-love-update-giveaway/feed/ 98 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/17/interview-gamersfirst-on-bringing-back-apb/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/17/interview-gamersfirst-on-bringing-back-apb/#comments Wed, 17 Nov 2010 11:22:42 +0000 Tom Senior http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=23267 [..]]]> As reported last week, cops and robbers MMO APB has been bought by GamersFirst, who have announced that the game will return as a free-to-play game in the first half of next year. We’ve had a chat with GamersFirst CTO and COO, Bjorn Book-Larsson about the next chapter for the troubled MMO, discussing the game’s potential, the new features GamersFirst will be working on, and the reasons why APB failed in the first place.

PC Gamer: Why did you decide to buy APB?

Bjorn Book-Larsson: From our side we initially thought it was a really good concept. So from a distance we had said “hey, this seems like an interesting new title, it seems like there’s a lot of customisation and user generated content features”, and we were interested in the game, on a professional level, from the outside. Then what happened was, we picked up the game because, from our point of view we think that it has a lot of really good critical components that can make a good foundation for a long term free-to-play project. The huge difference between free-to-play and retail sales is that with retail sales you have to make your numbers in the first 30 days, and in the free-to-play model you have the expectation and/or luxury of putting the game out there, and modifying it to match what people actually do in the game. For us we think that the game has a lot of really good features. It has a lot of customisation parts, and it has various innovative ideas and ways to expand the traditional shooter genre. The things that were problems, like the balancing, and the weird monetization methods are things that we feel pretty confident we can address, especially because we have about seven years of publishing experience in the free-to-play space. Drawing on all that experience, we’re taking all the things we learned from all those other games and incorporating them into APB.

PC Gamer: What is it about APB that makes it suitable for a free to play model?

Bjorn Book-Larsson: Well, it already has a lot of components that we want in free-to-play. It already had an in game trading system so you can trade things back and forth, which is usually an important component to free-to-play experiences. It has very a evolved concept of “choose this side”. We have a game called Knight Online where we have two nations fighting, it has a lot of elements that we have seen be successful in free to play games. We don’t think it’s there yet, because one of the key things in a free-to-play game is that you actually have to make it fun and engaging for the free player, and then for those who do microtransactions and/or become premium members, or premium players by making a purchase, they have to have some slight benefit or advantage in the game, but you also still have to maintain the balance throughout the game so that the two types of players continue having fun, so there’s a lot of that type of balancing that we have to work on to make it work, but we feel like it has the bones, the skeleton of a potentially really good free-to-play title, and we have to get there in the next six months or so, and then we can release it as a free-to-play title.

PC Gamer: You mentioned microtransactions and a premium service, what kind of items will players be buying in APB, and what would the premium service involve?

Bjorn Book-Larsson: There’s many different models for the free-to-play games We have another game called War Rock. War Rock was a game made in Korea back in 2006, we launched it in the US and the world in 2007, so it’s sort of a last generation game, but it has a lot of innovative ideas. Basically we’re going to borrow some things from those types of titles, other games like Combat Arms, which we don’t publish, but there’s other games like that out there. One of the easiest things to do with this game would be to add leased weapons, so for thirty days you lease certain weapon types. Then for premium access you would essentially allow certain expanded features or complexities of customisation for those who are premium players, and those who are free players get less complex things included in the basic membership level. Beyond that, there’s multiple ways to monetize free-to-play shooter games. The leasing method is probably the simplest and most straightforward. There’s another method called the ‘wear method’ where you pay because your guns wear out, you have to repair them. There’s another one that we generally refer to as the ‘grinding and trading’ method, which is more common in RPGs, and then there’s another one called the ‘insurance model’ where you get to build stuff, but they blow up, and if they blow up you can have insurance to cover your losses, if you will. What’s interesting about free to play is that there are a lot of financial models behind it that actually mimic real world systems, so you drive on the same real world motivations. The reason you buy insurance for your car is because you don’t want to lose the whole thing. You don’t necessarily pay subscription fee to have a car, you might have car payments for it, but you’ll have insurance, so there’s models like that which work in other games. What we’re going to do is, initially, we won’t go there across all those models. We’re starting very simple, just adding the two core components that have worked well in our other shooters players, and that would be just leased weapons and premium accounts or premium services.

PC Gamer: Apart from putting in the new payment model, will you be making any changes to the mechanics of the game itself?

Bjorn Book-Larsson: Some. There’s more balancing issues. One of the key issues the game seemed to have when it came out, what happened was, first of all you had to pay for game time, which was sort of weird. The second thing was, if you showed up in a game, because of their version of progression, if you got shot when you turned up in a match, you might be shot by a gun that you had no access to, because you hadn’t gotten murdered for nine hours yet, so you didn’t have the gun. I think that a lot of those things will remain, but now make more sense. If you’re a free player and you don’t want to buy the premium weapons then you can grind and eventually earn it, but you don’t have to necessarily pay for that painful grinding process. I think they accidentally created was, in this game, you had to actually pay to grind, which is unheard of in the free-to-play space. Those kind of balances are the ones we’ll focus on the most. There’s a few other balances too, such as, for instance, individual gun balances, which we do want to modify, so things like gun ranges and the disparity between weapons actually has to be much less. We’ve found from other games that you want to have just a couple of percentage points of balance difference between weapons, otherwise it becomes essentially a slaughterfest one way or another. So there’s various balance fixes like that, and then there’s various small annoying things, and this may not be in the first re-release, but when you run up to a car you often accidentally end up in the back seat, which is a little surprising! There are rare situations where you would probably want to be in the back seat, but 80 or 90 percent of the time you want to be drivers seat because the car’s empty. I think the original designers were very concerned with some purity of design which may have gotten in the way of the gameplay.

PC Gamer: Why do you think APB failed on its first release?

Bjorn Book-Larsson: I think part of it of course was that it was such a huge investment. I mean, the expectations were huge, and therefore when it didn’t start paying off in the first month or so it was almost doomed on its own expectations. I think it actually had the potential in the long term to potentially work, and obviously we believe it’ll work in the long term, but I think the hybrid retail subscription model that they had tried, for the mechanic they designed I don’t think it was going to work, ever. In order to succeed with that mechanic you would have to really polish some of the core components in order to convince enough players to be a subscriber. If you look at other games like Eve Online, Eve Online started as a modest, much smaller game, and over time they grew it, it got more and more of a devoted fanbase, and it really took several years before it got to the level where it is today. I think that’s the kind of game development structure they would have to keep in mind, like they should probably have considered going out with some sort of live beta, be in a live beta for a year or more, preferably with thousands of players participating in order to polish the game, in order to make it something that was sustainable. I don’t think they had planned that in, it was more planned as a retail release with EA pushing a bunch of boxes everywhere. I think the issue there is that the traditional publishers haven’t really yet – EA has experimented quite a bit with the digital distribution sales type stuff, but I think the free-to-play model is very hard for traditional publishers to predict, and if you don’t do a straight retail or console title it’s a very very long term, nefarious, difficult to predict process. I just don’t think they had the stomach to go all out, which I actually think would have worked for them.

PC Gamer: Then the advantage of the free to play model is that you can have the game out there for a long time, have a lot of people playing it, and then update it as it goes on.

Bjorn Book-Larsson: Yeah. I mean, in fact, we’d say about 80 percent of the work may happen after the game goes live, so to some extent not a lot of work goes in initially, but we have games today that have really existed as games for as much ten years, and then they have as many as 50,000 simultaneous players even ten years after they initially were launched, so these are pretty substantial MMOs. I guess the concept is surprisingly simple, which is: in a free to play game, no-one will pay for it unless they have fun. Surprise! So the net results is that you have to spend all your efforts following users around, figuring out what it is they do that is fun, and then effectively focus on giving them more stuff in the areas where they spend most of their time, around the things that they prefer to do. Often we’re surprised at what users actually do. We might design something because we think “hey, this’ll be great”, and they don’t even do it, but they find an alternate use of something we did, and they go off on a complete tangent and do stuff. I think being humble about the fact that as a designer you can’t so much predict what users will do so much as throw out a lot of good ideas and hope that users latch on to some of them, and then you have to measure and measure and measure what people do.

PC Gamer: So player feedback will play an important part in APB’s development?

Bjorn Book-Larsson: Yeah, I mean, as a company we’re called GamersFirst, and the reason is our goal is to follow what gamers do and give them that. We’ve existed as a company for seven years and it’s funny because we’re not especially huge or well known, we’re somewhat known, but it’s one of those things where the velocity of this type of release cycle is that the game should last, and almost be a platform from which you launch a lot of different experiences. With War Rock for instance, we just launched a collaborative mode where you play with team members as opposed to trying to kill everyone else, and it was huge, it turned out there was a huge demand for that type of gameplay mode, so we’re continuously doing that kind of work, and those are the kinds of things that we have to bring to APB as well.

PC Gamer: What new experiences do you want to add to APB as it develops?

Bjorn Book-Larsson: In the short term, obviously, a lot of things. It would be great if there was a way for clans or teams to have more collaboration, because right now you get thrown out in to a big city and it’s a little bit tricky or difficult to pick encounters against other teams. If you think of things like the e-sports leagues that are out there in Europe, in War Rock for instance we have a lot of clan versus clan fights, so we do want to set up a method for those smaller groupings to stay coherent, because that kind of social dynamic will actually perpetuate the game much longer than an individual experience. I think if you look at the design of the game, it was very tailored towards an online individual experience to some extent, because you were thrown into a large group of people, but there wasn’t really a direct mode for clans to take on another clan and be ranked against them, or there wasn’t an easy way to do it, it wasn’t central. I think that’s one of the first things we’ll do. We might accomplish that by adding some session based gameplay. There are a couple of maps that the original had already finished, so we might bring those out and let people join those smaller maps in some form of clan mode. There’s other changes as well, there were some interesting concepts around the cars, there was some potential racing components that existed in the original code, so there are various experiences like that which are close at hand. I think, three to five years out, the goal would be to take advantage of the really cool customisation tools, and potentially build several different game experiences like this around the game. Because it already has a really solid social district, there’s nothing really stopping us from allowing you to enter different worlds of engagement from that social district, not necessarily just the large scale San Paro financial districts, but you could go do collaborative gameplay, or a session based game, or some other kind of interactions using that same character that you’ve built.

PC Gamer: It sounds like you’re taking hold of some ideas that were already in the code that Realtime worlds didn’t implement, and using that as a jumping off point?

Bjorn Book-Larsson: Yeah, we’re sort of trying to reuse what they had started with, but I think there are a lot of things that weren’t even built in code which we’re going to have to add, but obviously the first few months is really focused on consolidating on the things that are there. In the real long term, we’re trying to envision: what if we wanted to launch multiple game experiences based on different user types? One of the things to keep in mind is that as a company we have about 30 million registered users, out of which about half are registered to play shooter games, so those users, quite a large audience, are ready, and we have a pretty good idea of how they behave and what they play. So we can tell you how many of those have signed up to play collaboratively as opposed to competitively within the shooter groups, so based on that we can tailor game changes to what it is that they want to do.

PC Gamer: So obviously there’s a lot to be added to the game, is there anything you’re taking out?

Bjorn Book-Larsson: Possibly we will try to reduce parts of the game. One of the issues is that the game client is quite large, so what we might look to do is try to create two versions of the client, one which is a smaller version, and one which is an improved version. Those are details to be worked out after the first batch of changes. We might have a starter pack, and then an enthusiast version for those who have the latest and greatest hardware.

PC Gamer: When the game comes out, are there any plans to gift items or services to players who have already paid for APB?

Bjorn Book-Larsson: We will try to accommodate those former players if we can. The issue is that of course the former players were distributed to by EA, and I know that EA has been giving refunds, and we’re not really engaged with that process. It’s a tricky question that we don’t have an answer to yet, if there’s a technical or even operational way to recognise all the former players then we will. If there’s not, then some of them may have to start over, but at least we hope they can reclaim the characters that they created, but they’ll have to create new accounts on our services in order to do so.

PC Gamer: So you do plan to let people take through characters they’ve already created?

Bjorn Book-Larsson: If possible, that’s a huge caveat. Obviously, as you can imagine, since EA has been doing the distribution there has been a lot of somewhat unanswered questions around that. Once that gets worked out, which I actually think will take a little bit of time, we would probably have a solid answer at the end of this year.

PC Gamer: Thanks for your time.

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/17/interview-gamersfirst-on-bringing-back-apb/feed/ 15 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/15/interview-final-fantasy-xiv-developers-apologise-to-unhappy-players/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/15/interview-final-fantasy-xiv-developers-apologise-to-unhappy-players/#comments Mon, 15 Nov 2010 17:37:03 +0000 Kim Richards http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=23196 [..]]]> Final Fantasy XIV launched in September with both technical and design problems – our review gave the game 30%. So last week we sat down with producer Hiromichi Tanaka and global online producer Sage Sundi to ask them what happened, whether it could have been avoided, and what they’re doing to address it now.

Hiromichi Tanaka (left) and Sage Sundi (right)

PC Gamer: FFXIV hasn’t scored very highly across the majority of gamer websites and magazines. What’s your response to complaints like poor menu implementations, cryptic instructions, lag, lack of monsters?

Hiromichi Tanaka: All the points you mention are things we are planning to fix straight away. This morning, we announced our plan of version updates. So you can see we are reacting very quickly to all the feedback we are getting from our players. We believe that, because the expectation was so high, it made it even more disappointing for the players.

There was a lot of feedback we received during the beta phase which we should’ve managed to implement before the launch, but because we found a lot of bugs during the beta phase, we were focusing on fixing them. That’s one of the reasons we were not able to implement all the things we were planning to do in the first place. That’s why we do feel very sorry for the people who are unsatisfied with the game status.

PC Gamer: I understand you’re fixing many of these issues, but looking at the official website, where you’ve announced what you’ll be changing in Nov/Dec – a lot of these things are basic gameplay elements. Do you think FFXIV could’ve benefited from more development time?

Hiromichi Tanaka: Because it’s an MMO, time is always not enough. We always need more time, especially because we expect players to enjoy the game for five years to ten years. Release timing is only one of the points that we go past – it’s not a final goal we achieve. So we will continue working on it with the players, and listening to them. This will continue, and the development team is really working hard to improve the game.

PC Gamer: Would you have liked it if the release date was maybe a couple of months later, to smooth out the last kinks?

Hiromichi Tanaka: It is very difficult to make the decision. If we had more time, we probably would have had to fix more bugs, and so it was very difficult to judge which time to release the game, because we want people to enjoy it as soon as possible. That’s why we made the decision to release it now.

Sage Sundi: If we had three more years (laughs), we would’ve had three more years worth of implemented content. But we had six months [from the first stage of alpha testing], so that’s where we are with the game.

PC Gamer: When I met you before, I asked if any other MMOs inspired you during the development process, and you only mentioned FFXI. You also mentioned you hadn’t played World of Warcraft. Do you think any design issues could’ve been avoided if you’d played other MMOs?

Hiromichi Tanaka: We have a big development team. Some people do play WoW, some play Everquest 2, some people play Star Wars Galaxy. So all their different experiences were combined in the game. One person’s idea is not going to make the full game, in one specific shape.

Also, if everyone was playing the same thing, then we might have ended up with a copy of one particular game, so that’s something we also wanted to avoid. Further to game experience, when we listen to all the player feedback, those players have experience in different MMOs. So when we listen to them, that means we are listening to the player’s experience of different MMOs. So that’s how we get the feedback.

One of the main focuses we had for FFXIV was introducing the excitement of MMOs to Final Fantasy fans, so that’s why we didn’t want to have a copy of other existing MMOs. We don’t think the amount of experience of the development team has of MMOs was actually affecting in any way.

Sage Sundi: When we listened to all the feedback from the players, some really expect the same game style as WoW, some expect something very similar to Everquest 2. But then again, some feedback is the standard to all the MMO audience. So, really deciding which feedback is important as an MMO – not just because one title is doing that – what should be implemented in FFXIV is very challenging to decide, but that’s why we have several different teams worldwide listening to different feedback, and we do analyse what should be implemented in our game.

PC Gamer: Recently, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada said that “Currently, the service isn’t satisfactory”. Can you comment on that?

Hiromichi Tanaka: From the game design point of view, we do agree, and all of the development team do understand that it’s not up to the expectation, and that a lot of players are unsatisfied with the quality of the game itself.

One of the reasons for this, as we discussed earlier, is that a lot of issues should’ve been fixed during the beta phase. But because we were focusing on the debugging side of issues, we were not able to implement everything before launch, and that’s one of the reasons we believe it’s in its current state. So all the team is working hard to update it and fix those issues as soon as possible.

PC Gamer: Wada went on to say “We’re in the middle of quickly improving it. We want to do everything we can to win back players’ trust.” What do you believe will win back players’ trust and get people to return to the game?

Sage Sundi: That is the actual game improvements we are trying to do. If the players see what we are working on, and if we can bring all the satisfaction to the players, we believe that that will bring back the trust.

Also, after we got all the feedback during the beta stage, the players might’ve thought that we were not listening to them, because we were focusing on fixing the bugs – we need to make sure that they know that we are listening to them. We think more transparency is something very important between the development team and the players. But we believe when they see all the updates we are planning to do, they can be assured that we are listening to them and taking all their feedback seriously.

PC Gamer: At the moment there’s very little reason for people to quest with each other. Are there any features we can expect in future that will encourage players to get together? Are there any plans to put in dungeons/raids/PvP?

Hiromichi Tanaka: Exactly – that is the plan. We are planning to put more content in so people can enjoy party plays, or playing with other players. Because the armoury system was so designed to be convenient to solo players, it seems like it’s really focusing too much on solo gameplay at the moment and there’s not much point at joining the party at this stage. But what we’re trying to do now is give more unique identities to each character class, so it will have more meaning to be a different class in one party – that’s something we’re starting to implement in this upcoming version update and the next version update. That’s something you will notice that’ll be different, so people will be experiencing more exciting party plays.

PC Gamer: Why did you decide to implement quite strict limitations on the amount of Guildleves you could do in a day?

Hiromichi Tanaka: That was our intention, because the reward of completing a Guildleve is so big, we didn’t want to have it unlimited. If it was unlimited, the players who have a lot of time can keep on doing them and get a high level really quickly. But the initial plan for the Guildleve was to allow players who haven’t got much time to still get a good game experience. That’s why we didn’t want the Guildleve to be unlimited.

PC Gamer: Will there be any plans to ease the limitations? They’re quite strict at the moment.

Hiromichi Tanaka: Yes, we are trying to adapt the Guildleve system itself, so we are looking into adapting those restrictions. Also, there will be more variations to the quests you can experience, so please look forward to those as well.

PC Gamer: Recently, players have been posting videos of terrain they think was copy and pasted (eg. 1, 2 – maps showing all the relevant areas). Is that the case, and if so why?

Hiromichi Tanaka: Since FFI, we have always used the same design to show the scenery. We have one map divided into different parts, and then we use those parts. Otherwise, the data size is going to be terabytes. So, from the memory size point of view, it’s important to compile the data size. That being said, because we wanted the game to be seamless, we do understand there’s a lack of variation. So that’s why we do want to have more unique aspects in the area, depending on what area of the game it is. However, even for the 3D version for other MMOs, using the same data is quite common in designing the game.

PC Gamer: I understand when it’s elements of a landscape, like a tree or rock. But these seem to be whole areas, to an extent that you don’t see in something like WoW.

Hiromichi Tanaka: One of the explanations for that is the size of the parts of the data that we use. Back in the days of FFXI and even WoW, the memory of each part was much less than what we have to use now. These days, because of the graphics, the same size of the parts costs more memory size. If the PC itself has that same size of the- has got larger in the same manner, then we can increase the map in the same way. But the same size of the data is now like ten times more memory size, so that’s really costing the game data size.

PC Gamer: If WoW could do it then, why isn’t it doable now?

Hiromichi Tanaka: One of the reasons why is because of the quality of the graphics – it’s different from WoW. What we’re trying to do in each part is costing more memory. Basically that’s the difference. WoW was designed a few years ago, before FFXI. FFXIV is designed with the latest graphical technology; that’s why it costs that much of memory data.

PC Gamer: On the website, you mention seasonal events. Can we get any hint of what’s to come?

Sage Sundi: Because the world in FFXIV has a different culture compared to our actual world, we can’t really expect the same thing as Christmas and New Year. But there’ll be something very similar that you might recognise. How you actually experience the new event will be quite interesting, so we hope you look forward to that. It’s coming very soon.

PC Gamer: Finally, is there anything you’d like to say to people who’ve bought FFXIV and are maybe feeling a bit put out?

Hiromichi Tanaka: We have announced our plans for the new version update, and we do understand you were expecting them to be implemented in the first place. But we hope to make the game better and better with your co-operation, and we hope we can progress together with the players. So hopefully you will take a look and see how the world and the game experience will change and how it’s evolving. And if you like it, we do hope you give it a try again and enjoy it.

PC Gamer: Thank you both for your time.

You can see what Square Enix have planned in the updates due later this month and in December here, or read our review.

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/15/interview-final-fantasy-xiv-developers-apologise-to-unhappy-players/feed/ 49 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/10/love-creator-gives-away-full-animation-tool-for-free/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/10/love-creator-gives-away-full-animation-tool-for-free/#comments Wed, 10 Nov 2010 20:44:49 +0000 Josh Augustine http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=22653 [..]]]> Eskil Steenberg not only built the gorgeous MMO LOVE by himself, he built all of the tools that he used to build the game as well. And now he’s giving those tools away to anyone and everyone, for absolutely nothing. Last Friday, he released the animator program he built to ease the process of designing animations for his game. Source code is included and there’s absolutely no restrictions on how you modify the code or use the tool. We sat down with Eskil to find out more about the tool, how indie developers can use it to easily improve their game’s animations, and why he decided to give it away.

During our time spent with Steenberg at the PC Gamer compound and conventions during the past year, we’ve gotten to see just how slick all of the tools he’s build (including the animator) really are–as an artist, Eskil’s crafted programs are as elegant in their simplistic design as they are easy to use. You can always download the latest version of the animator tool here, and be sure to follow Eskil Steenberg on Twitter to get the latest updates on when the tool, and LOVE, are updated.

PCG: What can players do with the animator tool you’re giving away?

Eskil Steenberg: First of all, it’s a fun toy to play around with, and it gives you an idea of how the animation in LOVE works. But it’s also a tool for other game developers–who don’t have access to a lot of animators or motion capture tools [like large, corporate developer studios do]–to create fully-animated characters in their games.

PCG: How many hours have you put into designing and tweaking the animator tool?

Steenberg: I wrote the majority of it while traveling in California (and visiting PC Gamer) earlier this year. And after that I took another week to clean it up, so all in all about 2 – 3 weeks of work.

PCG: Did you make all of LOVE’s animations with this tool?

Steenberg: LOVE’s animation system is based on a library called “Confuse” that handles all animation [in the game]. It is specialized for games because it can do most of the animation automatically, such as finding places to plant a character’s feet when it’s walking dynamically, depending on terrain. It can also take a simple pose like aiming a gun and then modify that pose if you’re aiming in another direction. It also handles things like picking up and putting back weapons and tools that you carry on different parts of the body. In games, characters often need to be able to do many things at once–like walking, aiming a gun and pressing a button all at the same time–and this animation system can figure out how to blend the different animations to do [all of those actions at the same time without designing multiple specific animations].
The animation editor was built to edit the data of this animation system so that you can do more advanced animations more easily than typing in numbers by hand.

PCG: Is the animator tool that’s being released a stripped down version of the one you use, or the full version?

Steenberg:It’s the full vesion. And the release even includes source code for the tool and the Confuse library, so that you can modify or port it, or use it in your own projects license-free.

PCG: After making such a useful animator tool, what made you decide to give it away for free?

Steenberg: This year at the graphics conference Siggraph [link] someone asked Ed Catmull–who is the President of Pixar and the inventor of texture mapping among other things–how Pixar decides what to show publicly and what they keep secret for competitive advantage. Ed answered that most of the things they don’t show publicly, they keep secret not for competitive advantage, but because they are so embarrased about them. Giving something to the public is a very good way to ensure that you don’t do a hack job. If you know that others will see or use [the tool you're making] then you will fix more bugs then you otherwise would, and in the long run, that turns out to be very good for you too. I have given away almost all tools I’ve made and it has proven to be very good.

PCG: While we have you, can you share any plans you have for animations in LOVE in the near future?

Steenberg: In the past, the tribes [camps of NPCs located around the world] in LOVE have mostly only fought you, and that required them to be able to aim a gun and not much more. But now I’m writing a much more advanced version of the AI that you can become friends with. The AI can now befriend you, help you, follow you, show you things, sell stuff and much more, and that requires the AI to be far more expressive then it has been before. Some of the friendly AI behavior is already in the game but the players still usually end up shooting the AI, simply because the AI are unable to express its intentions.

You can always download the latest version of the animator tool here, and be sure to follow Eskil Steenberg on Twitter to get the latest updates on when the tool, and LOVE, are updated.

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/10/love-creator-gives-away-full-animation-tool-for-free/feed/ 3 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/04/the-making-of-peggle/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/04/the-making-of-peggle/#comments Thu, 04 Nov 2010 22:07:36 +0000 Graham Smith http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=21730 [..]]]> PopCap Games are the creators of Bejeweled, Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies, each of them one of the biggest and most lovable games on PC. When casual and social games are reaching ever larger audiences and their developers are getting a bad reputation for poor design practices, how have PopCap managed to find fans amongst gamers and grannies alike? To find out, I visited the studio and interviewed everyone I could find. We’re running those interviews each day this week and calling it PopCap Week.

Today I’m speaking to PopCap co-founder Jason Kapalka and the designer of Peggle, Sukhbir Sidhub. It’s only now when looking back at the transcript that I realise there are long periods when I don’t ask any questions. Jason and Sukhbir have worked together for years, and it shows. They talk away without my intervention, revealing details of PopCap’s forgotten first release, a strip poker game called Foxy Poker, and follow it up by going into detail about the many variants of Peggle, including a Thor-themed version called Thunderball, and what would have happened if co-founder John Vechey’s mum had been PopCap’s accountant.

PopCap co-founder Jason Kapalka.

Jason Kapalka: You know the original name, right?

PC Gamer: I think it was Sexy Action Cool?

Jason Kapalka: Yeah. I don’t know if you know the original product. Did they show you Foxy Poker?

PC Gamer: No.

Jason Kapalka: That’s the PR person having a pained look on their face

(laughter)

Jason Kapalka: This is not in our corporate histories, but the first thing that we did was a strip poker game. Mostly just because we thought, “We can do this thing, then we can sell it and take the money to use to do whatever.”

It was more like strip video poker and in fact there wasn’t actually any stripping. We were still trying to do this advertising stuff where they wouldn’t allow nudity, so there was this awesome power stripping where there was always some object interposed. We did get a lot of complaints, because you had to play a long time to get enough tokens to get to the final stage of undress, and when you did there was some vases and things, so we got a lot of complaints that they’d just spent four hours.

It was a pretty good strip poker game if I do say so myself, but we found there was going to be a hard time doing anything with it because we didn’t really have the heart to deal with any of the porn companies because they were just too scummy. We abandoned our short lived effort to be a company like that. We then did Bejeweled and after that, yeah, started licensing games to Microsoft, primarily, and a few other companies.

PC Gamer: Did you have in your heads the type of game that you wanted to make at that point?

Jason Kapalka: The strip poker game seemed like a way to get some starting money, but the kind of games we were planning on doing were always these web-based, simple puzzle games.

We ended up gravitating more to single player puzzle games, not necessarily because of choice, but because it was easier to sell, because the multiplayer stuff was a real pain in the butt to integrate. If you want to go to Microsoft with a multiplayer game it was really hard, because you had to work with their APIs.

We did actually do multiplayer games for the first couple of years at PopCap. Psychobabble is the coolest one, probably. A sort of competitive fridge magnet poetry. It was really fun and actually very funny, it was a laugh out loud hilarious often. We eventually took it down a few years back, not because it wasn’t any good but because it was literally impossible to make it family friendly. No matter how many curse words or suggestive words you took out, people would find a way to make something filthy out of any possible configuration of words.

Sukhbir Sidhub: That was definitely half the fun of the game.

The first Peggle title sequence.

PC Gamer: At what point did you join the company?

Sukhbir Sidhub: I think it was June 2002. It was about a year or two after Bejeweled.

Jason Kapalka: Yeah, 2002, I guess. At that point I can’t remember what employee number you were.

Sukhbir Sidhub: I think there were like seven other people, but I’m not quite sure. Pretty small office.

PC Gamer: I read your bio and you were number 8 I think.

Jason Kapalka: Sounds right. I mean, some of them were like John’s mum was our accountant.

Sukhbir Sidhub: His aunt.

Jason Kapalka: Oh no, his Aunt. Sorry, that would be terrible!

Sukhbir Sidhub: (laughs) Yeah. I don’t think we would be here now if John’s mom was our accountant back then.

Jason Kapalka: Yeah, I think we’d all be in jail.

PC Gamer: Can you talk me through a little bit the development process for making Peggle?

Sukhbir Sidhub: The first conversation I had with Jason when I talked about coming up here to work for PopCap, we talked about the kinds of games they wanted to make. You know, casual games, games for a wide audience. I actually mentioned Pachinko at that time and we started talking about it just in that one conversation.

That was years before we even started Peggle, because I’d actually played a Pachinko game that Jason had at his apartment back in San Francisco. It was a Godzilla Pachinko machine, and it was awesome. It was really fun and it was mesmerising and I couldn’t believe how fun it was and how addictive it was.

So that experience always stayed with me, but the problem with that was, it was all luck. It’s hard to make a computer game, because the fun in Pachinko, in regular Pachinko, is the gambling aspect of it. Even though it’s mesmerising, it’s going to be hard to get that same feeling in a game. That was a problem

And then a few years later, one of our developers had been working on a simple 2D physics engine, and we started talking about the idea of a Pachinko or a pinball game, but we didn’t really know what to do. We wanted to do some sort of Pachinko game and we needed some skills, so we were thinking maybe if it was somehow meshed with pinball.

We ended up spending about 3 or 4 months prototyping different game ideas. Some where very Pachinko like, some were very pinball like, some were in between, some were Breakout. We were trying to find something that was fun, accessible, simple, so we went all over the map for a few months.

PC Gamer: So over that three or four months, when did you start to know that you were hitting the right balance between Pachinko and pinball or, what was the breakthrough?

[For more insane concept art, click onwards to page two!]

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/04/the-making-of-peggle/feed/ 9 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/02/making-of-plants-vs-zombies/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/02/making-of-plants-vs-zombies/#comments Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:18:26 +0000 Graham Smith http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=21087 [..]]]> PopCap Games are the creators of Bejeweled, Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies, each of them one of the biggest and most lovable games on PC. When casual and social games are reaching ever larger audiences and their developers are getting a bad reputation for poor design practices, how have PopCap managed to find fans amongst gamers and grannies alike? To find out, I visited the studio and interviewed everyone I could find. We’re running those interviews each day this week and calling it PopCap Week.

Today I’m speaking to George Fan, the designer of Plants vs. Zombies. Alongside a ton of incredibly early sketches from the game’s development, George talks about his time working for Blizzard and PopCap simultaneously, PvZ’s origins as a double-decker fish tank, and why he dressed as a zombie for the director of Dawn of the Dead. Also, a few words from his cat.

PC Gamer: How did you join PopCap?

George Fan: A long, long time ago I had this prototype for a Java game about a fish tank where aliens attack it. It ended up turning into Insaniquarium. My ambitions were simple, I just wanted to enter it into the Independent Games Festival, and that was 2002. At the time I was working at an online games company, and as part of my job I felt I had to do research on competing companies. I stumbled upon PopCap and thought, “These games are all really good.” I think back then they had Bejeweled, Money Maze and Seven Seas. So I sent an email telling them, “Hey, great job on those games.” I think John Vechey rang me back. So when I heard that my Insaniquarium prototype had gotten into the Independent Games Festival finals I rang them up again and asked if they would be at GDC. We met up there and found that we have similar ideals, and they [offered to] help me make Insaniquarium as a downloadable game. I agreed and we worked together on that for what ended up being a couple of years.

PC Gamer: Did they hire you at that point?

George Fan: They didn’t hire me at that point. At the time, I was looking for a job and I also got an offer from Blizzard. I was ecstatic, as I had been a Blizzard fan my whole life, and I got offers from both Blizzard and PopCap. I’m from the Bay Area in California, so that was one factor that ultimately let me make the choice to go to Blizzard.

PC Gamer: So how did you then end up going up from that and PopCap to working at Blizzard?

George Fan: That was a really tough transition. Normally when you work in a job they’re not really keen on having you work on other projects for other companies, so I was really concerned that if I worked at Blizzard I’d have to stop working on Insaniquarium. But they made an exception, based on precedent, they said, ‘Because you were working on this before we’ll give you the leeway to finish it up.’ But knowing that I wasn’t going to work on anything else afterwards. And that was actually a pretty horrible thing to try to attempt. I don’t suggest that anyone works a job programming during the day and going home and programming some more during the night. It’s just too much using the same part of the brain, and the same part of the wrists. My wrists got really, really messed up that year, so I’m glad I’ve made it through and released Insaniquarium, but I don’t think anyone should do it that way.

PC Gamer: How long was the period of overlap where you were working at Blizzard and doing Insaniquarium at the same time?

George Fan: I was working at Blizzard for around two and a half years, so I think from somewhere around 2002 to 2004. Insaniquarium was released in 2004 and it wasn’t that long after I’d finished, when I was only allowed to work at Blizzard, that I discovered that I was more of a designer than a programmer. There are a lot of talented programmers at Blizzard and I just didn’t feel like I could keep up with them in that realm. I tried to get into designing when I was over there and it was tough. I think I have a good design sense, but sometimes it’s pretty tough for me to communicate design ideas. Or rather, I can communicate them, it’s just hard to persuade people why they’re good. I found that working in a smaller team was a better fit for me, and had all these games inside of me that I wanted to make and I don’t think Blizzard was the place to do that. I kind of have these original little Insaniquarium style experements that I want to do. So I ended up leaving Blizzard to go independent for a while. There was at least a year where I was totally independent and working on what ended up being Plants vs. Zombies.

The name's Corn. Agent Corn.

PC Gamer: So what was it exactly that brought you back to PopCap?

George Fan: When I left Blizzard I hadn’t gotten an offer from PopCap. I really liked the idea of doing the same thing I did for Insaniquarium, which was an independent company making a game. One of the things that changed was that PopCap had opened up a studio in San Francisco and so the question came around again of whether I wanted to work for them. It was a tough decision for me because there was a big part of me that wanted to stay independent and work on games that way.

Cat: Meeaaaaow.

PC Gamer: What convinced you to then join PopCap?

George Fan: They made me a really good offer and convinced me that doing Plants vs. Zombies as an employee would help me make the best game.

PC Gamer: What about being internal makes Plants vs. Zombies a better game?

George Fan: You get a lot of support, and I think that one thing I would worry about as an independent is if I would be consistently motivated enough. That’s a key factor. When you’re independent, you’re your only motivator a lot of the time. I was a little concerned about being sidetracked or letting things take longer than they should, procrastinating at times when I don’t feel inspiration. Also, PopCap have this internal forum where we put builds occasionally and everyone comments on them. I think they might have shown you it when you were up there?

PC Gamer: No, they didn’t show me that.

George Fan: Yeah, they have a forum called Burrito where people post internal builds. I think it’s really useful because everyone in the company can play and-

Cat: Meaoww!

George Fan: I’ve got to feed my cat, he’s yelling at me. Yeah, we did builds for Plants vs. Zombies every four months maybe, and they always got a lot of good commentary and feedback on every single build, and that allowed us to really pick and choose which things we wanted to address.

PC Gamer: How did development on Plants vs. Zombies begin?

George Fan: I was a big fan of the DS when it first came out, and there was a quick talk between me and Jason about [making] Insaniquarium DS. That was fresh in my mind and kind of led me to think of what I would do for a sequel. I’m not the type who just wants to do the same game again, so for Insaniquarium 2 I was thinking about the dual screens. I was thinking that it would be, instead of a one fish tank game, it would be twice the fish tank. It would have two fish tanks, right? The concept was that these fish tanks were going to stack on top of each other. I don’t know why that makes sense. The aliens would enter the top fish tank. They would come in hordes and would attack your top fish tank and if they broke through that, they would get to your bottom fish tank. When they ate all your fish in the bottom fish tank the game would be over. The top fish tank was going to be more focused on having defensive fish and depth charges and whatnot, and was basically going to be a defence tank. The bottom tank was going to be more like Insaniquarium 1; it was going to be the resource generator tank. That was the initial idea.

Early sketches for the alien enemies.

PC Gamer: When did the game make the shift from fish to plants and zombies?

George Fan: It first made the shift to plants when it was all ideas in my head and early prototypes. I was playing WarCraft 3 and really getting into all the custom games that were coming out. One really big mod was tower defence, back when tower defence wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is now. I was playing all these tower defence games I can’t remember the names of now, and I realised you could make a tower defence game. I was thinking about defensive elements and I was thinking if you had plants as towers they could be expected to stay in one place, and you could draw faces on them and give them a lot more character, whereas every tower in a tower defence game has zero personality. That was the first step of what led to Plants vs. Zombies.

The second step was born of me not wanting to make a game that blended in with everything else. I started working on this plant defence game, and then all these games started coming out in the casual games space about gardening, planting plants and greenhouses. I felt like my game wouldn’t stand out enough, so that’s when my adversary changed from aliens to zombies. They were aliens because they were the same aliens that were originally from Insaniquarium, but they decided instead that they wanted to eat veggies instead of fish. But at that point I was like, “Okay, we’re safe now,” because no one is going to make a plant game with zombies in it.

Before that, plants had the number one billing; it wasn’t Plants vs. Aliens, it was called Weedlings. From that day on it was a game that gave the bad guys equal billing, or equal importance. But then the funny thing that happened was Tower Defence totally took off. Unfortunately when the game came out it was just dismissed as– when people told other people about it it was just, “Oh, it’s a tower defence game.” In a way it is, but I think it brings a lot more than just being another tower defence game, I think.

PC Gamer: So you didn’t start with the genre and work out from there?

George Fan: No, no. It was never meant to be a tower defence game, it was meant to be Plants vs Zombies.

PC Gamer: I know you do your own character designs, so does it start with a sketchbook?

George Fan: I did the sketchbook and prototyping concurrently. I think that’s the best way to make games, creating the art and gameplay together. Nothing should let the gameplay bend to it. One of the draws with Plants vs. Zombies, definitely the goal I try to shoot for, is that the art would support the gameplay. For instance, the peashooter plant looks like something that would spit projectiles out. Ideally someone who doesn’t even know English could play the game, because it would just be so reinforced by the visuals.

So, yeah, I did start out with a sketchbook, just sketching plants and, back then it was aliens, and whenever I would be programming, I would open up that sketchbook. The sense of style was set in stone then, but I kind of drew it all with the intention of having it replaced later by an artist who could really render out, and make the lines clean.

PC Gamer: Were there any paths you started down but that didn’t work out?

[Continue to page two for more on how plants came to fight zombies!]

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/02/making-of-plants-vs-zombies/feed/ 12 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/01/popcap-week-john-vechey-on-founding-popcap-making-bejeweled/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/01/popcap-week-john-vechey-on-founding-popcap-making-bejeweled/#comments Mon, 01 Nov 2010 15:20:14 +0000 Graham Smith http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=20677 [..]]]> PopCap Games are the creators of Bejeweled, Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies, each of them one of the biggest and most lovable games on PC. When casual and social games are reaching ever larger audiences and their developers are getting a bad reputation for poor design practices, how have PopCap managed to find fans amongst gamers and grannies alike? To find out, I visited the studio and interviewed everyone I could find. We’re running those interviews each day this week and calling it PopCap Week.

We begin with John Vechey. As one of PopCap’s three co-founders, he’s been with the company since the beginning and instrumental in growing the studio from three friends working from home, to a massive operation with hundreds of people. He also played a key role in developing the studios biggest game, Bejeweled. I spoke to him about when PopCap was originally named Sexy Action Cool, what he thinks Activision and EA are screwing up, and about where the idea for Bejeweled came from.

PC Gamer: To start at the beginning, how did you get into game development?

John Vechey: Well Brian Fiete and I, one of the co-founders, met in college. So I never had a computer growing up and I remember my friend had got a computer. I went over to his house and it was AOL, the internet. I was like “holy cow”, I had no idea what it was, and my first thought was, “Man, I want to play games”, and this was a time of Tempest, not Tempest. What was that game where you could rotate in any direction? It was like a first person shooter but you had no – it might have been set in space or underwater.

PC Gamer: Was it Descent?

John Vechey: Descent! Yeah, Descent. I was like, “Woah, I want to play against people!” and he said, “It’s much harder than you think,” and so then I personally thought “that’s a bummer” because what’s the point in connecting things unless you can play games? But other than that I had an Atari and Nintendo growing up, I never had a computer, and then at college my dad got me a computer. He actually got me – he cosigned for a loan for me to get one, which was almost like him getting me one! And I met Brian Fiete in class and then we were both programming, he was a good programmer and I was a bad one, and I said, “Let’s make a game.”

So we made this internet only action game called Ark, and we ended up putting that live on the internet and we had rented a server and everything. Jason, the third co-founder was working for Total Entertainment Network which became Pogo. He saw the game online and was like, “Hey that’s a pretty cool game, let’s chat.” They ended up licensing the game for us, and then my Aunt’s friend’s parents were next-door neighbours with Ken and Roberta Williams, the founders of Sierra. Through that connection Ken called us up and was just like, “This is kind of cool what you guys have done, you’ve made this game, that’s sweet, the internet is going to be big for games, let’s chat,” and we got hired to go work for their internet division when we finished college, which I thought was cool because I was totally failing out. So it really worked for me, frankly!

PC Gamer: How did you get on at Sierra?

John Vechey: We were in the internet division, WON.net, and it was a really a pretty bad division in that it didn’t know what it was trying to do. Was it trying to do games technology and support the next CD ROM titles, or was it trying to make internet games? In fact, Brian Fiete and the programmer of Peggle didn’t go to a game developers conference one year and so they spent a week and made this little boardgame called War Dogs. They actually got in trouble for making War Dogs, right? Then the company launched it anyway and it did phenomenally well and they had to backpedal and be like, “Oh no, we’re glad you made it now!” But it really didn’t know what it was trying to do.

We lasted about 2, 2 and a half years. I worked on some game technologies that let you swap skin and map files for Half Life, Starsiege Tribes and a bunch of games at the time, so I ended up getting a lot of sales experience by talking to these game developers who had a need to put this extra technology into their games to make it easier for users to download and install them, because at the time you had to download the zip file, you had to know the directory structure, it was kind of a pain, and we were trying to make it easy. But after 2 and a half years at Sierra we decided, let’s start up a game company making simple games in your internet browser.

PC Gamer: What prompted the decision to leave Sierra?

John Vechey: Brian and I had always talked about starting a company together, but we wanted some more professional experience. We’d kept in touch with Jason and maintained a friendship and I talked with him on a lot of different things. We’d done some prototypes on the side, we had this, like, we called it Junk Tank. It was this first person, or third person shooting tank game that we’d done that Brian and I had worked on.

So we had done a fair amount of little things and were always thinking about eventually starting something and, for us what it came down to was: web browser games are things you can do with three people. We had all the talents needed to make a business out of that. Jason could do the art, the production and a lot of the game design, Brian was a great programmer, I would do the business side and be dead weight for our initial couple of games, and we just decided to make the company.

PC Gamer: Was always the plan to set out on your own?

John Vechey: Yeah, Brian and I often talked about it. When we were working for Sierra we were like, “We could probably make more doing our own thing but hey, it gets us out of Indiana.” I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Indiana?

PC Gamer: No.

John Vechey: It’s like a shithole, but shitholes are nicer.

The soon to be superseded Bejeweled 2.

PC Gamer: PopCap’s first big success was Bejeweled. How did development on that begin?

John Vechey: I’d seen a game that used some similar rulesets to Bejewelled, but there was no animation, no sound effects, and they were very indifferent rules. We simplified it and changed it and then I sent a link out, then Brian did a version that was just circles and then Jason added the gem graphics. So it was three days of boom, boom, boom, and then we had it.

We knew how to make browser games because Jason was doing that at Pogo and felt that they were spending too much money and weren’t making very good games because they were very structure oriented. In fact, Pogo to this day still has, a game designer can do a prototype, but once they get a prototype then they have to write a design doc that has every element and game design choice already made, and then a programmer programs it, and then the artist does the art. Jason was like, it’s not the best way to make games. It’s expensive and making some okay games, some pretty good games, but nothing spectacular. Our goal was to say, “Hey, we’re going to make these simple games and make them really awesome, and spend a lot of time and make a very iterative process.”

PC Gamer: How long did you spend making the game before it first launched?

John Vechey: We spent about a month making the game and then we started showing it to companies. We were trying to sell it outright, so we tried to sell it to EA for $60,000 dollars, and they said no, thank goodness! And then we showed it to Microsoft and tried to sell it for $30,000 and they said no. But they said they would do a licensing fee for $1500 dollars a month. We had two games at the time, we had Bejewelled and our second game, Alchemy. So, okay, $1500 a month times two is $3000 a month. If we get about ten of these we’re actually okay, right? And our third game we licensed exclusively for ten grand a month, so we ended up not being a great business, but for three guys it was working out okay.

Then Bejewelled experienced disproportionate success to any money we were making. I think it was getting 50/60 thousand peak users during the day. I don’t know what that is in monthly users, or daily users, but a lot of people were playing it, yet it took a while for us to find the financial success behind that.

PC Gamer: MSN the first place it appeared?

John Vechey: I think it appeared on Sexy Action Cool, which was our company name at the time. We always thought we were just going to do licensing and didn’t think we were actually going to be a consumer brand, so we put the games up, Bejewelled and Alchemy, and were like, “At some point we should get a better name”. So that’s how we actually solved it. We had PopCap, and PopCap.com, as more consumer facing brands, instead of Sexy Action Cool.

Click for a massive, high-res gem.

PC Gamer: How did the company start to grow? You’re being licensed, you’re making some money, there’s three of you. At that point, did you have an office?

John Vechey: We didn’t have an office, we were just working from our apartments. That was probably, it was about a year and we were barely getting by. I had to borrow some money from some friends who never thought they were going to get the money back, so I have good friends, and we started making around 15 thousand/17 thousand a month, so it was here and there, a couple of deals.

Then, in 2001 we created a downloadable version [of Bejeweled]. A lot of people at the time were connecting using modems, and people wanted to play it offline so they didn’t have to take up their phone line. We created a downloadable version that people could download and play for an hour trial, then if they liked it they could pay $20 for it. Now we’re making like, 30/40 grand a month just from that one downloadable version on our website. Brian and I moved to Argentina for a couple of months. I was working there when I got Yahoo to do downloadable games and then…

PC Gamer: Why did you move to Argentina!?

[Continue to page two to find out why they moved to Argentina!]

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/01/popcap-week-john-vechey-on-founding-popcap-making-bejeweled/feed/ 6 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/28/interview-chris-sigaty-talks-starcraft-2-pro-strategy/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/28/interview-chris-sigaty-talks-starcraft-2-pro-strategy/#comments Thu, 28 Oct 2010 10:35:45 +0000 Al Bickham http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=20380 [..]]]> The two-day tornado of Blizzcon has passed. Between feverish blasts of Diablo III and trying not to stare too hard at the Blood Elf cosplay maidens, we got the chance to chat with the delightful Chris Sigaty, StarCraft II’s Producer, about game theory, why the Zerg need a bit of love, and the difference between amateur and professional StarCrafters’ brains. It was most enlightening.

PC Gamer: Help me Chris. I’m stuck at Bronze rank 2!

Chris Sigaty: Hah, me too! Are you playing team?

PC Gamer: Yeah, 2v2. I can’t help but feel if I found a buddy and we worked on co-ordination…

Chris Sigaty: Absolutely. Once you get to professional tier I think there’s a certain type of game that happens, but before then, single bits of knowledge can make absolutely crazy amounts of difference in your game, right? When you start playing StarCraft II, you go through the whole campaign, and when you get into playing multiplayer, you could be playing, and not choking off the entrance to your base for example, or not scouting at all. And when you learn that “Oh, I could choke-point this!”, you‘ve just jumped yourself five tiers in the level of players you’ll be matched against. These eye-opening things will happen, and at the higher level, it’s very subtle. It’s little things, like “Oh, I found out that if I counter with Hellions against Marines precisely, I can get these little advantages”. But at the lower level, I think these things are a really big deal. If you have a partner you regularly play with and work on the little things, and you always look at your replays or watch other peoples’ replays and see some of the tactics they use, you’d jump up. It’s all about focus and time, right?

PC Gamer: So at the higher level, do you find that players adopt similar strategies with slightly divergent tactics?

Chris Sigaty: There’s a tendency to do that I think, and we know we’ve succeeded when the meta-game is evolving and changing. If it falls into a rut, and that rut is always the answer, then we have a problem, and we need to deal with it. But what’s really compelling is that right now, it doesn’t feel like that. There are these great players out there that are bucking the trend and doing well. They’re such compelling games to watch. A guy called Fruit Dealer, who just won the [BlizzCon] competitions, is a good example – he doesn’t necessarily stick to the standards, he’s just so capable. But one of my favourite players is The Little One, TLO. He just does crazy stuff. We’re all like “That’s just wrong! What’s he doing?”. He pulls these moves out where it shows he’s just really well-studied. He plays Terran, and to some extent Zerg. In fact, he was a Random player during the beta, which is really unusual; at that level, players tend to stick to a single race. He played all of them – it’s hard to know how to play them all and still be studied, and to practice enough and to know each form and style.

PC Gamer: Do you see any weighting towards one race rather than another in the playerbase?

Chris Sigaty: Yeah. Right out of the gates Zerg is the least favourite. Every time some information goes out that they’re the least balanced, even more people run. But Zerg is the least familiar I think. Protoss and Terran are pretty close, but in the last stats I looked at, Terran is the most popular race. I don’t even think it’s a balance thing. If you take the whole population that’s not checked in at the super-pro level, you’ve played Terran in the campaign… they’re human…their technology isn’t alien. As far as playability goes, it’s pretty easy to make the jump to Protoss because they still have a bit of basic similarity – like Barracks and Gateways. Zerg, with Larvae control, and Creep and all that… it gets a lot more complex.

PC Gamer: It seems there’s more micro-management with the Zerg? Does that affect their popularity?

Chris Sigaty: I think they all have some micro-management, but they’re just so different. Again, Protoss is a lot closer to Terran. You’re building a Pylon with power fields, but that Pylon, actually it’s still food, so it’s like the supply depot. It just gets really weird when it’s like “Oh, my food is a flying creature??” Zerg has always been the least popular, even in StarCraft and Brood War. And then, when someone says something about Zerg being underpowered, people run even more!

But we’re trying to look at the game across all the different play-types and styles, not just at the pro level. And it’s difficult, because the story is different depending on the region. For example, we’re looking at the Protoss-Terran match-up right now, and the rest of the world seems to have Protoss as the overall winner. But in Korea, at the higher level, Terran is winning more frequently. We have to wait, and watch that, to find out why. Maybe it’s because Korea, which is playing at a slightly higher level overall than other regions, is discovering some of the cool tactics and things you can do with Terrans. We have to wait and see whether that trend comes across the pond so to speak, to Europe and the US. If we act on anything too quickly in terms of rebalancing, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.

PC Gamer: It does seem that paradigms appear in the strategies people adopt, but sometimes things move in circles. A great example is that ridiculous Photon-Cannon rush at the start. I’ve won games just by trying that, then people learn to counter it; then they forget and it becomes easy to do again.

Chris Sigaty: Yeah, you can kind of resurge it once in a while by knowing that. What’s interesting is that at the pro level, it’s all about skill-tiers. What you’re talking about is eye-opening; you could be banging your head against a wall if you’re not a skilled enough player to work out that if you scout, and quickly bring all of your peons over to kill that cannon-builder, you can press on, and you can win. There’s a lot of learning that you have to do. It depends on the tier of player as to how effective these things are.
We’ve been watching one recently, a Protoss strategy against Zerg, to go heavy Pheonix and Dark templar. You kill overlords and overseers so they can’t detect the Dark Templars, and the Dark Templars come in. There’s actually a very easy counter, but what’s happening is, at the mid-tier, they’re going “Aargh, they just came out of nowhere”. I was talking to Dust [pro player] and he says “As soon as they come up with that strategy, I know I’ve won”.

What I envision in my head is that you’ve got the diamond/platinum tier, and you’ve got these players coming up to it. They progress because they’re surprising everybody, because nobody knows how to counter their moves in the mid-tier. But they get up to the diamond or platinum tier, and the players there are like “So what?” and they smack them down. They’re kind of like waves crashing against the shore of the higher level players.

The top guys aren’t going to get caught off-guard by these strategies. They’re just so aware. Did you watch the Boxer/Fruit Dealer match last night? It was awesome. Fruit Dealer always fast-expands with Zerg, and he expanded to a second hatchery; Boxer walled him off and stopped him from getting to his own expansion with bunkers. He basically caused him to cancel the expansion. And that’s it, he won. That whole micro-management game happens with the pros. Fruit Dealer got really ballsy and expanded out to the gold mineral-expansion, very close to Boxer’s base, and wasn’t aware of it. Anyway, bottom line, it was just crazy play. They still catch each other off-guard, but not with those simple tactics. When you can do it with those simple tactics that are kind of cheesy, it’s not going to work; you’re going to hit the wall of players that are just too aware.

PC Gamer: Would you say there’s a difference in thought process between amateur and pro players?

Chris Sigaty: Yeah, absolutely. The thing is when you’re playing at that level, you really understand the unit countering. So you know, a platinum or diamond player, they really understand that at its core, this unit counters this unit. It’s all knowledge. They’re so much more familiar with which units work in what cases.

When I was talking about TLO… these guys are experimenting in ways that others aren’t. They catch people off-guard, and not because it’s a cheesy tactic, it’s just different, and we haven’t seen it, and they’re thinking “I’m pretty sure this wins”. I watched this match between TLO and Nada – he’s one of the fastest players, he’s got like 300APM or higher. Very quick, very good player. He was going for a more standard Terran build, which is Marines, to Factory, to Siege tanks, and usually up to Vikings. So TLO’s just running Hellions, and bang – out comes a Thor. It’s like, “What is he doing?!” You could see Nada, this very high-level player, and he’s twitching. So in come the Hellions, knock out the Marines real quick, then they get out of the range of the Siege Tanks. Then the Thor comes in, and absorbs the tank-fire. Then the tanks start to siege, and the Hellions shoot back in, close the distance and get up really close really quickly… it was just brilliant play, and it was because it was unexpected. I’m really excited about what we’re seeing at the moment.

PC Gamer: It is funny, seeing it from an amateur’s perspective. It’s not about spending your resources building up a big force, it’s about constant moves and counters…

Chris Sigaty: Oh, totally. You have to be always poking each other. If you’re not, you’re screwing up for sure, because the other guy’s going to poke in on you. So you have to make sure you’re always aware of what he’s doing. You do have to constantly counter, but you have to go in a direction the other guy may not expect. I’ve kind of got past my admiration of the physicality of it. That was the thing, it’s like “My god, look at how quick they’re moving”. I still think that’s amazing, but now I’m thinking about how quickly they change strategy, and counter, in their minds. It’s phenomenal. I was watching Nada play Brood War. And his actions per minute… he’d pop over the screen for a second, give a couple of commands, then pop over to this section… now this is hypothetical, but I almost think that in their minds, it’s like a picture-in-picture mode, where they’re looking at six stations at once. And they going to skip over to this station and act on it for a moment, but they’re kind of seeing it all at once. I mean hey, it may not be real but… wow.

PC Gamer: It has to take a feat of abstract thinking to be able to work on that level…

Chris Sigaty: Yeah absolutely. It’s crazy. It’s so fun to watch though, because I can at least appreciate what they’re doing at that level. I think one of the bridges to overcome is getting people in early enough, to understand how people play at this level. It’s awe-inspiring to me as a professional – it’s like hearing a very accomplished musician, who’s spent thousands of hours doing this thing. The tendency is for people to think ‘well, they’re throwing their lives away…”, like they’re not doing something worthwhile. From the layman’s perspective, from a Mom-and-Dad perspective. It’s like the rock-star thing. If you do it and you get famous, Mom and Dad are okay with it, but all the while before, they’re like “What are you doing?”

PC Gamer: So you must be very proud of the success the game has had? Three million sales worldwide?

Chris Sigaty: Oh yeah. And I think we’re in a much better place than we were. You know, I worked on WarCraft III, and Reign of Chaos, and Frozen Throne, and the original StarCraft. After launching Reign of Chaos, we just weren’t in a position to properly support the game, we just had to get on with Frozen Throne, and we paid a pretty hefty price for how much crunching we did. We worked really hard on StarCraft II as well, but we’ve released a pretty good patch already, we have another one coming soon, we’re adding chat channels, we have customisable hotkeys on the way… we’ve got a lot of features we’re going to roll up, to keep the community happy, and improve the game like we want it to improve. We’re in a much better position to do that, and move on to Heart of The Swarm as well.

Heart of the Swarm continues the story, and really, it’s going to answer all those questions people have about the final scene, with Raynor walking away. We don’t have a date, but it’s going to be the Zerg portion of the story. It’ll also address multiplayer in a big way. It’ll make changes to all three races for sure.

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/28/interview-chris-sigaty-talks-starcraft-2-pro-strategy/feed/ 5 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/21/guild-wars-2-to-have-dlc-microtransactions/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/21/guild-wars-2-to-have-dlc-microtransactions/#comments Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:02:42 +0000 Josh Augustine http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=18909 [..]]]> Lead Game Designer Eric Flannum, while discussing the upcoming dungeon system in a recent interview with PC Gamer, revealed that Guild Wars 2 may be supported, in part, by microtransaction sales.

Updated with clarification from ArenaNet

In discussing Guild Wars 2′s business model–which continues the stand-alone, subscriptionless model of the original that required players to purchase the game, but not pay a monthly fee afterward–Flannum told us that he believes subscription fees can cause a developer to get lazy, because they’re making money whether they actually support the game or not. He continued, “The thing I would say [about not having a subscription fee] is that we actually have the continued support development model that encourages us to make cooler things than anyone else… If we have to sell you additional content like microtransaction content or anything like that, we have to give you something that you’re going to want to buy. We have to earn your money.”

“We don’t get to say, ‘Oh well, you know, we don’t have to release this content this month, since they’re all going to give us their subscription fee anyways. Let’s just wait until next month and release this cool thing.’ We’re actually kind of bound because if we need income, if we need this game to make some money, we better provide things that people want to buy.

“There are not many subscription-fee games that have equaled [what we've put out for the original Guild Wars since Prophecy shipped] so I think our content model ensures that you’re getting your money’s worth, because as the consumer you have the option to say ‘You know, I’m not going to buy that. That’s not good enough.’ Whereas the monthly fee [business model] takes it out of your hand. You better be getting something good every month for that–but that’s just not the case with a lot of games.”

We asked Flannum point blank if they would be releasing more dungeons post-launch that would be purchased as microtransaction purchases. Flannum confirmed to us that they’re definitely open to the idea–and more. “Yeah, we’re going to look at what the demand is. Look at what players want more of and we’re going have to release that stuff, because that’s the stuff that players are going to be willing to pay for, and that’s the stuff that’s going to make our company profitable.”

ArenaNet has already revealed that they’ll be selling Transmutation Stones, one-time consumable items used to customize your gear, in their cash shop. And although they won’t confirm if traditional cash shop items like XP boosts and fast travel consumables will also be sold, Flannum’s responses certainly makes it sound like there will be–if there’s demand for it from the playerbase.

But for now, ArenaNet has only hinted that they might sell dungeon content as DLC and confirmed that they will sell the transmutation stones. [See below for clarification] What do you think? Would you mind paying for an extra dungeon here and there if it means more fresh content coming out for GW2 on a regular basis, or would you rather they stick with the one-time-only payment and slow down development between expansions?

UPDATE:

Eric Flannum sent us a note to clarify a couple of things about their plans for Guild Wars 2 post-release content:

“We haven’t decided on what exactly we are or aren’t going to offer for money post-release. We’re open to whatever our players seem most interested in. If, after release, you guys would like more story content, more dungeons, more events, more maps or whatever, it’s something that we have to consider because ultimately making you happy is what makes us successful.  Whether we release that in DLC (like the bonus mission packs in GW1) or whether we do it through expansions (Like Eye of the North) is yet to be determined. As to whether or not there are going to be items like XP boosts available in the in game store, I can only reiterate what we’ve said before (and will continue to say,) that we’ll release details on it when they are available, and that our core philosophy of not requiring you to spend additional money to play the game and not making the game difficult or painful to play in order to encourage you to buy things from the store still stands.”

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/21/guild-wars-2-to-have-dlc-microtransactions/feed/ 102 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/30/interview-valve-on-why-theyre-selling-team-fortress-2-items-for-real-money/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/30/interview-valve-on-why-theyre-selling-team-fortress-2-items-for-real-money/#comments Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:26:08 +0000 Tom Francis http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=16796 [..]]]> A massive Team Fortress 2 Mann-conomy Update has just added the ability to buy unlockable weapons and items for real money – anything from $0.49 to $4.99. The 17 community-made items the game’s just added can still be unlocked for free, but there’s no quick or reliable path to do so – unlike the achievement route of previous updates. If you want them soon, you’ll have to pay.

TF2 has long been the industry posterchild for ongoing free content: its free updates have added 26 of its 32 maps, 8 of its 10 game modes, and 52 of its 77 weapons. So why start charging now? Team Fortress 2′s lead designer Robin Walker offered to answer our questions before the update went up, to help clarify the thinking behind this – the first of three big surprises Valve have planned in the next twelve months.

PC Gamer: Just to be absolutely clear: everything you can buy with real money is also available to find or craft for free?

Robin Walker: Almost everything. There are a really small number of cosmetic items that you can’t find. On the flip side, there are a few items that aren’t purchasable either. Our main goal was to make sure that all gameplay affecting items are findable, so that no-one can buy an in-game advantage over someone who’s choosing to find their items.

PC Gamer: Are the new items in this update just the Polycount ones?

Robin Walker: We’re releasing a lot in this update. It’s roughly the equivalent of 60% of the items we have released in the 120+ prior updates.

The Polycount items equal about five new class updates. There are a bunch of cosmetic items for all the classes, some built by us and some by community contributors. Then there are a new kinds of items, like Tools, which are items you use to customize other items. For instance, you could use a Name Tag to permanently change the name of one of your other items, or you could use a Paint Can to change the color of your favorite hat.

PC Gamer: Can you give a couple of examples of new subclasses created by the new items?

Robin Walker: The new Spy set is interesting. Your Eternal Reward allows you to get utterly silent kills on enemies, but removes your ability to disguise at will. This forces you to rely on cloak much more, and to de-cloak for the kill as late as possible. When you kill someone their ragdoll vanishes almost instantly, and you automatically become disguised as them. There’s a wide ranging set of ways this combination of effects changes the Spy, from the fact that sentry guns become more of an issue, to you needing to find a lone enemy for your first kill (because you won’t be disguised when you get it). The fact that the set doesn’t include a specific invisibility watch means you’re free to experiment with any of the three existing watches to see which cloak works best for you. The Dead Ringer’s an interesting match, creating a Spy who’s unable to cloak or disguise at will.

My personal favorite is a Sniper subclass that I haven’t figured out a name for that isn’t borderline offensive. It’s The Huntsman, Jarate, and The Bushwacka. I play it as a front line combat class, using the Huntsman at first. As soon as enemies start to close, I throw the Jarate and flip to the Bushwacka to use its critical hits for a melee kill. It’s too dangerous to be consistently effective against skilled enemies, but it sure is fun to surprise people who expect Snipers to always retreat.

PC Gamer: What are item sets and what’s the benefit of them?

Robin Walker: An item set is a group of items for a single class. When all the items in the group are worn at the same time, the wearer receives additional bonuses (and sometimes penalties). For instance, the Soldier’s Tank Buster set includes three items – The Grenadier’s Softcap, The Black Box, and The Battalion’s Backup. When all three are worn, the set provides an additional 20% resistance to sentry gun damage.

Item sets are an interesting design tool for us. At a high level, they allow us to embody the concept of a subclass into a set of items, which helps to identify that subclass to players. They also allow us to increase the cost of switching out one item for another, in that a player would really like to wear the whole set to get the extra bonus, so swapping any one of those items out for another one has an additional cost. That cost is a useful tool for us when balancing a set item versus the other items available for that loadout slot. They also provide an incentive to use our new trading feature: if you find one of the set items, you’re interested in finding someone who’s got a spare of another item in the set.

PC Gamer: What are the minigames? How and when are they played?

Robin Walker: We’d been kicking around ideas for game modes for a while now that weren’t really game modes in the way we’ve used them so far. We’ve been calling these ideas “minigames” because they’re either shorter than a usual TF2 round, or they involve less people. Some of them have the nice characteristic of stacking on top of whatever game mode is being played.

The first one we’re shipping in this update is called the “Dueling Minigame”. It’s activated by using an item that lets you pick a player on the enemy team. If the enemy accepts, the game will consider the two of you in a duel. You’ll see your duel partner highlighted when he’s onscreen, and the game will track the times in which the two of you kill each other. At the end of the round, the player who got the most kills wins the duel. Players are then given a Dueling Medal item (or if they have one, it’s updated instead) which keeps track of how many duels they’ve participated in, who their last duel was with, their win/loss ratio, and so on. Winning more duels causes your Dueling Medal to level up, and reward you with an item.

The reason we chose this one is because we’ve found it’s a fun addition to any game where you’re playing with a friend on the enemy team. Most of us have experienced that slight change in gameplay that occurs when you’re being dominated by an enemy player, and the way it causes you to focus on them whenever they’re in sight. Duels are a fun way to build on that experience. Our internal play tests often have multiple duels being fought at once as rivalries from previous play tests get refreshed.

PC Gamer: How do you find crates and what do they contain?

Robin Walker: Mann Co. Supply Crates are found only through playing the game, and require a Mann Co. Key to open them. Each crate contains one item from a list of potential items, which you can see in the crate description. They also have a chance of finding items with custom effects on them, which are the rarest items in the game right now.

PC Gamer: How much do the prices of individual items vary, and what determines which ones are more expensive?

Robin Walker: Pricing is a function of value, but it’s not the only variable. We see a wide range of item valuation in TF2, so naturally, our pricing attempts to reflect that. Calculating value is a super interesting problem, and part of what we’re trying to learn about from the community and the community contributors. We see content consumption and content creation as being on a much smoother continuum in the future, and need to have good mechanisms for valuing and pricing these across a wide range of items and activities. The area we are going to focus on the most is making sure that people who are contributing content are feeling properly rewarded for their efforts. Everyone wins if we do that properly.

PC Gamer: What’s the average ballpark price for an unlockable weapon?

Robin Walker: Thanks to my handy calculator, it looks like it’s $1.97.

PC Gamer: You mention old community items won’t be available to buy right away – will the existing Valve-made unlockables be purchasable after this update? Can I buy a Camera Beard?

Robin Walker: Valve-made unlockables are purchasable from the in-game store. The community contributed items other than the Polycount items are going to be moving over to the new system as we roll it out.

PC Gamer: Why is the Steam Wallet necessary to buy this stuff?

Robin Walker: We originally thought we’d build a TF2 specific system for handling this, but after further thought we decided it would be a useful feature for our Steamworks partners. We also believe (hope!) that customers will purchase more than just one item, and the Wallet makes repeated in-game purchases a much simpler process.

As gamers who’ve used these kinds of systems before, we wanted to avoid some things we didn’t like. One was being forced to add more funds than we wanted (and seeing purchase prices that didn’t seem to match the funding options) and the other was being forced to do conversion into some virtual currency in our heads.

We’re not doing either of these in the Steam Wallet.

PC Gamer: Is there a risk that knowing people can just buy items devalues their significance, in terms of being a badge of honour?

Robin Walker: Yes. Our assumption is that customers are very smart about figuring out what the “real” value of things are and responding accordingly. We have to think about this constantly, for example that’s why we created “Vintage” items, so that people don’t lose the distinction of having acquired items before this update arrived. We expect that “Vintage” items will actually increase in value, because they’re all limited editions at this point, so we’re essentially bonusing long time players.

PC Gamer: When I asked about the way you give out unlocks before, you said you couldn’t just give people what they want right away, because they’d ruin the fun of unlocking it for themselves – “People will eat all the sugar they can until they’re sick”. For people with the disposable income, doesn’t this system permit that?

Robin Walker: The addition of unlockable items to TF2 was about adding longer term goals and rewards for players. The value you place in a reward you receive is a function of the “cost” you paid to get it. The reason we don’t give you all the items instantly is because they would have had no cost, and hence, you would value them little. So in TF2, the time you take to find an item is the cost you pay. Not everyone has time, though, and by allowing customers to purchase items directly, we’re still not allowing them to avoid a cost. It’s just that in this case, the cost is money, not time.

PC Gamer: What was the game mode that didn’t make it in, and why was it dropped?

Robin Walker: The new game mode didn’t make it in because we simply ran out of time to get it done. So it’ll be in the next major update, which isn’t too far away. The game mode itself is pretty much done, but we’re still working on the new map that features it (although it will work in existing maps). The sixth Polycount set I mentioned last time we talked is also being held back, because it’s tied to the new game mode.

PC Gamer: You’ve said TF2 makes more money than it costs to keep developing – why introduce another revenue stream?

Robin Walker: We never really think about the money TF2 makes when we’re thinking about what to do.

In this case, the thing that we are trying to build is a framework for a more robust collaboration with the community on content creation. This has been one of TF2′s main drives for some time now. In other games, community creators build content after the release, and it forever remains inaccessible to most players. At the start of this year we unveiled the TF2 Contribute page, which was the first step to moving past that model, pushing community created content into the ongoing development of the game itself.

We view the Mann-conomy as the next, crucial step in the evolution of how communities interact with products. Now they’ll not only be able to contribute to the product, they will be directly compensated for their work.

PC Gamer: Will the new items be unlockable by achievements, or only through random drops/crafting/buying? If I don’t want to spend any money or idle a lot, can I get all the new weapons as quickly as I could with the Engineer pack?

Robin Walker: The new items are the same as the previous community contributed items we’ve shipped, in that they’re not tied to achievements. We expect people will get the new items slightly faster than previous community items, because in addition to the usual random drops and crafting, there are now more ways you can collect them for free (trading for them, winning duels, receiving gifts).

PC Gamer: How do I go about finding someone to trade with? If I want to swap my Prussian Picklehaube for a Pyro monocle, do I have to go around spamming the chat channel on a bunch of servers to find someone who has what I need?

Robin Walker: You’re able to trade with any Steam user, by selecting a friend or someone on the server with you, or by entering a profile URL. We’re going to watch how the community uses the feature, and decide what our next step should be. There are already a bunch of great looking TF2 trading webpages that have been waiting for this update to go live, so it’ll be very interesting to see what happens.

PC Gamer: The leading theory in the office about this surprise was that TF2 would go free-to-play with item sales to support it – is going free something you considered? What are the chances of it happening in the future?

We’ve considered it, and it’s something we’d love to gather data from, but our main concern is that right now the cost of purchasing TF2 again is the main cost that cheaters pay when we catch them.

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/30/interview-valve-on-why-theyre-selling-team-fortress-2-items-for-real-money/feed/ 13 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/30/interview-blizzards-chris-sigaty-on-the-future-of-starcraft-ii/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/30/interview-blizzards-chris-sigaty-on-the-future-of-starcraft-ii/#comments Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:13:05 +0000 Rich McCormick http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=16358 [..]]]> Chris Sigaty is StarCraft II’s lead producer, and rhythm guitarist in Blizzard house band The Artists Formerly Known As Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain. His business cards are lengthy and hairy. I interviewed him the other day about StarCraft II’s launch, its first patch, and the game’s future. Here’s what he said.

Rich McCormick: So how did StarCraft II’s launch go?

Chris Sigaty: Overall it was really good. I was actually at an event in Sweden, so that was extremely exciting. We had an estimated 1,300 people at a store in Stockholm, and that was just one of twelve midnight launches. It was really exciting to work on a game like this and to be able to go to a launch and have that many people show up, feel their excitement, and participate in their excitement.

Rich McCormick: What does the game’s launch say about the state of PC gaming at the moment?

Chris Sigaty: I think it says that PC gaming is not dead, despite the news that has come out in the last few years.

Rich McCormick: So what would you have changed about the launch, if anything?

Chris Sigaty: I think for me personally I would have hoped that we could have had the Chinese version of the game done at the same time. That was a personal goal of mine, but it didn’t make it, so we’re working on that now. Other things – there’s regrets from my side only around features that didn’t make the cut at the time. Most of those things are high level features things that we intend to now release over time via patches, things like chat features on the online service. There’s group functionality that we definitely want to get into the game at some point, but these are internal things that we’ve tried to get done that didn’t make it in time.

Rich McCormick: Is the intention to release them, via patch?

Chris Sigaty: It depends on our bandwidth at any given time but yeah a lot of things are going to come online at the feature level, in patches, and then some of them will be parts of the expansion.

Rich McCormick: The first patch came out in the last few days. Could give us an insight into what you’re planning to do with the next patch?

Chris Sigaty: The next patch is largely our e-sports patch, is the best way to describe it. A couple of main, big things that’ll be in there are support for the season rolling – that just means players can look at previous history of how they did in the past in past seasons. Chat is another thing that we intend to get in there in the next patch. Of course there will be bugfixes, balance changes and tweaks, and several other things that I really don’t want to speak about yet because the list is constantly changing.

Rich McCormick: Are there any units you’re looking at at the moment that you think need to be rebalanced?

Chris Sigaty: We’re looking at all of that very carefully. You can go and read on the forums at any one time and there’s a bunch of different theories about balance and imbalance, and we’re being very cautious about making large swinging changes right now because at the highest level things are actually very strong.

The things that we’ll probably be addressing are the 2v2 and larger scale games. Ultimately, the 1 to 1 is the are we want to keep as sacred as possible, but right now there are some things that we need to address in the 2v2 at the higher level. At the moment, there’s issues with what race types players pick. The actual matching is working very well, we’re very happy with how well its matched, to the dismay of some players who always want wins, but ultimately our goal is to get it where each game is challenging, and whether you win or lose you feel like you could have won. They’re not walks in the park, you know? But as far as 2v2 and six, eight player games, it’s really a matter of – if it’s two Zerg versus two Protoss, is there a huge imbalance there? We want to make sure those are as equal as we can get them, and that’ll be an ongoing process that’ll take a year or longer. Even after Brood War was released we still patched and continued to drive towards a solid final balance. But honestly, the 1 v 1 is the purest form of competition in Starcraft 2 and is going to win when we have to make choices in that direction.

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/30/interview-blizzards-chris-sigaty-on-the-future-of-starcraft-ii/feed/ 7 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/27/community-heroes-the-wowhead-team/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/27/community-heroes-the-wowhead-team/#comments Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:01:48 +0000 Jaz McDougall http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=16129 [..]]]> Community heroes is our ongoing series of interviews with some of PC gaming’s greatest heroes – the pillars of the community who have devoted huge chunks of time and love to make the PC a better place to game. Tom and I interviewed Shaun Yelle, Wowhead’s current director, and former director and co-founder Guillaume Cournoyer, to ask them a little bit about what it’s like building and running the slickest and most popular World of Warcraft resource on the internet.

PC Gamer: Wowhead started off as quite a nifty talent calculator. Did you always plan to host a huge database of quests, items, and abilities? Did you feel like there was a gap in the market you wanted to fill?

Guillaume: The talent calculator was purely a fun project I was doing during classes with a friend. Being an avid Diablo II player, I had been thinking about doing a calculator tool for that game in the past, but never got the chance. In December 2005, about a year after World of Warcraft had been released, we started playing around with coding a talent calculator for World of Warcraft. The challenge was to make one that was faster than what was available at the time.

The World of Warcraft database idea came in the month that followed the calculator’s launch, as we noticed how popular the tool was getting. While I’ve always admired the original database sites for their core concept, I wasn’t entirely satisfied with their implementations. So we simply applied the same recipe we did for the talent calculator and tried to create something we thought was better.

The talent calculator: where it all started. Shut up, I don't play hunter.

PC Gamer: There was a time when it seemed like everyone was using Thottbot for this sort of stuff, but now it seems you guys are far more popular. How do you think that happened?

Guillaume: I originally thought that Wowhead’s success was only based on the fact that we had something better to offer, and how we were relentlessly improving the site, adding new features and polishing the content. It certainly didn’t hurt, but that alone wasn’t enough. At the time there were new database websites sprouting almost every day. The major game changer for us was the fact that World of Warcraft players were starting to look for an alternative to the database sites that existed at the time – and luckily, we were also working really hard to have the best offering. Our most significant traffic increase happened during the release of the game’s first expansion, The Burning Crusade. With all the new content in the expansion, many players were looking for a reliable database to assist them. It was really about being at the right place at the right time.

Shaun: I remember searching for thorium veins on Thottbot back in Classic WoW because I was trying to farm Arcane Crystals. I got really frustrated when I viewed the maps. They had tons of squares all over the place appeared to be a haphazard manner that was correct only part of the time. They told me general areas where I could find the veins, but not specific places. These maps didn’t help me come up with any kind of farming route at all. For my purpose, they were useless.

In my frustration, I typed ‘thorium vein’ into Google and saw a link to “Wowhead”. After pondering the weirdly-named site, I clicked the link. A page loaded with a map of the Burning Steppes (now it shows you Un’Goro Crater instead) and little yellow dots at precisely the points where the veins spawned. I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped. I immediately signed up for an account, downloaded the client, and started uploading data.

I think if you asked our users, their experiences would probably be similar. In its day, Thottbot was quite popular. If the overall design and data of the site had been better, I don’t think Wowhead would have become popular. People are a lot less inclined to try a new site when they one they use serves their needs completely. If fact, there are a group of people for whom Thottbot still serves their needs, so they continue to use that site. However, it would seem the majority of people were looking for something else, so when Wowhead appeared on the scene it was readily-accepted.

PC Gamer: Today you’re collating user-collected data in a massive way. I certainly started using the Wowhead upload client after using the site myself, but how did you convince users to start the first wave of user-uploading?

Guillaume: We didn’t have much to offer users that would convince them to contribute to the site. All we did was promote the Wowhead Client application through a small promotional piece of text on the site’s homepage. Many players responded to the call, and started helping us simply to try and make the site even more complete. I’m very thankful for the impressive amount of contributions we received. It still surprises me.

Shaun: Our initial users needed little-to-no convincing at all, actually. When I found the site, I did it voluntarily simply because I wanted to help the fledgling site become more popular. In my eyes, the site was really focused on the user experience and it made me feel like the WoW data was really second to ensuring the user found what they came to the site to get. That endeared me to the site pretty quickly, and our early users felt pretty similar.

Wowhead

PC Gamer: Guillaume, you mentioned on Twitter that you were still checking the site a hundred times a day after you left. Have you let go yet?

Guillaume: Yes, thankfully. I was very worried about having withdrawal symptoms and not being able to stop being overly passionate about my “baby,” but it turned out just fine. The Blizzard folks have been keeping me very occupied since I’ve joined their ranks, which helped considerably. I still visit the site once a day or so to keep up with the latest updates.

PC Gamer: Shaun, how much of your data is collected by users these days? If the entire database was wiped, how long would it take to build it back up to something respectable again?

Shaun: If the entire site was wiped, we’d be back pretty quickly simply because we back up all that data. However, you were asking something a bit different.

We certainly try to get as much of the data as possible through our own game play on live and test servers, but the users are still a very important part of filling new data into the database. We’re also very lucky to have a large community of users who upload on a consistent basis, so I don’t think it would take much time at all to build our database back up.

Of course, that only makes up a small part of our site. By far, I think the most important part of each database page is the feedback left by users. If we were to somehow lose all of those awesome comments and screenshots and not be able to restore them, I think that would be a worse hit to the usability of our site than anything else.

Next page: What can Blizzard learn from Wowhead?

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/27/community-heroes-the-wowhead-team/feed/ 9 http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/24/good-old-games-on-online-activation-its-just-bollocks/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/24/good-old-games-on-online-activation-its-just-bollocks/#comments Fri, 24 Sep 2010 19:00:56 +0000 Rich McCormick http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=15525 [..]]]> It’s been a rollercoaster week for retro game publisher Good Old Games. They closed! No they didn’t! They’re back! They apologised! They’re wearing monk costumes! They’re making money hand over fist! What the hell!

Before it all kicked off, PC Gamer sat down with GOG co-founder Marcin Iwinski and Managing Director Guillaume Rambourg to discover the story behind their relaunch, and how they convince publishers to release their games without DRM, how they combat piracy, and their holy mission to improve PC gaming. Warning: this interview contains Poles explaining themselves using slightly awkward metaphors.

To re-iterate – this interview took place before GOG closed their site.

Rich McCormick: So… what’s going on?

Guillaume Rambourg: Ah, what a question to start with. Next week we will finally bring back Baldur’s Gate to millions of users, which is quite a big achievement and we’re really, really thrilled about it. We’ll be launching a brand new version of GOG.com with new features and new design and many many things, I think you’ll have more questions about it.

Marcin Iwinski: I’m really excited about Baldur’s Gate, because historically GOG is part of the CD Projekt Group, and Baldur’s Gate was the first major game for us in our Polish business, years back when it was released. It was fully localised in Polish and was a foundation for the growth of gaming in Poland. It’s a very emotional connection. Baldur’s Gate enabled us to really make gaming massive in Poland, so what I really hope is that Baldur’s Gate will be the same for GOG; will make it massive and show people the good old gaming is really cool. I think Baldur’s Gate is one of the best games you can pick.

Guillaume Rambourg: There is something I’m very curious about, which is that currently, if you want to buy Baldur’s Gate you have to go off to eBay and [it is] really, really expensive, and even after buying a copy you are not even sure if the game is going to be running fine on modern operating systems. So we’ll bring back the game at a decent price, fully remastered for Windows, and I’m wondering if gamers will be willing to play it again.

Rich McCormick: How do you actually go about getting publishers to sign off on this? How do you get a game like Baldur’s Gate?

Marcin Iwinski: Well, we put on the hat and the shoes, you know? And we knock on their doors for two years, walking the path, you know? Essentially, this one was the most complex games we’ve had. I think early discussions started probably two years ago, and what is most challenging, aside from making the game compatible, is to convince the [publishers of the] DRM free model. But I think how GOG works is step by step convincing every single publisher out there. We just bring revenue and make gamers happy, offering them extremely good value.

But then you have to look at all of the more corporate considerations: who owns what and if they are not, you know, under restructuring and reorganisation or something. And [with] Atari we historically go a long way back, because they were the original publisher of The Witcher, and right now with the Witcher 2 we have a distribution deal with Atari in the US, so we have very strong ties. But still, part of the company will [be sold] – it’s all complicating things – and then the guys from GOG.com are knocking on their door and asking “Hey, we are doing good old games, so we can wait, but maybe it’s time that we could make a deal”. So at the beginning of the year we came up with a deal for the original Atari stuff, so original games like Archon, Orion and whatnot and then of course the next big priority was to have the Hasbro deal.

Rich McCormick: Are there any games that you want to get on GOG but can’t because the publishers have collapsed?

Guillaume Rambourg: In the last two years we have managed to sign a couple of big publishers, and I would say that every big publisher we have signed was perceived as a bottle opener, so step by step we build up our reputation, we show that our values are making sense for users and for publishers, that they can monetise old games and so on, and so you are right, we are still running after a couple of key publishers who we have to convince, but we hope that Baldur’s Gate will be the next bottle opener.

Marcin Iwinski: What we are planning to do is send them free download codes and say, “Please enjoy Baldur’s Gate here, and [get in touch] if you’d like to have your games on GOG and available legally to all its users.” Because the thing with old games is that in a lot of cases you cannot get a legal copy, unless you want to buy a collector’s edition or an old boxed copy on eBay. It costs a lot of money and ususally you have a problem with it working, so there is no revenue stream for publishers and there’s plenty of people who want to enjoy these games. I mean, how hard is it right now to buy the older Atari/Hasbro RPGs in the UK? It’s not that easy to get it retail.

Rich McCormick: Yeah. The only other option would be to pirate it.

Marcin Iwinski: Yeah and then I think people are really reaching for it and then quite often pirating, quite often it’s abandonware. You know, the legendary Hasbro/Atari RPGs, they were huge so you still have a chance to get them, but some titles were not that that active commercially. They were really great games but you really have no chance whatsoever to buy them anywhere outside of GOG.

Rich McCormick: Getting it running on the operating system is always the hardest part.

Marcin Iwinski: The funny thing is that when we making deals with some partners our main concern was, “We are very happy to make a deal with you, but we have a tiny little problem, we don’t have anything for the games, including the game itself. Can you get them?”. That’s the funny thing. Looking ten years back, the publishers, the decision makers, they couldn’t imagine, and we couldn’t blame them for that, that in ten years somebody would be willing to sell this stuff. I think that’s a really huge advantage of digital distribution.

Guillaume Rambourg: When you knock on doors asking for rights to certain games, and the games are old, you have to convince them to dedicate some resources on the legal side to clear up the rights, to look for the rights, and so on. As I stressed before, it’s just a question of legitimacy. GOG has built up some legitimacy and thanks to it we are convincing companies to look in their attic, to remove some dust and to trust us to take those old games to today’s users.

Rich McCormick: Have any old developers thanked you for putting their games on GOG?

Guillaume Rambourg: We have direct deals with developers, and that’s another beauty with GoG because again, the titles are really old and the rights have quite often reverted back to the original creators. Then we have the opportunity, instead of making one big deal with the publisher, to go to the developer and say “We are huge fans of your games, let’s make a deal together.” It’s two different worlds because, you know, publishers are publishers. They have big structures and they have to take care of their business but, there is a good example. On Thursday we are releasing Age of Wonders, which is a game from Triumph studios, and basically the rights for those games, the three games of that series, they used to belong to Take Two, and those guys they got back the rights, and they approached us as developers. “Guys, can we have those games on GOG?”

Marcin Iwinski: One of the first developers we sat with was Charles Cecil for the Broken Sword series, and he’s a great guy. It’s really a pleasure to do business with him. It’s part of the cool factor of building GOG.com that you can be in touch with such people, and these games, you know, some of them still have excellent graphics, but it’s more because they’re great and extremely playable games, and that’s the beauty.

Rich McCormick: When you release a game you tend to package it in with additional materials. How do you track them down?

Guillaume Rambourg: It’s a lot of digging, a lot lot lot of digging. The thing is we have a design team on board and they are extremely creative and productive. Plus, our testing team, they still have many, many copies of old games in their attic at home. They are collecting games, so it is a lot of hunting, digging, and then a lot of work. When you have assets for an old game, you have them in low resolution and you have to rework everything to make it in a decent format, right? So it’s a lot lot lot of digging, but for us it’s not hard. Beyond being a business, I would say we have a theological mission to promote the works of gaming, and for us bundling games with free goodies, it’s not hard, because this is the way we can convey the right message. Which is that games can be adorable, they can be lovable if you put the passion into it, and that we put soundtracks, wallpapers and so on directly benefits the passion around the products on GOG.

Rich McCormick: What is it about old games that draws you to them?

Marcin Iwinski: To elaborate a little bit more on where the idea comes from, we originate from Poland where the PC market is probably 70% of the business. It was more two years ago and we were already selling a lot of back catalogues, something Sold Out was doing in the UK two years ago. So we’re selling millions of these budget games and budget editions at retail here in Eastern Europe were really big stuff.

Something like Baldur’s Gate Gold Edition, we had it, and it was very reasonably priced. It was first of all a great offer for the end user, but also an education, a chance to tell the gamer, “This is a legal copy, it costs only a few quid and it’s a really good deal.” Looking at the piracy history in Poland, quite often that was the first legal game somebody would buy, so it became remarkably successful and educated people: “This is your first cheap game, maybe you will reach for the mid price afterwards, maybe you will reach for the full price.”

And hence the need for GOG.com. There are all these new games. If you look at Steam or Direct2Drive, the business is about new games, so either it’s a big game that’s just released, or it’s a massive promotion of something, this is pretty much how the business model works. For us, the business model is more long-term sale. It’s about rediscovering the gems of gaming, really, and that’s a starting point for a lot of gamers, especially the ones who don’t have the highest specs to run the new games. But also for people who remember the old games and would like to play them, and it’s much more affordable than buying new games. On top of that, with older games it was much easier to do the DRM free model, which was sort of the base of the concept.

[Continued on next page]

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/24/good-old-games-on-online-activation-its-just-bollocks/feed/ 13 http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/interview-we-ask-obsidian-whats-new-in-fallout-new-vegas/ http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/interview-we-ask-obsidian-whats-new-in-fallout-new-vegas/#comments Fri, 24 Sep 2010 10:57:06 +0000 Will Porter http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=15890 [..]]]> Fallout: New Vegas leaves the ruins of the Capital Wasteland behind in favour of a post apocalyptic tinsel town full of fighting factions and dodgy gambling establishments. We’ve had a sit down with Obsidian’s Larry Liberty, Senior Producer on Fallout: New Vegas, for a chat about the joys of gambling, powerfists with shotguns in them, and Matthew Perry.

PC Gamer: When Fallout 3 fans finally get to play New Vegas, what are the very first things that they’ll notice have changed? And what has changed, but is a bit more subtle?

Larry Liberty: The most obvious difference people will see when they first step outside into the Mojave Wasteland will be the sky. It’s blue. This small change has a deep impact on the tone of the game. The next thing people are likely to notice is combat, and how far-reaching the changes to real-time combat are like the way strength interacts with weapon skills in a logically consistent manner, how responsive the controller input is. Some equally important changes that won’t be immediately apparent are the overhauled companions (each one has a story arc and quest line, and is each is controlled more easily with the Companion Wheel), new animations (most notably for unarmed combat and running with a two-handed weapon), and there are four primary tracks through the game. Thanks to the Reputation System, there are countless ways to impact the game world.

PC Gamer:It’s an obvious comparison, but how does the city of New Vegas compare to New Reno in Fallout 2?

Larry Liberty: There are certainly some similarities. New Reno was chiefly designed by Chris Avellone, Obsidian’s Creative Director. For New Vegas, he was one of the primary writers and companion designers. There are “families” in both cities, but whereas New Reno did not have a central authority, the gangs of New Vegas are kept in check by the enigmatic Mr. House.

PC Gamer: Can we talk about the gambling a little? I’ve read that high-rollers will get rewarded, but that constant wins will could rise suspicion. Can you explain how this pans out in-game?

Larry Liberty: It’s true that player’s that win will be rewarded by the major casinos, can be comped food, drink, and even a room. If you do a little too well, though, it will raise suspicion and ultimately cause you to be banned from gambling at a given casino. This is done primarily to prevent players from “gaming” the game. In a world where you can literally increase your luck it would eventually be possible to break the economy. The casinos are still a great potential source of income, and the player will be rewarded for being banned from all casinos with a special achievement.

PC Gamer: General expectation would have it that the dialogue in New Vegas will be a little more involving and complex than that on offer in Fallout 3. Is this a fair comment?

Larry Liberty: I can say that there is considerably more dialogue in New Vegas than Fallout 3, and more overall reactivity. We made a change to the dialogue editor that allowed our designers to create hierarchical dialogues. It would have been impossible for us to write as much as we did had we not made the investment in the tool early in development.

PC Gamer: In terms of story content, how much of Fallout: New Vegas comes from the axed Interplay Van Buren project?

Larry Liberty: There are some similar elements, certainly shared factions. It’s only natural that there be some inspiration, as Josh Sawyer, the Lead Designer on Fallout: New Vegas was the lead designer on Van Buren. The story and timeline are quite different, but there is one location common among them.

PC Gamer: Can you explain how the game lets you ally yourself to different factions within the game? How much does this mix up the linearity of the main plotline?

Larry Liberty: Factions are managed via the new Reputation System. Most communities and groups are tracked via this system. The player can always see where they stand with a group that they’ve done something for or to in the Pip-Boy. You start off with a blank slate and a perfectly neutral reputation. If you do something good or bad to a member of a tracked group that will immediately be reflected in your reputation with that faction It’s possible to weave a complex web of hatred and love and everywhere in between. You can be a beloved saint in one place and the hated nemesis of another. At times, this complexity can make crafting robust quests a challenge, but overall your allies and enemies will directly impact the end-game and your experience in the core game. Those that love you will help you in various ways, giving you discounts, gifts, and support. Those that hate you can send assassins to track you down if they have the power, or offer tribute in exchange for mercy if they lack the resources to resist.

PC Gamer: What are your favourite new items and weapons that we’ll discover in New Vegas?

Larry Liberty: I really like the Ballistic Fist – it’s essentially a tiny shotgun grafted onto a gauntlet. It’s activated by a pressure plate when impacting a target. Perfect for the unarmed fighters among us. Euclid’s C-Finder has the single coolest weapon effect in the game. It’s a space-based mega-weapon that has its own quest line. Spears are really fun for Melee fighters. We’ve added the ability to throw weapons, and in the case of the spear you can literally pin limbs to walls, with or without the victim. If you prefer a more traditional, conventional FPS weapon, the Light Machine Gun is fantastic. It has a high rate of fire, and with the right ammo type can handle most enemies rather easily.

PC Gamer: How did Matthew Perry get involved, and were you aware that he was a fan? Could he BE any more post-apocalyptic?

Larry Liberty: We knew that Matthew Perry was a Fallout 3 fan and reached out to him when starting the project. Getting him on board early made it a lot easier to attract more Hollywood talent. He did a great job playing one of the major characters in the game.

PC Gamer: Can you talk a little about Mr Las Vegas? Who is Wayne Newton? We’re not all that familiar with him in the UK…

Larry Liberty: Wayne Newton is the voice of Mr. New Vegas in Fallout: New Vegas. In real life, Wayne Newton is known as Mr. Las Vegas, and has been performing in the city for more than 40 years. He’s most famous for his rendition of the song Danke Schoen. There’s even a street named after him there – Wayne Newton Blvd – and a holiday, Wayne Newton Day. He’s a big deal in America, an even bigger deal in Las Vegas, and a perfect fit for the game.

PC Gamer: Is the ‘Bongo, Bongo, Bongo: I don’t want to leave the Congo’ song in the game? (Only I’ll be upset if it isn’t.)

Larry Liberty: Alas, it is not. I will say that we have some great songs, so I hope you won’t leave disappointed.

]]> http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/interview-we-ask-obsidian-whats-new-in-fallout-new-vegas/feed/ 14 http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/dragon-age-2-origins-through-mass-effect-specs/ http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/dragon-age-2-origins-through-mass-effect-specs/#comments Sat, 18 Sep 2010 09:00:44 +0000 Rich McCormick http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=15000 [..]]]> I’m sitting in a dark room on the third floor of BioWare’s Edmonton offices, and everything has changed. PC Gamer loved Dragon Age, slapping a 94% score on it and proclaiming it the best RPG of the decade. No developer could be blamed for simply jamming the existing framework with more quests and calling it a sequel. But BioWare aren’t doing that.

Dragon Age 2 is a tectonic shift in approach, a game that has actively learned from feedback, from criticism, and from the techniques of the studio’s mega-selling stablemates. This is Dragon Age fundamentally altered and upgraded, with three core areas – dialogue, combat and visuals – comprehensively gutted and redressed by its Canadian developers.

The game’s sharpened and tightened look demonstrates the team’s commitment to the revamp: BioWare are aiming for visuals that truly represent Dragon Age’s violent world. Stark, clean lines dominate, high contrast environs as the counterpoint to spiky, angular enemies. It’s a galaxy away from Origins’ muddy browns and indistinct texturing.

An upgraded, lightning-fast combat engine drives home the changes. The player character – going by the name of Hawk and referred to as ‘Champion of Kirkwall’ – moves faster than anything in the first Dragon Age, his attacks thunking into flesh with visceral force. BioWare’s mantra is ‘when I press something, awesome happens’. It’s proven as I witness the sword-wielding player-hero flitting between mano-amano scuffles. Special abilities are deployed liberally, twatting hurlocks and genlocks in the air, into the ground, rending bone and flesh exactly as you’d expect an angry man with a humongous sword would.

Nothing highlights Dragon Age 2’s refocus as much as the moment the Champion turns to his companion and starts to speak. Up pops a conversation wheel, peppered with choices of dialogue. Selecting one sets Hawk talking. Gritty of tone and fluffy of facial hair, he’s an obvious badass in a way Origins’ user-defined specimens could never be. This is Dragon Age as viewed through Mass Effect glasses, and Hawk is your Commander Shepard.

Speechless

These revelations are a genuine shock to me, sitting in that dark room. With the demonstration over and my brain overflowing with new information, I try to coalesce my questions into a coherent sequence to launch at the trio of developers who sit opposite me, grinning broadly. I fail.

“Speaking character! Wha-?!” I gibber at Mike Darreth, Dragon Age 2’s executive producer. He smiles knowingly: “it was a long discussion.” The decision has been made, the game having been in development since March of 2009, but BioWare’s development team still discuss the topic over burgers. “I told the Mass Effect team they were crazy for having player voiceover,” Mike confesses. “I’ll happily admit I was wrong.”

Mike explains the consequences of the team’s decision: “it’s a big change, it requires that the writing be done in a different way. In Origins, we had to write it out word for word.” For inspiration, they’ve looked two floors down in their Edmonton office, and incorporated a Mass Effect-style paraphrase system. “When you see the choices, you don’t want to read something, and then have the protagonist just say it out loud. What Mass Effect did was to paraphrase it, which allows you to get the gist of what’s going to happen.”

It’s a proven system: dialogue gets unwieldy if you need to provide a menu with choices like ‘stab the bad man then totally do sex on his girlfriend’ displayed across half the screen. The new approach can simply replace that with ‘dick move.’

A speaking protagonist also gives cutscenes much needed pep, as Mike outlines: “it’s a more cinematic presentation. If you walk around the corner and there’s a guy stapled to a board, you’ll be like ‘Oh my God, there’s a guy stapled to a board!’ Before, that had to come from the followers”

The first game’s conversations were stilted, awkward things, obscuring the quality of the writing and the impact of the game’s choices with stop-start vocal cues and a character perpetually staring into the middle distance. Matt Goldman, Dragon Age 2’s art director, agrees: “you get everyone standing around waiting for your mute character to make a decision. If you just whipped out your murderknife, everyone has to stand there and look surprised for two minutes when you figure out what you’re going to say next.”

Speedy reactivity is the goal. Skimreading single words gets players to the action quicker, while little symbols will indicate the intended result of each option. Faced with overwhelming Darkspawn odds in the demo I was shown, the Champion turned to his sisterly companion. Selecting the dialogue option decorated with a little sword, Champsy growled an aggressive challenge at the onrushing foes. Pick the comedy-mask option, however, and he’ll take the piss, drawing an exasperated sigh from Bethany but lightening the mood.

Another icon occasionally pops up on the dialogue wheel, signifying specific actions open to your followers or your own character at that moment in the conversation. When a stream of Darkspawn is approaching, one of these pops up. Selecting it causes Bethany to launch a pre-emptive strike, squishing the forerunners with a fiery blast. Mike explains how these mid-chat abilities extend further than spellcasting: “if you had a staminabased skill like Shield Bash, we might have an option with a specific icon where you can smash faces with your shield. We want you to be making choices to determine your actions, and how you do things that cause you to take a stance, or to take an actual, physical action.”

Relax and rewind

Facts on the player-character are thin on the ground: you’re stuck as a human, but Darreth confirms you’ll be able to play as either a male or female. All that’s locked down at the opening of the game are three simple constants: the Champion is a famous figure, he/ she has an unclear past, and the family name is Hawk. The rest is blank, ten years of history that you’ll fill-in by playing the game. The choices you make across this decade will patch together to form the Champion of Kirkwall’s legacy.

Dragon Age 2’s lead designer and creative director, Mike Laidlaw, explains the theory behind the game’s decade-long framed narrative: “Rather than ‘there’s an ancient evil that’s awoken and you have to defeat it,’ the issue is ‘you are awesome, but you don’t know why. You made decisions and the world is shifting.’ I wanted to approach it in a different way, I wanted to say, ‘What if you changed the world and you don’t know how you pulled it off?’”

Isn’t there a danger this will disempower the narrative, and Dragon Age 2 will just play like a hurlocktwocking greatest hits package? Not so, says Laidlaw. He explains how the game’s framing structure uses two characters as narrators: the dwarf king Varic and Cassandra, a woman trying to ascertain the Champ’s true background. “It’s tricky because you never want to take away the player’s sense of agency. Varic knew you when you were younger: if his information is wrong, it’s going to be wrong in your favour. That’s where I think it can really work. ‘Yeah, I can trust [my character], but can the person asking the questions?’ Probably not. It’s harder than just ‘here are things you can go do, go do them.’ But having that reactivity is totally worth it.”

Origins was positively dripping with lore, background info seeping from every orifice – as you’d expect from a world crafted by a team of writers blessed with a solid year to work on the setting. But strip out the wandering, the choice of objective and the campbased fireside natters, and you’re close to losing the game’s soul. How’s it going to work?

Mike Laidlaw: “There’s still lots of opportunity to meet and talk to your characters and things like that. I want to play through the most important moments in this one character’s life. That gives us a nice filter to hold each event and plot up against. ‘Is this significant? Does this advance the themes of the game in some way?’”

Matt Goldman nails down the issue: “It’s not like one little level: ‘here’s where he punched a guy in the face.’ It’s: ‘this is his escape from his blightravaged home town’. The entire escape and the emotion, the side stuff around that event, not just the actual running. I guess the danger of focusing down on key moments is that you might think that we’re focusing down super-tightly, and that’s actually not the case.”

Mike Laidlaw again: “The framed narrative only limits choice if the narrators say ‘the Champion was a man who decided the following things…’ Instead what we’re doing is have the narrators come in, and even though they lived in the future and they know the kind of things the Champion decided, it doesn’t mean that they have to lock that down until the player has made those decisions. They’re the perfect reaction, like our epilogues in Origins. What we’ve done is to move that to a pair of narrators who know the future, but as you make your decisions they then talk about the significance of them.” He smiles, slightly breathless from the quickfire explanation. “I still wanted to keep that element of RPG, that sense of exploration, progression, sidequests, looting, all that stuff is key, and losing that would be a shame. To me, this is really exciting because we can get even less linear, and less predetermined.”

But what’s up with this world, why does it need changing? Origins saw the end of the largest blight in living memory, so what could possibly be wrong now? We’re told there’s a revolutionary war brewing, but BioWare are keeping their cards close to their chest at present.

The continent of Thedas, where Dragon Age is set, is gigantic. All the action of Origins took place in Ferelden’s southwest corner. Now we’re moving up to the Free Marches. Mike Darreth: “the Free Marches are a loose collection of city states… it’s more of a melting pot, a little more frontiers-y. You get more different cultures coming together, so it’s more plausible to have you, over the course of a decade, moving from a refugee to a position of power and wealth.”

Geography test

The year spent brainstorming Dragon Age’s universe into existence meant the groundwork was already laid for Dragon Age 2. As Mike Darreth put it: “the setting was established, so we didn’t have to spend all this time deciding how magic worked, or what the countries looked like. We know what the Free Marches are, we know what the Fade is. All this stuff is already there, so that lets you start from an established setting and more quickly get to a final story.”

I tested this claim, jabbing at points on a six-foot map of the continent hung from the office wall and demanding answers. “That was where the first blight was. That’s the town Leliana was from. That’s the sea. That’s my nose.”

Mike passed the test.

A new setting yields new scope: as art director on the series, Matt Goldman makes regular reference to a new, ‘hotrodded’ art style. “Marketing told me to say that,” he sighs.

Actually it’s a doddle to see the change between Origins’ muddy, bleary visuals and Dragon Age 2’s stark, highcontrast lines. Clearly the artistic blandness of the first game still rankles for Goldman.

“Damn cheese-wheels,” he semimutters, referring to the ubiquitous hunks of Edam deployed around Origins’ dungeons. Put in place solely to fill up space in sparse areas, they – and similar cliche-fantasy ephemera – distracted from the game’s overall motif, softening the point of swordblades with down-home pointlessness. Matt snaps back from his frustrated reverie and explains: “The props are to help give context for what the area is, but overall I’d say Dragon Age 2 is a lot more minimalist looking. The intent is to create a strong personality without getting in your face and without distracting you with all these details that don’t really do anything – they just screw up your path line and make shadows a lower resolution.”

The Free Marches provide a less stained canvas than Ferelden to carry off this strong personality. Like Italy in the 15th century, each sub-city of the region is set to have its own notable flavour. Mike Darreth’s example is the Champion’s adopted city of Kirkwall. “It’s a former quarry, and also an old slave city. Because you’ve got that mix of cultures you can have an impact on the specific architectural elements.” Also, the team develop characters and races further, pulling them away from Origins’ visual trio of human, short human, and skinny human.

Matt Goldman agrees: “It was pretty hard to tell elves and humans apart, so we’ve done a lot of work to make them different from one another. Our visual watchwords for DA2 are ‘grim, bloody and sexy.’ Morrigan somehow pulled it off in Origins, but because of the way the rigs and the animations were being shared, a lot of the females didn’t exactly hit the right mark.”

Matt’s background gives him a uniquely artistic perspective: “we’ve stripped off what’s extraneous and as a result made the environments and characters sharper. The environment is basically – in terms of a band – the bassline. You have to lay down a nice thick bassline to set the mood: it’s the backbone of the picture-making, story telling. But if it’s too detailed then you get this disrupting camouflage problem where you can’t tell what’s going on. So by stripping away things and looking for opportunities to create some more dramatic silhouettes, you can focus attention on the character.”

Real life

Dragon Age: Origins’ characters were its masterstroke, surrounding the mute player with genuine wit and sparkle. This pillar remains the very core of all of the team’s discussions, as Mike Darreth confirms. “It’s very important that the followers be characters, people, in and of themselves. With their own motivations, their own goals.” Unlike Origins, where unused party members presumably sat around the campfire, twiddling their thumbs until you returned with tales of adventure, Dragon Age 2’s brood of followers will get on with their own lives. Darreth again: “they have jobs beyond adventurer – which doesn’t pay very well obviously. You’ll meet them in their day-to-day lives.”

The ten-year timeframe makes possible monumental character growth – both visually and in terms of personality. “You’ve got a home, but so do your followers,” Mike says. “You’ll interact with them more out in the world. Additionally, they’re going to react more to the world around them when you’re adventuring with them. So you might be in the deep roads, and a dwarven character might be able to spot something he recognises.”

As characters react, so too does the environment. Save-game imports are confirmed: the near-infinite combination of endings from the first game will colour Dragon Age 2’s future. Meanwhile, the choices you make throughout this game play out across the decade. “One of our principle things is that the story is all based on your choices. A large time-span means that if you make a choice early in the game, we can react to it in the middle of the game, rather than having to wait for, say, the epilogue to find out that Bann Teagan got married to Bella. I mean, that’s cute and all, but you don’t remember who Bella was.”

But, as with Origins, there’s no morality system to pigeonhole your choices. “For me,” says Mike Darreth, “by us not applying our moral stance to you, the choices become more meaningful. We’re not telling you this is good or evil – ultimately in the real world, no one thinks they’re evil, no one thinks they’re good. Everyone thinks they’re doing things for a justifiable reason.” My justifiable reasons are usually that I’m an awesome mega-hero and anyone who says otherwise can shut the hell up: trust BioWare to accommodate me in this endeavour.

The team consider the idea of goodness in Dragon Age’s bleak world: “You know you eventually become the Champion: how you got there doesn’t have to be pretty. The big thing is to create scenarios that the game can then recognise going forward. If I save the man, I want to meet that man later. If I save the town, I want someone from the town to come thank me.” Matt Goldman steps in. “Or you can be EVIL, and dynamically grow a moustache for twirling.”

There’s no path of non-violence, though. Saving every kitten on the continent won’t save you from having to face Dragon Age’s infamously tough battles. The PC got the far superior version of Dragon Age: Origins’ combat engine: pausable and easily controlled, it’s returning in much the same shape for the sequel. The party size is still set at four – forcing the player to make “meaningful tactical choices” according to Mike Darreth – and Origins’ toolkit of hotbars and selectable party members is all present and correct.

Twhpp!

Watch it in motion, however, and it’s a notable shift in gear. Get to play it – as I did – and it feels a much more lethal experience. Attacks are sharper in every way, landing with none of the usual stylised RPG combat dance: ‘you swing then I’ll swing.’

Mike Laidlaw is ecstatic that the feeling of speed is noticeable. “In Origins, if you wanted to do a critical shot, your character would draw, line it up, and then fire. Why couldn’t my character just have a bow out, have an arrow knocked, and when I press that ability -twhpp!-. Then they have to shake it off and take a minute to draw. It’s still got the same feel, but what I’m doing has impact the moment I press ‘3’. That’s the thing we wanted to get rid of – that feel of lag.”

Animations look smooth and feel taut. Transitioning between a shield bash and a follow-up stab no longer requires polite shuffling: Hawk lunges forward like his foe’s stomach is full of treasure, ripping his belly open as he languishes on the floor. I take control of companion Bethany and lob a fireball at the disembowelled Darkspawn’s friends. It smacks home with a ‘ba-woosh!’ unexpected from such a basic spell.

Origins’ magic was a pleasure; weighty and powerful there, it’s been buffed further here, maelstroms of psychic energy tearing Darkspawn in half. Bethany fires off an attack at an onrushing ogre, and a seven-foot fist materialises in the mountain air. Opening quickly, it clutches the stricken creature, cradling him for a moment before clenching, squashing the lifeforce from his tubby form. There’s a sickening crack as his massive bones break, before his flesh flickers in the air and he disappears, removed from existence by mystical energies. Combat has got a crunch you didn’t feel in Dragon Age: Origins.

As it should: Bethany’s spells have been levelled up. “You pick fireball as a spell and to start with maybe all it does is damage”, explains Mike Darreth. “Then, rather than spending a point to get a new spell, you might spend some of your points so it sets light to enemies, so there’s damage over time. You’re able to take your favourite spells and deepen them.”

This tech-tree-like system also applies to non-magic abilities, and is intended to buff Origins’ weakest class, the rogue. Darreth describes the issue: “The problem we had in Origins was that the rogue is just a warrior that wears crappy armour. In Dragon Age 2, he feels more mobile, so he’s more about getting in close, doing damage quickly, and getting away.”

As a pure killing machine, the rogue will stay handy for die-hard roleplayers, the kind who didn’t flinch at Origins’ challenging ‘Normal’ mode. Mike Laidlaw is aware of the complaints directed at the first game’s difficulty level, but isn’t aiming to make the experience notably easier for us.

“What I want to do is pull Normal down a bit, and keep Hard nice and ballsy, but we don’t want to make it that that’s the only way, because there are a lot of hardcore gamers who want to feel like, “I gotta roll that crit!”

I was caught off-guard by Dragon Age 2. PC Gamer’s glowing review of the first game in the series stands, but the speed and fluidity with which the team have addressed Dragon Age: Origins’ flaws is astounding. Asking players to fill in the gaps in an preexisting story is a daring narrative manoeuvre, but with exemplary writing, a deep tactical combat engine, and a world well-worn from a good few years of habitation, BioWare’s game is in a perfect position to soar.

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