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If this gete me killed post me a NGE SUX 1 a week
kissodeath
Member Posts: 102
RED TYPE = MY COMMENTS
BLUE TYPE = ORGINAL BioDome interveiw
OMG, I gotta cut this short, Im scared, I think they are on to me. I heard a car, when I looked outside I saw 8 people getting out of a VW Bug. I pretty sure its SOE.
Wish me luck, I got a escape plan when they approach me I got a dollar to throw down should buy me time to across state lines and possibly thin their numbers for me.
Ok, Im taking a big risk sharing this info, I cant reveal names or specifics, My source informed me that only myself and some Russian guy in London are the only Outsiders with this info.
I can however explain, without danger of exposing my source So youll know Im on the level, He also put the condition that he personally be with me now as to make sure truth is told in entirety, and his identity is protected as well as mine.
We have accepted the fact that we will be subject to torture and assassinated if discovered, we decided that the truth is more important and he said they should kill us before 2 full hours in NGE, Just please realize 24 total hours is a possibility also, Ill admit 24 hours isnt worth this risk but the truth must be told.
My source is well connected in two significant entities, His or Hers Best friends Great Uncles Sister-in-laws babysitters brothers dog walker has a stepbrother who went to college with a guy who was friends with a guy who knew a SOE Employee and in fact was his official BBF.
At first I thought this was just to good to be true well I assure you that it is true, I saw his half of the BBF medallion with my own eyes. I always research my sources credibility and is the first actual physical proof of the reliability of the info.
Remember I said two entities, well it just so happens, his or hers best friends Great Uncles Sister-in-laws babysitters also knows that her grandmother shared a hospital room with a Lady who slept with a bartender who served several House Deluxe Special Drinks to loosen up the mother of a certain BioWare employees best friends sister whom, he dated for 2 weeks in high school.
Ok when I first heard this I was very skeptical, but faced with facts, Im sure you agree now, its just undeniable, so I spent most of the day with the bartender whom broke down the interview and exposed some terrifying truths.
I only knew BioWare from the opinions from certain folks I respect from these boards whom usually are on par, well I sorry to report that BioWare has fallen victim to the Dark Side Of MMOs and has been SOEs Apprentice for some time now.
Im afraid that they are also excellent students and eager to please their Masters wishes, Im trying to gather intelligence on these wishes, its proving to be very difficult a NGE contact is conducting a through search in the NGE,With his guild but sadly either one hasnt found any intelligence to report as of yet.
The Bartender taught me some interesting ways to get into the mind of a DEV, to my surprise he was 100% right. After five Jamaican Teas the words seemed to dance into coherent sentences that actually told a story other than, how much they want to be my buddy, and we should talk soon cuz they want to hear my ideas and value my opinion, soon I figured out its true, but only if I happen to share their opinion.
That was when I knew that It was True and SOE has become their Master and actually seemed to have found a purpose as Uber Dark Corporate Sellout. After five more drink we felt comfortable that we were as close as well ever get to SOEs mindset and decided to decode BioWares interview.
BioWare Austin Talks About Upcoming MMO
Being on South Park, building the right end game for an MMO and more.
by Shawn Elliott, 11/27/2006
9 of 9 users recommend this story.
As you've likely heard, the December 2006 issue of Games for Windows magazine (in stores now) features a massive cover story on BioWare's upcoming RPG Dragon Age (check out some first details on the game here). But as part of the cover story,
the guys at GFW also spoke with BioWare's Austin studio to get the scoop on its upcoming MMORPG. While the team isn't ready to talk details or world settings,(They did agree to talk about WOW, and told us they are in a hoard group with SMED, Helious, and Jeff but got addicted to PWNing NOOBS and gave it all up to apparently to start this project but may have plenty of time to work on it between raids)
they did go into a lot of the philosophy behind the game. As one of the best RPG developers in the business, the sheer prospect of an MMORPG from the studio is exciting, so read on for some intriguing comments.
Games for Windows: The Official Magazine: How long has your new MMORPG been in development?
Gordon Walton, co-studio director, BioWare Austin: We announced the game around March, but we'd really started on it in the beginning of December 2005.
James Ohlen, creative director, BioWare Austin: We've got a lot designed -- we've got the GDD [game design document] done, we've finished more than three quarters of the detail design documents. We've got a couple prototypes up. (We decided what things we want to take from other MMOs and then racked our brains for a way to make them seem unlike WOWs and then measured the simplicity of design work requirements on a scale that Jeff invented himself for the NGE. (We dont want to make people think to much, or one player to loss to another player just because he tries harder, We want a fair game where combat is completely balanced and players dont waste fun time, working on always trying to be better than the next guy,A fun game for real gamers to ask to help our Super intelligent NPCs find stuff they lost(quest;DUDE WHERES MY CAR KEYS), and countless other riveting quest)
We've licensed [Simultronics'] HeroEngine. It's a very good engine, and we're very impressed with it so far.
And we can talk about the high-level goals: We basically want to bring what BioWare's famous for to the online space, and one of the things BioWare's famous for is storytelling ... and it's something that pretty well doesn't exist in the online space right now. Most "storytelling" in MMORPGs is just FedEx quests -- you know, you have to go get some eggs -- and it's presented in a format that's just a bunch of text thrown at you in paragraph for ... and that's not so exciting. We want to bring a level of storytelling that's equal to the single-player box games that BioWare has done. I think we can do that. One of the big challenges will be making our storytelling work in an environment that has multiple players.
(Team SOE has been showing us how cool the NGE is, it would PWN WOW, except the old player base couldnt handle the complex mouse pointing and was completely lost in all fast paced action packed fun. If only SOE has implemented it better, the only MOBS left in WOW will be tumbleweeds.
Im most proud of our plan to make a MMO based on player interactions with NPCs remember not normal NPCs, but ones who say stuff youll want to take screenshots of so you can show your friends.
BioWare will change MMOs forever, all MMOs now are based on talking and dealing with players, SOE informed us players are complete idiots and shouldnt interact, if its even possible. We would wager that in no time WOW will be copying us for a change. No FED-EX crap either, We believe UPS is better.
The NGE is a groundbreaking MMO full of great loot and the power of the SWG credit, thanks to powerful economy, makes Buying stuff off the bazaar almost as fun as most Quest combine that with Ingenious innovative plan to changing what NPCs say during your Epic Questing and well one word
..HIT. Thats why we will rule the market their(SOE) vision and Brilliant business decisions combined with our insight and genius will make a game empire that only Smed could Rule.)
GFW: It seems that one of the big challenges in a big multiplayer universe is that you can't really have the player shape the world like you can in a single-player game ... .
JO: Here's the thing -- you can't have a story that involves saving the world from the dark lord Sauron -- not that we're making a Lord of the Rings game, but I'll use LOTR as a good example. You can't stop the world from being destroyed by [Sauron], but you can do a lot of things that are personal to your character. You change how your character evolves over the game, the player's personal story -- and a player's personal story can be quite epic. It can involve parts of the world that, while they're epic, exciting, and interesting, don't change the landscape of the entire world for everyone else.
Smaug [from The Hobbit] is a good example. You can have a personal quest to kill an ancient red dragon; you can have a story that goes all the way through, and you can meet all these interesting characters, and eventually you end up killing the ancient red dragon. Other characters in the online world will know you killed a red dragon, but you haven't changed the world for them. And they can still -- especially when you use things like instances -- go on a quest that involves killing an ancient huge red dragon. We can change the player's personal story, and that gives players the sense they're having an impact on the game world.
Rich Vogel, co-studio director of product development: One thing we don't want to do is NPC Pez dispensers, as I call them -- go over there, dispense a quest, and then go "vacuum-clean" a zone. We want to make sure you listen to NPCs, because choices matter. And that's really important.
(Thank god we acquired not just amazing talent from SOE but experienced MMO world builders as well, After being stumped over what players want from a game and staring at a blank chalk board for SIX, yes, SIX hours Team SOE sprung into action and in a fury of creative thinking they saved the day by getting a group of people to think for us and tell us what to do, They called them a focus group.
Well all I could do is sit back and watch history being made. They hand picked a group of people who didnt play MMOs or videos games at all, the diverse group was comprised of people from nursing homes,mental patients to illegal immigrants, I asked if gamers would be better to give advise, but thats why Im BioWare and they are SOE, turns out gamers minds are corrupted and would just suggest stuff they saw in other games. We needed fresh outside the box thinkers, ideas poured from these people till they fell asleep.
Loot able little rascals was one I really like alot and think has a place in this game, so you didnt have to always walk to your next NPC buddy.
After 30 minutes we had the next generation of character development, all this success is overwhelming us a little, but here it is what I like to call the, MMO fun formula.
l People need their characters to have a story that chronicles the Epic Tale of what all they did for the NPCs, so others can read it for some end game content. Storys will be unique too all stories differ according to real decisions you make in the game.... like I may goto NPC 7854 and you went to NPC 5645 and didnt till 20 quest after mine.
Then I wondered about cool quest like, KILL THE LEVEL 6 HARE IN THE WOODS OF HOLLOW MEANING. Well say you kill it, now its Dirks turn, he runs into field ready to have a blast shootin and lootin, but no hare, so how can dirk loot the shield of hopelessness quest reward from a no show hare. INSTANCES, I came up with it on my own and almost cried when SOE guys, gave me a standing ovation, and it also prevent people from witnessing your kill and make them think why read your story, I already saw it.
Oh dirk, you dont need to wait in line you can go shoot and loot your all set to keep the fun flying at same time. Now no one will be left out and you can both talk about how you banished the evil hare, and looted the shield from his greasy little paws, I was worried some folks may not get to accomplish stuff others have and wouldnt all have the same Items. Keeping the fun flowing is a priority for us
Unlike Other MMOs retarded NPCs in wheelchairs and wearing helmits, ours will give quest in random orders so everyones experience will differ. People will love their stories and will make the unfun stuff like focusing on good supplies and gear, a thing of the past and will make game more balanced if scales were welded and never need a nerfed running around trying to get anything you can to make your character better than Dirks is unfair to Dirk, you see dirk dont have time to Play, like say you do, just because you invest more time and energy into a task shouldnt mean give you the right to kill dirk just cuz he dont have the time to play a MMO. And you do.
Example; Linda killed baby seal in quest 5, but you didnt till quest 6).
JO: There are lots of quests in a classic BioWare game that would work in an online world. You'd be surprised how few wouldn't.
GFW: One of the big problems with MMO gameplay is repeating the same content, or same instance if you're specifically talking about WoW, over and over again ... .
JO: That's something we don't want to encourage. We want to encourage players to continue to make progress in their story, to do new quests, consume new content, constantly move forward. The grind is not attractive in any way. Going and killing the same dragon over and over again is not something I want to do. There are lots of different ways to encourage players to move forward.
Simply putting more weight on storytelling experience points is a good way to do that. In WOW, you get XP when you finish a quest, but the weighting on that is pretty low; there's not much benefit to doing that over finding the perfect monster to grind and kill. If those quest experience points were a little higher, it would make a lot more sense to go along with the story. Now, that's a very mechanical way to ensure players go along with your story -- the other way is to make sure your story is good, that the presentation is exciting, it's personal to the player, that the player has a lot of motivation to move forward in their story. That's not to say that experience and treasure aren't still important, though.
GFW: Are there things in the other MMOs -- whether yours or another developer's -- that you've worked on that you can see working here? Any "lessons learned"?
RV: I think the big thing is that making a quality polished product with good gameplay is key. WoW proved that. WoW didn't really innovate all that much -- it just did a very good job of polishing what was out there. [Blizzard] took the best and put it in their game. But we want to develop an experience that's a BioWare experience first and foremost. And for that, it's very important to have directed content ... especially if you want to get to a mainstream audience.
(Theres one in every crowd those special types, more concerned with imitating James Dean and being a rebel without a clue. Ill kill these field mice while everyone is having a blast killing the hare.
A fun game dont make you have to choose or look for fun it directs you to it, but there are those people who think they are smarter than college degree holding geniuses like us and wonder off ending up lost with a blank story and no loot.
But Im a person who cares for even the idiots who cant care for themselves. If these asses think they are so smart lets see how smart they are, If they choose to be better than the stories we pour someone we hired hearts into are ignored, so they can PWN gold condors can stay the special level (lets see how cool a level one rebel is) they could get, and wont ever advance.
All the other people will be having a blast doing what the NPCs order them to do. And fun is non-stop we set up quest so you never have to go far for the next one. Youll be too excited to walk very far.
We dont need much advise for other MMOs just dont implement, a superior game to and old crusty one that makes it so you gotta make stuff and requires you use a certain things to obtain XP, or skin animals and cant even loot it just skin its crusty hide.
Who ever thought a game were you wondered around with no arrows to follow and figured that they could ever have fun is sure giving gamers alot of credit, gamers cant think good nor should they, I get a check to think for them, and I know what makes a good MMO did I metion SOE DEVS are here too.
Well make this game so fun thatll you wont have time to think, except the occasional , that was a blast wheres that next NPC." Im going to focus on all fun stuff like character stories and Uber NPCs removing the anti fun like skills and stats stuff that will just confuse and cause resentment and hate.
You wont find someone wasting away making widgets, or beating you just cuz their stuff is better the amazing thing about the NGE is it relies on someones skill of moving a mouse, a real skill and aiming in lag anybody can go make uber gear but only a real hero can aim a mouse.
We cant wait to astound you with our skills, wont be long, we got all developed already except mob AI and new literary that is less go get this and more go get that Im so excited to show all of you what a visionary I am and lucky you will get to witness history in the making ..
Till then.
JO: And by directed, we don't mean linear -- we mean that you know where you have to go to have fun.
GFW: How many of your key staffers migrated from SOE [which also has a studio in Austin]?
GW: I don't know that we have a count. Some from SOE, some from BioWare Edmonton, some from other companies completely. It's not like we had to go knocking. Experienced people want to work on a product that can be successful.
GFW: Can you talk about where the game takes place? Is it fantasy? Sci-fi?
JO: We can't talk about the setting of the game yet.
RV: The key points that we're gonna do that no one's done before in an MMOG are bring story, character, and emotion to it. Decisions matter, and NPCs aren't pez dispensers, and you're not in a grind. You're really compelled to get on and play what's happening to day ... kind of like watching a series like Lost on TV ... putting page-turning in an MMO. It's going to be extremely challenging thing to do, believe me.
GFW: Another BioWare strength, aside from story, is character customization. For lots of reasons, most MMORPGs lock you into classes without a ton of flexibility, which conflicts with customization. What's your philosophy?
RV: It's really important to have roles in an MMORPG. If you understand your role in the world, and others understand your role in the world with you, then you can get group dynamics and social behavior. [Developers] can set up interdependencies, which promote social dynamics in a game. If you don't have that, then you end up with loners ... and the world breaks down a little bit. Now, you'll be able to solo if you like in our game, that's for sure -- it's one thing that WoW proved can work. But it'll be a choice whether or not you want to group or not. You run into problems when people feel they're forced to group up or raid to get somewhere in the game.
JO: And while roles are important for gameplay, the visual aspect of your character is an area where we can let player differentiate themselves. We are gonna have a good selection of visual customization. We're probably gonna have more visual customization than you've seen in a BioWare game before.
GFW: Repetition of the same instances and raid dungeons is a huge part on what constitutes "end-game content" when you reach a level cap in an MMO. What's your plan for end-game content?
JO: We have big plans for end-game content that we can't talk about because it's a major part of our design. We think it's a very important aspect of the game, and we don't want players to be stuck grinding through the same content over and over again -- I know when I hit level 60 in WoW, I pretty much quit. So whatever end-game model we have, it's not going to be that.
GFW: And what of player-created content? Player-built cities, player-run businesses, that sort of thing?
RV: There'll definitely be an economy in our game, like WoW. But is our game going to be a simulation? No. Our game is an entertainment experience.
JO: If we're going to create immersive, epic stories that are believable, that really goes against having a simulation-type world. Those two things don't go together well.
GW: And putting the onus on players to create all the fun is ... a challenge.
GFW: How big is your writing team? Can you explain your writing process?
JO: One of the things we want to do is create more story content than in any other BioWare game before, and we started a writing team earlier than in any other BioWare project -- more than twice as big, nine total, and they'll be on the project twice as long. The reason is that the world is huge and has tons of paths and options.
GFW: How do you select your writers?
JO: It seems you can't get a writer from the same place twice -- we've got one from Hollywood, one straight out of school, one who was a designer and programmer before he decided he wanted to be a writer. They send submissions created in the Neverwinter Nights toolset, and cull out the ones we don't like. Senior writers give feedback to the ones that make the initial cut, and the potential writers make changes and turn it back in. It's some of the harshest testing for any position at BioWare, really.
GFW: What are you all playing right now?
JO: I'm playing in a World of WarCraft group with a few of the writers. We're in a Horde group.
RV: WoW, and I've started playing a bit of Eve Online. It's extremely ... niche.
GW: I still play Ultima Online every month, and play World of WarCraft right now. But mostly console games.
GFW: World of WarCraft all around. What's that game doing best right now? What keeps you playing?
RV: It's a very polished experience.
GW: It's got the best interface of any MMO by a longshot. It has craploads of content. You're always being directed from quest to quest.
GFW: Are you worried about taking on the World of WarCraft monster?
GW: There hasn't really been anything that's been built to beat it yet -- but we just want to be competitive. We're not looking to kill WOW. Will some people who play WOW play our game? Of course. But we'd be better off if we got new customers, too. It's not a zero-sum game out there.
JO: Aside from BioWare, Blizzard is the company I respect the most -- and yes, WOW is an amazing game. But there's still so much room for growth, and WOW still has tons of room for improvement. It's not a genre that's going to slow down any time soon. MMORPGs are going to be taking huge steps in so many place I can see.
GFW: What's the biggest improvement you want to see happen in MMOs?
JO: I'm a huge story guy. I want to play in a world where I feel like I'm reading a good book, where I feel like I'm there. I have lots of fun with World of WarCraft, but it's not because of the story or characters. So if we made characters you could care about and believe in ... that would be huge.
GFW: So when will we be playing the "BioWare MMORPG"?
GW: Anything worth doing well is worth taking the time. It's hard to predict when it'll be right. It's important for use to wait and make sure it's right. That's gonna take some time. Everyone who's tried to cram one into a ship date has had issues -- been there and done that a couple times.
JO: We're gonna make the best game we can.
RV: "When it's ready."
GW: The fan base of BioWare would love to see a Bioware MMO. And this was part of the genesis of this -- it's the natural progression for an RPG company to try this medium. We're happy to work with world-class game designers who aren't just copying what's come before. We have a really good studio. We probably have the most experienced team in the business, as far as building MMORPGs. We're excited about we're doing. The moment we talk about what we're going, expectations fly through the roof -- then you have to be the second coming. It's very difficult to live up to expectations; they keep escalating while you're trying to finish what you started.
GFW: And what are your personal goals in all this?
GW: I just want to entertain a lot of people. We are story-telling creatures. Story really helps make entertainment experiences more accessible.
Comments
DM: Let me get this right: The dragons breath knocks you over the 300' cliff onto the jagged rocks below and you want a saving throw?
I am going to print this out and read it on the toilet later.
John Smedley beat up my grandmother.
I sleep with a pillow under my gun.
In short Bioware said "We're going to do what Blizzard did (pick apart other MMOs), then put our own spin on it".
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
In short Bioware said "We're going to do what Blizzard did (pick apart other MMOs), then put our own spin on it".
Did anyone even read what they said?
There are several non-grind based MMOs out there. Of course, since people are too stubborn to put them into MMORPG basket, they get looked over or simply ignored.
And meanwhile, they are taking bigger and bigger piece of the market. WoW is tiny compared to this "non-MMORPG" online game market.
Yes, this includes games without levels, experience and mobs that give xp. That includes games that do not have any text whatsoever in them. It also includes games without combat.
MMORPG, the genre, will forever be remembered by World of Warcraft. Now it's time to move on, bury the dead, and look at the children, to see where the future will go.
From what Bioware said, there's a good chance they'll go into that direction as well.
SWG will never happen again, not in that shape or form. For the very same reason why Pacman doesn't happen again. Pacman lives on in retro form, and that's exactly where MMORPGs of today are. They are based around an obsolete design.
If you think the "too much reading" crowd is an SOE construct, then it's time to look around. There is a market for them. What is truly shocking, is how big that market is. It has only one downside. Those players cannot be suckered in by $14.99 a month type of deals. They simply won't pay a fee. This is the only obstacle left as to why this market hasn't exploded yet - no viable business model.
But, don't believe me. Next year, the "next" generation of MMOs will come out. Wanna bet how many will flop, or become "huge" success with 150k subscribers?
Want to bet how the same arguments thrown against WoW and any other MMO will flare up again? How they'll fail to find a proper market, how they'll once again only provide 3 months of mediocre pleasure to existing and shrinking MMORPG crowds? How UO and DaoC were the only real MMOs.
Those that copy WoW will fail. That means: Levels, xp and fed-ex quests. If you have those, you're WoW.
"If we don't attack them, they will attack us first. So we'd better retaliate before they have a chance to strike"
John Smedley beat up my grandmother.
SWG at least tried to add some diversity.
And once again, SWG's quest system was scrapped, because SOE refused to fix core server bugs, which made the system unimplementable.
All that remained were the few notable quests, and the PEZ mission dispensers. But that never was the true content intended for SWG.
Ima so tried of typos on these broads, ima gonma hav a laugf!
- working as intended
*This game was once big, with a great community, but most of what its left is what drivens ppl off.
SWG at least tried to add some diversity.
And once again, SWG's quest system was scrapped, because SOE refused to fix core server bugs, which made the system unimplementable.
All that remained were the few notable quests, and the PEZ mission dispensers. But that never was the true content intended for SWG.
Diversity? I don't think so. They were the same Fed-Ex quests WOW has except they did it first and not as polished as WOW.
Artisan missions comprised of making useless comonents for a useless tool for an NPC and trek (premounts and vehicles) all over the damn place for pennies. Whoopie
Scout missions? Go kill X, get paid, repeat.
Quest givers? Same thing. Imperial and Rebel themepark anyone? Useless missions for junk (literally) that no one could use half the time.
Even SWG's attempt to create an ongoing storyline failed. Everyone did the same cookie cutter quests to get the same reward. "Go do x, return to me to talk then I will send you to go do Y". Then they realized theat they can't have different endings on different servers because it takes too much to write multiple storylines, then *poof* no more storyline and no more purpose for doing anything. Their one great innovation failed within months of launch. At least they never removed the NPC quest-givers.
The only diversityin SWG came from player initiated content in my opinion.
"If we don't attack them, they will attack us first. So we'd better retaliate before they have a chance to strike"
And once again, SWG's quest system was scrapped, because SOE refused to fix core server bugs, which made the system unimplementable.
All that remained were the few notable quests, and the PEZ mission dispensers. But that never was the true content intended for SWG.
There, I'm quoting myself, to repeat what I said.
SWG's quest system was scrapped before beta, since they couldn't be bothered to fix the needed implementation.
Therefore, SWG never had any content system, all that was left were the mission terminals.
Has everyone really lost the last shred of reading comprehension?
And once again, SWG's quest system was scrapped, because SOE refused to fix core server bugs, which made the system unimplementable.
All that remained were the few notable quests, and the PEZ mission dispensers. But that never was the true content intended for SWG.
There, I'm quoting myself, to repeat what I said.
SWG's quest system was scrapped before beta, since they couldn't be bothered to fix the needed implementation.
Therefore, SWG never had any content system, all that was left were the mission terminals.
Has everyone really lost the last shred of reading comprehension?
Wow, did I get your underoos in a wad or what?
"SWG at least tried to add some diversity."
That's what I was commenting on. In fact I believe my first line was exactly:
"Diversity? I don't think so."
And even ended with:
"The only diversity in SWG came from player initiated content in my opinion."
Now, I would like to hear how they added diversity to "no content system".
"If we don't attack them, they will attack us first. So we'd better retaliate before they have a chance to strike"
Wow, did I get your underoos in a wad or what?
"SWG at least tried to add some diversity."
That's what I was commenting on. In fact I believe my first line was exactly:
"Diversity? I don't think so."
And even ended with:
"The only diversity in SWG came from player initiated content in my opinion."
Now, I would like to hear how they added diversity to "no content system".
The designers tried and whipped up experimental systems.
Before alpha, developers said: Guys, our server sucks, we can't make it happen.
Raph says: screw it, and moves on.
They tried. They failed. It never made it into beta even.
You didn't see diversity because attempt to add diversity failed and you never even saw it. But they tried.