Gods & Heroes: An Interview Rising - Part II
| 23213 | Continued from Part I of Gods & Heroes: An Interview Rising |
To Me, To Me!
| 23244 | GH: One major focus of the game has been on squad combat and you and your friends bringing your squads together to fight in massive battles. School Me – how easy is it going to be to control these squads in terms of selecting formations, giving orders etc? |
SH: Well, you of course have the basic – attack this thing, defend that thing, basic stances – aggressive, passive. This will depend on the players style of play – if you just want to wade into battle and attack all the time, you can – that's the basic level. Then there's the next level which is ordering them to attack specific targets, hold these positions – things like that which are basic but still very functional. These are the basic functions people will expect in commanding their minions.
Beyond that we have unit 'feats' – which are the same as player feats – but done as a unit and they expand in their effect based on how many minions there are in the unit you're ordering to do that [particular feat]. One of our very cool movements is Testudo – the Roman tortoise formation in which the infantry put up their shields to defend the area behind them. [you've all seen Gladiator right? ] So if you had a squad that comprises infantry as well as 'squishier targets' like ranged guys or casters you can have your guys form up to defend the casters in the back ranks.
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We wanted to add things that made a lot of sense to people and were cool at the same time but didn't require you to go , "OK, you guys stand here and now, raise your shields and I'll place this buff on you etc" – so I think they combine in ways that will resonate with people.
GH: When we combine squads does on player take on the role of leader – commanding the other players as sub-squads or how does that work?
SH: Well, you'd want to each control different types of squads – take on different roles. So, for example maybe I'd take the role of Gladiator – the infantry squad, Daniel [points to our host] would take the Rogue – the skirmish squad - and you'd take the Caster role so you'd have the priests. It will be a lot easier to manage that way so I'm not combining all kinds of units that do different things – so basically my guys are the tanks – we stand in front of everyone and try to protect them. Meanwhile you try to heal everyone and cast buffs and the rogue player will handle the backstabbing and all that good stuff.
So, I think there will be some strategies there and we've also enabled in the game in a certain way that points you [in that direction] – for example – there are light and heavy minions, which are obviously better, but they're restricted as far as who can hire them. A Gladiator can only hire infantry minions, priests can only hire spell caster minions – etc – so that those roles are kind of reinforced in that way. What the balanced squad is really for is at the lower levels where you basically need someone to complement your abilities. I'm a gladiator so I need somebody to heal me on the way into battle and hit things and my spellcaster can help me do that.
At lower levels you may mix your squads more but that doesn't scale, and it's not meant to, otherwise you'll be clicking all these different buttons in combat – at higher levels we want to transition you to more of a one unit per squad format.23247,23248
GH: We saw some significant slow-down in the pre-E3 demos that depicted some of these massive battles. From a programmatic standpoint how hard has it been to bring these ideas to life? How is the performance tuning progressing?
SH: Obviously performance is something we're working on constantly – we're keeping [our ideas] in mind and working to maintain framerates at an acceptable level. This is a place where instances come in handy in that we can tune the performance of that place - as long as we don't have another group of players come in…
GH: Say, on dial-up?
SH: [laughs] …exactly!...and screw it for everybody. So we tune those instances and battles to the number of units and minions we expect in those situations. Our goal is to deliver the maximum performance and fun.
GH: In the GnH timeframe there was actually quite a slave trade going on - are there any plans to allow players to sell or trade minions? You know - Poke-Gladiator? Gotta Collect'em All?SH: [laughs] Well, we don't see them as slaves – of course some have less monetary reasons for joining you but…yeah, we want you to be able to sell them to someone else when you get bored – you're not really selling them but basically you're transferring their services to someone else. There will be guys you can hire in taverns and bath houses that everyone will be able to find and then there will be guys that are rare that you can only get as rewards for completing quests or are just, you know, way out in the hinterlands where you'll really have to explore a lot just to find out where they are and then you might have to do something really tricky to get them to join you.
It's something that people want to do so rather than trying to discourage players we want to support them – if you try to prevent players from doing things you end up creating black market situations and the like which can lead to even more problems [see battle.net] – we think people want to trade and the like so we want to keep people in the game rather than driving them out of the game to accomplish those goals.
Over the Hills and Through the Woods
| 23245 | GH: Most MMOs start out new players in a smaller fragment of the world in order to gain their footing before striking out into the greater realms. How are you guys planning to approach the issue of getting new players into the game and not letting them feel overwhelmed? |
SH: Well, actually it ties to [right into] our storyline – the Telchines that took part in the Great War…
Daniel McLaren – Community Manager: Whoa, we're not supposed to talk about that yet.
SH: I don't think it's a problem?
DM: Well, I know there are some points we weren't yet touching and I think we weren't supposed to talk about that one…
SH: [laughs] well… we totally have J
DM: [nervous laughter ensues as he realizes he's raised the ire of the Viking warrior]
SH: So, the Telchines took part in the Great War on the side of the Titans – which they of course lost – that's how the Olympians came to dominance over the heavens and so the Telchines were banished and… now they're back! In order to win this time out - which is clearly their goal – they are capturing the heroes of Rome, and peoples from places around the city, and basically you're captured [by them] in the beginning and you must escape. So you're on a narrow path in the beginning but it will engage people instantly.
So, no, you won't come into the game standing face to face with a 40th level player [laughs] [Though]… there are other players – we think it's important that right from the beginning people should be able to play together, interact – communicate. The very, very beginning is limited in terms of numbers of players – but pretty rapidly you get into the world where everyone else is and you can, you know…mingle
Note: Your class will define your starting point in the game
GH: Do you see players leaning more toward a particular type of class or quest over another? If so, how will you go about getting players to explore the different types of classes/quests?
SH: Well, although we do have those quests – you know – those basic 'Go kill this many of these or go fetch that rake' quests – but we have a pretty robust system that can help them to make quests much more interactive an interesting – tailoring them for each class. The quests will sort of drive cooperation at a certain level – we want people to accomplish some things on their own so they're not blocked in though.
[Anyone at Turbine paying attention here? ]
GH: Are there plans to have the military quests affect the state of the world –will the boundaries – borders change in real-time?
SH: For now they'll more or less happen – for you as a player you'll understand the result but it may not be a shared understanding for others in the game. Our plans is to have expansion packs that spread the map out from around the base of Rome and the Italian peninsula north into Europe – east into Asia – South into Africa – or all of the above at some point. [Mike, the map maker looks nervous ] Our intention is to include a new culture and a new race with their own mythology, culture, weapons and then have all of these people – who came into conflict at various points – come into these contested territories that border these regions that will actually change the map as people fight, nation vs nation, over those spots.
GH: Are we talking about Realm vs Realm? And if so any idea how you'll be handling that as opposed to the methods used by some of your competitors?
SH: [laughs] Well, there's a lot that goes into that – we'll be looking at our competitors for sure but we're not ready to talk about that just yet.
Up Close And Personal With 'Stieg: The Benevolent'
| 23246 | GH: So now that we're running a little low on time lets switch topics here – lets talk about you for a moment. I did some reading and found you began our career as an RPG Designer – Pen & Paper RPGs – and that you actually worked as a professional? Tell us about those beginnings. |
SH: Well, I've been involved with games since a very early age – I mean, I don't recall when it originally was…
GH: You mean you don't want to date yourself?
SH: [laughs] Yeah, Someone gave me the basic D&D rules for my birthday and pretty quickly I saw the limits of what they had created and where they went wrong and that was sort of what drove me eventually to where I am today. As a lot of us did, I started working on alternate versions, different rule sets and the like.
GH: So when did you go Pro?
SH: "Well, so basically, well, um ,,,I" [nervously] I ran a game for hire – essentially it was a service where me and a friend of mine would run games and it was fun…
GH: So basically you guys worked the GenCon circuit for extra comic-book money?
GH: [I decide to let him off the hook here and move on ] Other than the basic TSR D&D set – can you name another games you enjoyed from that period?
SH: No, basically we were always looking for something like that and eventually we'd just create our own - there was always either D&D which had its limitations… and then there were things like RuneQuest which their focus was on realism – and realism is just not fun!
So you had combat situations where people were swinging swords and people were dying in a few seconds and that just wasn't fun… and it was just kind of sad you know – so we had a perspective that I carried on into the projects I'm on today and that is that it's more about the interaction and the fun of it and not necessarily the realism or any of those things.
The problem with D&D was the balance where everything was just added on to be cooler and cooler and not really thinking about how it balanced with everything else and obviously all the non-human races were just tremendously powerful and all the multi-classing and fancy classes were a bunch of your basic, "I'm a human… /fighter [with gray eyes? ] so it was just kind of sad – we took it in a lot of different directions.
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GH: So… tell us about this cancelled Lord of the Rings game you worked on?
SH: [laughs] – Yeah, wow – you've been doing your homework! So, yeah, I was working on this game that was called 'The Ring of Doom' that was a Sega Genesis side-scrolling LOTR game that never came out but actually it was pretty cool. They sort of designed it, made it, took it apart and made it again because the first time it was just pretty bizarre. I actually came in on the second rev. They had a bunch of video characterizations they had done of Aragorn and everyone else which just didn't translate to 16-bit really well at all [laughs] so we redid everything – a lot of the game design and it was very cool – I think the only reason it didn't ship was we lost our programmer at a certain crucial point and back in those days we only had ONE, so it was pretty hard to switch it to someone else – especially at that phase.
GH: So they sent him to work on Skate or Die 2?
SH: [laughs] no, it was actually well before that of course but …mmm..hmm…
GH: So, you started with table top RPGs, onto Diablo and then moving through to Red Storm – obviously military titles… what drove the decision to come back to fantasy – was that your first love – or were you done with rocket launchers and their ilk?
SH: Well, one of the things I liked about Gods & Heroes is that it's not Medieval fantasy – I obviously spent a lot of time with that in the far back – but also at Blizzard with Diablo and even Diablo II it wasn't high fantasy it was something we actually very clearly sort of cut out of our direction and tried to go a different way in as far as the kind of fantasy material that we presented. And…so, again… no elves, no dwarves, ogres… none of that stuff – it was very deliberate and even then I felt that that material was a little tired out; even more so now.
So I thought it was a good time to steer away from that and do something really different. Rome is really appealing to me - even more so…one of the reasons I left Blizzard was I just really couldn't do another Diablo at that point in my life. I think it's important to do different projects and get different flavors of games and I think there's a lot of great source material that is yet to be explored in the MMO space.
GH: Yeah, if we could just get a corporate world MMO where we have to get up early everyday, go to work at a boring job and come home to Domino's pizza and Grey's Anatomy we'd be set - whoa...wait...that's the game of Life
Thank You Stieg!
-Pachoey
