Jagex discusses RuneScape, MechScape, Stellar Dawn, and a 3rd fantasy MMO they are also working on.
Read the full interview at: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/the-jagex-factor-interviewA few of the interesting questions from the interview:Eurogamer: What was wrong with MechScape?
Mark Gerhard: That's a tough question. We had a whole lot of laudable aims about what the game would be, how it would be a real evolution from what we currently have. And, to a degree, what we had was very much the same but without the secret ingredient that makes it fun. We had a gorgeous-looking and sounding game but the content was shallow. Five or six years of content - it wasn't shallow in terms of input, there's probably millions of words in real terms. But it wasn't cohesive: it was a cacophony of ideas and ambitious. The glue that would have bound the whole game together wasn't quite there, wasn't quite right.
We spent two or three months asking how we could make it better, how we could fix it, but we kept coming back to the conclusion that we could make everything OK, but very little of it great. In the end, we never wanted to settle for a mediocre game. With all the smithing in the world, perhaps months more, perhaps we would have got out a game that was like everything out there. OK works at retail, OK doesn't work online.
Eurogamer: So you went back to the drawing-board and Stellar Dawn was born. Can you afford to lose another "eye-watering" amount should it not turn out right?
Mark Gerhard: Absolutely. Whether we can afford it or not is academic. If it's not right, we won't launch it, simple as that. And again, that's not a decision we take lightly. We're not trivialising it nor are we being arrogant about our success, but our community has come to fondly regard us and respect us as a purveyor of high quality games. You can take on board that we haven't done a traditional new release now for 10 years. We rely on that good will, that trust, so they can play, take, buy our next product. It's crucial. Finances won't rule that decision.
Eurogamer: Are you being more cautious with Stellar Dawn as a result?
Mark Gerhard: No, no. The team size is as significant as previously. 75? Yep, 75 people.
Look, we are being more cautious. We're certainly not being more sparing. What we did this time is we had the wisdom of hindsight. We could look at MechScape and go, "What went wrong?" And on a lot of things we didn't ask the difficult questions first. "What is combat? How does the economy work? How will trade work?" These are very boring questions, but until you know exactly makes the game fun, raw fun, you can't actually put the game around it.
When we went back to the drawing board on this one, the design team spent literally months saying, "Ignore what we've got, ignore how we want to play, let's answer these difficult questions. Let's talk about balance." Infinitely balancing components of a game you've yet to build when everyone tends to do it the other way round. As a result of locking down that game design Bible, the team has been able to develop really, really rapidly. And crucially it's now fun. We've now got a game we're all enormously proud of.
We're not finished, but we feel confident enough that it's coming together that actually we are going to be able to go into beta... We'll be able to go live when we think we will.
Eurogamer: Jagex told me last year that MechScape would have no XP, no skills, no levelling. Is Stellar Dawn trying to be as ambitious, as revolutionary?
Mark Gerhard: Yeah... That wasn't true. That was an ambition, it wasn't a reality.
Eurogamer: Stellar Dawn will welcome those MMO fundamentals, then?
Mark Gerhard: It will have an, er, accumulation mechanic.
Eurogamer: What's left of MechScape in Stellar Dawn?
Mark Gerhard: The game meta-view, story, concept remain the same. We still loved the story, it was just the implementation.
Eurogamer: Stellar Dawn's logo looks very similar to Mass Effect's logo.
Mark Gerhard: Ooh. [Cringes, giggles.]
Eurogamer: Is that a sign that you're going after a core audience with Stellar Dawn?
Mark Gerhard: Stellar Dawn will certainly be older than RuneScape, and play to a more core gamer audience. It'll still be casual, it'll still be accessible to most people.
Eurogamer: You say casual, but most MMOs require hundreds of hours of play before characters see significant results. Who's really going to play it?
Mark Gerhard: The same people playing World of Warcraft, I suspect.
Eurogamer: Ah! A head-to-head battle?
Mark Gerhard: Indeed. We'll park our tanks on their lawn.
Eurogamer: RunesCape's nearly 10 years old. How long has it got left?
Mark Gerhard: Our current business plan is another 10 years of slated game updates and content updates.
Eurogamer: When is there going to be another big visual overhaul?
Mark Gerhard: That will be much like we've done so far: iterative. The engine team's always pushing the tech and as soon as we're ready there will be another upgrade. But people don't need to pay for that, it just comes when it's ready.
A lot of what we've done to push the boundary for Stellar Dawn will benefit RuneScape and another MMO we're working on. We've got the advantage in that we share the same MMO tech platform. From there it's really down to the studios to decide how it's used.
Eurogamer: RuneScape is your fantasy MMO, Stellar Dawn is your sci-fi MMO. Is there a point when you'll want a new fantasy MMO?
Mark Gerhard: We do, we totally do. We're working on it as we speak.
