38 Studios - A Talk with Steve Danuser
At NY Comic Con, MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood caught up with Steve Dausner of 38 Studios. The two talked about the company's unannounced MMO and some of the expectations that come along with it, bother for their big-name stars and the rest of the team working on the project.
At New York Comic Con, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Lead Content Designer Steve Danuser from 38 Studios about the MMO that they are making in the Boston-area studio. For those of you who might not be familiar with this relatively unknown (they haven't announced even the title fo their game yet) development studio, some background may be required.
Some time back, it was announced that Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, was a huge fan of MMOs, particularly of EverQuest II. Being a fan, he even did some promotional work with the folks at SOE. From there, we learned that he was beginning his own MMO development company. Not only that, but he was also bringing together two of the hottest names in geekdom, artist Todd McFarlane and writer R.A. Salvatore.
Since that time, we have been waiting patiently as then Green Monster Games began to grow a strong team behind it and morphed into the 38 Studios that it is today. While the team still isn't talking in specifics about their MMO, we do know a few things. For instance, we know that that they are trying to make a story-driven MMO where player action matters to the world.
Talking to Steve and knowing that he wouldn't tell me the name of the game, or give me more details, I talked instead about his job with the company and some of the challenges that may have come up in the last year of development on their mystery project:
I was intrigued by the idea of a true story-driven MMO, but one of the core failings of this idea is the very nature of MMOs themselves. How can you make a game that is story-driven not just in that there is a story, but story driven in the sense that the players are intimately involved with both the story and its telling. How are they doing this?
"What we're really trying to do is put the story at the core of the players' experience such that it's not something that they have to dig for," Danuser said, it's not something that they have to go looking for; 'Oh, I happened to find this book over here so now I know that this dungeon is about.' We want it to be happening all around them. We want the story to be driven by player events. So when we're going through and planning out what the story parts are, what we're doing is saying, 'what is the player experiencing and doing here that drives the story forward. We're still controlling the pacing, but we're doing it in such a way that gives the player the chance to jump in and feel that they are helping to push it along as well. So it's really a combination of tricks and stroytelling that a lot of other games have done in part, but not all the way. That's when having someone like [R.A. Salvatore] who is so good at pacing and stories and having that quality of storytelling is invaluable to the design team."
With that question answered, I went on to ask if having names like R.A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane, whose bodies of work are so revered by their fans, meant that the developers working on the unannounced project feel a pressure above and beyond the norm for an MMO:
"It's not a worry at all," Steve answered. "Quite the opposite. What we, members of the team feel is that they have set a bar of quality for us. That it drives us as a goal for what we have to match."
From Todd, we are told, the developers get a guiding influence in visual quality. From Salvatore, it's expertise in telling a story that people get involved and invested in. Even Curt Schilling (better known for his fastball than his artistic abilities) provides a great amount of experience to the team. Schilling, according to Danuser, is used to accomplishing things that people think may be impossible. As a result, that attitude is passed onto the rest of the development team. Essentially, Steve took my quesiton and used it as an opportunity not only to say that there are many people behind these three big names, but that those people are influenced by the best qualities of all three in terms of the game that they are making.
Continuing to talk about the development team behind the three big names, I asked how much of the critical MMO experience the team actually has.
"Well, we have a team that is built from a core of really great MMO experience, as well as other games." He pointed to someone like Scott Cuthbertson (VP of Creative Development), who has an extensive resume, but said that there was a core of the team who had worked together at SOE. From there, he told us, developers were brought in through a network of relationships to build as strong a team as possible.
With that question answered, I asked Steve how it has been to work on a title that seems so shrouded in mystery in terms of what theya re allowed to say to the public and to the press.
He told us that they more or less have a problem that is opposite to those of other companies. "If you're starting a studio and you don't have any money, but you have some great idea that you want to sell this game, you have to start pitching it to all of these people who may or may not get it or may or may not know what an MMO is. We have the opposite of that. We have these three huge celebreities in their own fields where people know their names and know what they've done so that we don't have to hype ourselves. It's really for us, about managing what they hype is so we really focused in the early days on who we were're about as a studio."
From there, the team plans to expand what they are talking about. They will start talking about the process and eventually more about the game over time. MMORPG.com will be continuing to follow this company closely and like many, this reporter has high hopes for their finished product.
For now though, we will have to let our curiosities reign for a little longer over what the developers at 38 Studios are cooking up to throw into the MMO marketplace, but one thing is clear. Even if we're not sure what it is, they have a plan.
Cant wait to hear what the game will be...here goes to wishing for a Steam Punk MMO ^^.
~HappyGaming
Id be willing to put money that it is going to be a fantasy mmo... and that darkelves will be involved somehow :)
actually, it is going ot be a fantasy MMO. I reported on that ages ago. as far as dark elves go... well, maybe, but Salvatore's experie3nce goes way beyond just Drizzt.
I was wondering when MMORPG would get an interview with 38 studios. I'm glad you guys said your going to be following them now.
Interesting, I never was actually expecting to see this get off the ground! Just seemed way out there at the time, but the story-driven idea sounds great if they can pull it off!
Im Completely stunned that Curt Schilling is into MMORPG's...thats amazing. Hopefully...with Curt's money he'll develope an extremely in-depth game.
OMG! I'm stoked to experience what Salvatore writes and McFarlane designs. Should make for some great characters with strong spines and good looks.
(just don't make it 'level' based, skill based like UO/EVE please!)
Years ago, when household computers were a rarity and before "the internets" took off, I played PBM (Play-By-Mail) games. One of the games I played was story-driven. It was great, but there was a problem: all stories must come to an end sooner or later, but when the story ends, so does the game. The company in question didn't want to lose their cash cow, so they kept stringing the story along... until eventually all the founding players quit, and new players were reluctant to start the game because who likes tuning into the middle of a movie?
A story-drive game would be very difficult to make. I'd love to give it a try, but conceptually I don't understand how it would work, given 1) all stories must end and 2) people play at different rates and at different times.
This is going to be terrific! Lotta 38 Studios news lately, when is mmorpg.com going to set up a page so we can indulge in crazy premature speculation?
why do i keep reading his name as "Steve Dinosaur"
Fantasy MMO... oh well, another pass for me. I wish I was like most and that swords and Dragons were my thing but sadly, Steam Punk is much closer to what I like lol...
YES
R.A.Salvatore story mmorpg in a fantasy world 
Its like dream come true for me. I probably read all his books i could lay my hands on and just cant wait 
I guess GL to the dev team :)
If theres one thing that the MMO market has learned over the last 2 years is that big names on a dev list do not guarantee an MMO to be a surefire hit above all others, the same goes for other names like "Garriott" and "Mcquaid".
Sure these guys in 38 Studios are respected in their own fields, but this is a new ball park. But, a "vision" is nothing more than just a vision, if you don't have the necessary experience and know how to turn it into a reality.
Until we see results, I'll reserve judgement for now.
Oh great, another story based fantasy MMORPG. Hopefully it will be more of a sandbox and not like Lotro or DDO. Its completely ridiculous when you have hundreds of thousands of players playing through the same story events day in and day out. Help! You must save the world! That guy that just came before you already saved the world actually... but you can do it again! And the guy after you can save the world as well! In exactly the same way! Everyone is special! MMORPGs shouldn't play like single player RPGs.
Hopefully when they say story driven they mean something more like Asherons Call where every month there is a development in the story. Every now and then a one time event. Not a MMORPG on rails.
And if they insist on going the fantasy route, I hope they develop their own unique races and fauna instead of rehashing elves, dwarves, and dragons yet again.
With Salvatore behind the story and McFarlane behind the art I think we can expect a bit more than a simple rehash.
On a related note, I've been looking at some of the work that the 38 Studios art team has done for this year's dominance war, and it's actually pretty impressive.
In my mind MMORPG is a newone to me, you can play a game with other players on the internet and also make friends. competition is the vital element in the game, so I like MMORPG.
@ Burtzum:
But how would you actually implement a game in which multiple people COULD all save the world, yet in different ways? Say you've got 1,000,000 players playing your game, you're going to have to come up with 1,000,000 different evil overlords/diabolic rituals/armies of doom/portals to hell/etc etc all in the same world.
That's one pretty f----d up world, wouldn't you say?
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see an MMO where each player drives the story, but I don't see how it could actually be made...
You can almost be guarenteed that there will be Elves, Dwarves and the like in the game 38 makes. And you can be pretty sure about Dark Elves as well.
I read a interview with R.A. about the game and when asked if Dark Elves would be in, he didnt say yes, but he did say that he sees no reason to stray away from what he is known for.
From what i have heard they are going to try to make this a into the whole package deal, MMO, Books, Comics, Figures, etc.
I have hope for this game, but not too much hope.
This release and the MMO by Bioware (Forgotten Realms PLEASE, sorry to all you who hate fantasy but i love Forgotten Realms) are what i am really looking forward to some real info on.
You wouldn't. Not in the way you were suggesting. I wasn't suggesting that. You could have the devs implement a unique quest during some months.
An example from Asherons Call: For months these floating crystal shard enemies were appearing in the world. There were some larger ones in the depths of dungeons that players were killing, for the challenge as well as the rewards that doing so gave. You could only kill them once. And it was a huge undertaking. Whoever did the most damage had their name broadcast on the channels. And got "phat lewt". But throughout the months there were books found that hinted that these crystals were the only thing keeping an evil god at bay. Trapped in a prison. Several were destroyed, and then one month access to the last one was put into the game. Half the players wanted to destroy it for the "phat lewt" and the fun of it, despite the warnings, and the other half of the player base tried to defend them from the rest of the players. The dungeon containing the last crystal was restricted to players who had “sworn allegiance to Bael'Zharon” (in gameplay terms, activated their character for PvP). This allowed the players to decide the outcome. Some monarchies decided to band together and organize a 24/7 defense of the crystal. Monarchs who were trying to get through and destroy the crystal were messaged by Bael'Zharon and given powerful weapons to help them fight their way to the last crystal. On 6 servers the shard fell. On the 7th the defending players were still holding strong. So the devs helped one of the attacking players on that server, spawned powerful NPCs to help the attackers to destroy the defending monarchies. Actually I think some of those NPCs helping the attacking players were controlled by devs. I think they STILL had trouble defeating the defending players. But Turbine unfortunately had decided to force the same outcome on all servers so there wouldn't be a divergence in the story from server to server. So eventually the last server had their crystal destroyed as well. Turbine gave that server a unique statue to commemorate that server's extraordinary defense.
Therein lies the problem with that method though, diverging servers. If you have multiple servers things can get very complicated for the devs. Even a forced outcome as in Asherons Call is more interesting than trying to allow all players to feel like they are the one true hero though. If your game only had one massive world (server) like EVE online, then you could write the story to have two possible paths and let the players move it in one direction or the other. It would still be more work than making an online single player RPG and calling it a MMORPG.
I think these epic monthly installments of stories as in Aherons Call, combined with the tools for players to make their own story and gameplay as in Eve Online, would be ideal. No game has been perfect yet. MMORPGs are still a relatively new genre. But making them play like linear single player games just boggles my mind.
heres an article about the Asherons Call event for anyone who is interested: http://www.ethblue.com/acpaper/page2.htm
Hmmm they all seem to be into the cartoony goofy exaggerated style, not my cup of tea. But they are all certainly capable of painting and modeling well. Josh Singh in particular has got a very professional and stylistically cohesive model there. Whats funny is I was expecting something darker, having McFarlane as art director and all. When I think McFarlane I think of Spawn toys and Hellraiser-looking toys. Though game assets could very well be the complete opposite of these guys' personal works. Who knows.
As for elves, I remember looking through the Salvatore books in a local bookshop and seeing dark elves. Hopefully the elves will at least not live in typical elvish tree house swirly architecture and wield bows. I'll have to pick up some Salvatore since you suggest he has an original take.
My beef with the stock fantasy ideas is that MMORPGs offer a unique opportunity to craft a world. I'm a bit of a nature geek, love going for walks seeing what sorts of bugs and plants I can find. Love reading about cultures and seeing images of architecture from around the world. Love reading about new ideas pertaining to planets and moons in our system. I'm attracted to games for the same reason. I like to explore and see what this unique world is all about. If its yet another game on rails that prevents me from exploring and features races and creatures that have been regurgitated for the past 50 years I lose interest.
Anyway. I'm in no way trying to damn 38 studios or anything. I have no idea what this game will be like. Just talking, discussing concerns. Its a unique situation that you have a start up team with less concerns about the financial side of game dev. They are in a unique position to break out of the mold and take a chance on something new it seems. I'll have to keep an eye on the project and see if they go for it.
I can't really say much about this company, other than I will be watching it out of curiosity, to see what they will do.
With that said, I love the way they are marketing. I'm so tired of hearing all about a game six years before it comes out, only to have it be nothing like originally promised.
I'd much rather hear, "we are working on a game, we will let you know about it when we have a solid product."
Hopefully they keep tight lipped about it until they are at least within a year of release. Nothing worse than half a decade of hype over something that doesn't exist.
I think your concerns are certainly valid. The 38S team is going to have to really deliver something profound, especially since they have made it clear that they are operating within the confines of the fantasy genre. I just believe that if any team is capable of pulling it off, this is the one.
We could see something completely different though. They arent creating a Forgotten Realms game, they say it will be a completely new world which R.A. is creating. The posibilities are great.
Todd McFarlane
+
R.A. Salvatore
+
Curt Shilling
=
cool T-Shirts and Coffee Mugs, not necessarily a great MMORPG.