General Discussion

On MMORPG we can always hear from our fellow players on how we see the future of MMO's, we may not always agree on the direction games are going, but now we can see/hear what the developers think we want. A guild mate posted this in our forums:

Top Developers Discuss MMORPG Trends and Issues at NY Comic-Con

The MMORPG Dev Panel at New York Comic-Con 2008 gave us a rare chance to see the magic that probably happens daily over IM and email when developers of competing MMORPGs discuss the ins and outs of their trade with each other. Joining the panel were Age of Conan Game Designer Jason Stone, Warhammer Online Senior Producer Jeff Hickman, Turbine VP of Product Development Craig Alexander, 38 Studios VP of Creative Development Scott Cuthbertson, and EVE Online Game Designer Matt Woodward.

Video: Top Developers Discuss MMORPG Trends and Issues at NY Comic-Con
Part 1 (moderator Q&A)
Q&A 1
Part 2 (audience Q&A)
Q&A 2

Interesting Q n A session, was quite funny as well. Thanks for posting, probably would not of seen them otherwise :) ( I don't usually visit ten ton hammer)

Having watched it, I'm even less impressed with devs now.  I didn't really get a sense that they do it because they love to do it (I could be wrong, it's hard to judge just from seeing a video), but approach it as their 9 to 5 job.  Repitition stiffles the imagination.

I sort of got the impression that the Age of Conan developer seemed bored out of his mind, same with the guy from 38 studios. The other 3 developers seemed generally interested and enthusiastic about what they were doing, especially whoever the guy representing Warhammer is.

Its probably just different personalities, I am sure they all love their jobs. They are gamers at the end of the day the majority of gamers are usually not known as being that articulate and charismatic so they may come off bored or less enthusiastic.

Well at least we got a little insite as to how they think.  I did not care for some of their answers regarding some of the topics discussed, but then again I seriously doubt they'd care for what I have to say on the topics either.

Otherwise...thanks for sharing those with us and thank you Ten Ton Hammer. 

Meh, not to be rude to them, but I find their answers lacking depth. Granted, this wasn't a developer to developer QA session, but I think the fact that most seem to rehash the decade old (and it is decade old if you dig through either Koster's own blogs or even the blogs of other developers such as the developer that brought in by Turbine to 'save' AC2 back in '04...) rhetoric, which they haven't even delivered on. So, I'm not very interested in the rest of the QA as I saw it half-way past QA2. Fundamentally, I believe game developers in the MMO market need to get their act together or meet Adam Smith's Invisible Hand of the market, which will move them right out of the way. :-P

-- Brede

Originally posted by ladyattis

Meh, not to be rude to them, but I find their answers lacking depth. Granted, this wasn't a developer to developer QA session, but I think the fact that most seem to rehash the decade old (and it is decade old if you dig through either Koster's own blogs or even the blogs of other developers such as the developer that brought in by Turbine to 'save' AC2 back in '04...) rhetoric, which they haven't even delivered on. So, I'm not very interested in the rest of the QA as I saw it half-way past QA2. Fundamentally, I believe game developers in the MMO market need to get their act together or meet Adam Smith's Invisible Hand of the market, which will move them right out of the way. :-P

-- Brede

Many of the questions and answers were pretty basic, but I thought they had some interesting things to say about where they thought the genre was headed.  And, I really got the impression that they too want more than whats currently out there.  I didnt expect to hear that, considering most of the MMOs represented by the panel are more mainstream or typical.

I believe they know this genre of game will grow, because the whole industry of Video games is growing. the question is, will it become a significant aspect of the industry or stll something considered Niche

Best part of the entire video:

about 22 minutes into part 2, Paul Barnett shows up out of no where and the camera guy focuses on him for a minute.

<3 paul

but seriously, a lot of good answers from industry devs.

Is it just me, or do these guys sound like politicians?

They are giving very basic answers that use more words than needed, with really no substance to them at all.