Behind Carbine Studios
MMORPG.com had the opportunity to speak with Carbine Studios Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney about his new studio, the kind of game they are making and the general development philosophies of the developers behind the as-yet-unnamed game.
Interviews By Jon Wood on May 13, 2009
| MMORPG.com: | Can you tell us a little bit about how Carbine Studios came to be? |
| Jeremy Gaffney: | Carbine was originally founded by a number of seniors and leads who left Blizzard's World of Warcraft team after that game launched. NCsoft was very impressed with Carbine's founders, and signed the team on as an internal studio - the team has been quietly working ever since. Since being founded with around 10 people, the team has grown to about 75, with experienced people from a large number of shipped MMOs. |
| MMORPG.com: | You have a lot of talent gathered from some pretty prominent MMOs. Can you give us some examples and some idea of their positions within the team? |
| Jeremy Gaffney: | ;) Obviously, we have a bunch of guys with WoW experience, but we also have folks who worked on EQ2, Warhammer Online, Vanguard, Gods and Heroes, Pirates of the Burning Sea, City of Heroes and a number of other MMOs. Those people have positions throughout Carbine, with many of them in senior positions in programming, management, art, and design. In general we think that most of the games that come out have strong points in one area or another - being geeky fanboys ourselves we've tried to get people who worked on systems that excited us. F'rinstance, the gent who was behind that neat Diplomacy minigame in Vanguard is working on our tradeskill minigames, and one of the guys behind Warhammer's cool public quest system is heading up our content team and working on our own unique content systems. Oh, and I shouldn't forget Tim Cain, our design director, who is also pretty well-known for his work creating Fallout. |
While we know that you can't talk specifics about the game that you're working on, I wanted to ask a few questions about the overall philosophies of the studio (or those in charge of it):
| MMORPG.com: | We know that you have people on staff from the team behind Blizzard's World of Warcraft. How important do you think it is to a) keep close to the WoW formula or b) differentiate as much as possible from the WoW formula when it comes to design? |
| Jeremy Gaffney: | In our opinion, clone games fail. World of Warcraft did some stuff great, but the games that are going to try to formula exactly are going to find they're competing in a market of people who have played that game for the last four years and want something new. Now the core of what made World of Warcraft work is still important - polish, balance, tuning, and being very critical and iterative in your development. But in terms of systems and content, games that don't break significant new ground are going to have a very tough time of it, and we don't plan on making that mistake. |
| MMORPG.com: | We know that you are making a science fiction (or Science Fantasy) MMO. Can you tell us a little bit about what can be learned from the current crop of sci-fi MMOs, both successful and cancelled? |
| Jeremy Gaffney: | Science Fiction has some inherent trickiness to the genre - it's very difficult to make scifi accessible while at the same time appealing to the diehard fan. For instance, Star Wars has a pretty broad appeal - it's a universe that is cool and you could see wanting to live in it, and it has archetypes that are recognizable and aspirational - you get what a Wookiee is without having to read 3 pages of technobabble backstory. That's tough to pull off in science fiction! So that's a challenge we've tackled - making a world you can understand fairly quickly and that you WANT to be in - that doesn't try to bombard you with how geeky we are yet still has enough depth to appeal to our inner geeks. |
| MMORPG.com: | What advantages and / or freedoms does making a sci-fi MMO give your team? |
| Jeremy Gaffney: | Any genre that hasn't been overdone is really fun to work in; being able to juggle science and magic means that the creative shackles are off. There have been some good SciFi MMO's made - Star Wars Galaxies, Planetside, EVE, and more - and each has been really different and there are some big swaths of cool untouched territory in between those sub-genres. |
| MMORPG.com: | What are some of the detractors or pitfalls in making a non-fantasy MMO? |
| Jeremy Gaffney: | One big benefit of the fantasy genre is that the archetypes are super-recognizable - maybe not to the general public, but certainly to the MMO fan. If you play a warrior or a mage or a rogue, you have a lot of knowledge about what your playstyle might be or your role within a party. Choosing your race and class are super-important decisions that a player makes - in fact, really about the ONLY non-reversible decisions a player makes in the average MMO - and you do it within seconds of entering a game, before you know anything about the world. In scifi, you're making these very important decisions with less info yet - there just aren't the established cleric, magic-user, thief roles that you might expect in fantasy - nor races you've seen a thousand takes on like dwarves and elves. We try to strike a balance with some recognizable archetypes for players that might feel more comfortable with a role they know about - but that still has our own funky, stylistic take on it. We've also made sure to include some surprises so that the experience will be fresh and new to our players. And some classes really focus on the science and magic blend of our game and the things unique to our universe. You just won't see them or their playstyles in any game you've played before. |
| MMORPG.com: | Recently, there has been a lot of talk about sandbox games vs. "guided experience" or "theme park" games. Can you give us, in your opinion, some pros and cons of each side? |
| Jeremy Gaffney: | The best games have elements of both - a sandbox with zero guidance has replayability but loses and confuses a big chunk of the audience, while a pure theme park game might be fun once, but rarely is going to have the depth needed to have players enjoy years of gameplay. We have a few new ways of delivering quests that allows the world to be more sandboxy and letting you explore "off the rails" while still providing guidance and direction within the sandbox...more on that later once we start showing more of the game down the road. |
| MMORPG.com: | On the subject of advancement: What different approaches to character advancement need to be considered when starting a new MMO project? |
| Jeremy Gaffney: | There's more to character advancement than just leveling and gaining abilities - one of our core mantras is "play how you want, when you want, with whom you want". If a player wants to level up doing battlegrounds and doesn't like PvE, we try to let them do that. Some players only play in groups, some only play solo, many mix - all that has to be valid, and making sure that you can find groups and your friends when you want is a key to that. Another thing that games have done in the past that can be improved on is that there is often a very hard shift at the level cap - you might have enjoyed soloing up to the cap, but now the gameplay shifts to raiding with 10-20 people or pure PvP - and that's a very hard adjustment to make. We try to smooth that by having a softer "jump" at cap between the different playstyles, and encouraging both shifting between playstyles and supporting those who really want to focus on just one playstyle: be it PvP, PvE, soloing, grouping, raiding, or tradeskilling. |
These folks, at least initially, seem to get it, although they still seem to be stuck in the levels quagmire.
New rule: Everyone who uses the words 'fluff' or 'technobabble' to shrug off most of what's worthwhile about fiction gets beaten with a book and shipped in pieces to whatever schools they attended, as well as their parents.
kk, my interest is piqued. It seems in their pursuit of this game, they fell back to levels to simplify the character advancement. This maybe the trade off for them to make a good experiance in other areas. Wait and see ...
What's the name of the game?
I already do tons of reading, both professionally and for leisure. I really don't want to read a book before I'll even understand the game world. So I have to disagree with you on this. If I'm able to learn about the world as I play it, that's more entertaining for me. That is, afterall, why I prefer games to books. I prefer to play through a story than read one.
It looks like it's currently called "unnanounced Massively Multiplayer Game." Pretty exciting...
Nobody is commenting on the name of the MMO yet. Only thing Carbine has said to date is that it is a combination Sci-Fi/Fantasy type game.
My ONLY concern with Carbine Studios is if they dont give us something soon we may TEND to lose interest. Remember we are gamers and our attention spans go fast.
Well the two screenshots they used are looking good so far, have to wait to see what the rest will be before making a more informed judgement.
I'm interested - they are saying absolutely the right words that makes the game interesting to me. I'll be watching this one.
they spoiled it with that " sandbox have replayability " in comparison with theme park game.. like mmo replayability is the reason we play mmos.. god no, im sick tired of all those mmos
who focus so much on xx-xx lvl content.. and end up broken and empty at the end..
no i wont be making new char.. no i wont be making new alt.. yes there are ppl who like to it extent.. but if you dont have class system.. which is only reason ppl make alts.. how getting " guns reached lvl 15 "on all 3 of my chars gona be interesting at all
the fact that replayability was like big point to them.. and they mentioned 0 about importance of endgame content.. disappointing..
did noone said.. when wow launched 1-60 was fun for first time.. for many it lacked quests.. many hated.. noone alted in first 1-2 years.. yet they had what.. 3 mln within half year..
why.. it was smooth , polished.. and constant endgame content.. kept players playing
you must have all those kicked funcom employes , which couldnt figure if they want pve or pvp game.. and in the end.. game had content for 1.5 month , oh ye.. warhammer devs too.. another game with content for month..
you aint aiming high..
its not replayability. that keeps players playing.. its the end game content.. just look at this topic.. it should have 20 pages of "oh very interesting " by now.. but it doesnt.. im probably not the only one who found those points very disappointing..
Well he got ONE thing correct,Games had better start breaking NEW ground.This is something i would like to see ALL staff members ask in interviews.They shoudl ask these develoeprs ,what UNIQUE ideas have they brought to the gaming industry.This alone would spark interest,as many would soon realize they have done NOTHING,and maybe get the hint that they should start to do some actual thinking behind their projects.
There is NO WOW formula,that one makes me laugh EVERYTIME i see it,as it is actually an EQ formula,WOW copied it because in essence they do NOT have any unique ideas of their own.I often see developers/staff/other players talk about "This game or WOW has FUN quests",i am like WTF?I played WOW ,it does NOTHING FUN for quests it is the same old BS all over again,who are people trying to fool?As a matter of FACT,there is no unique questing done in ANY GAME.There is some cool quest ideas spread out amongst several different games,but the core of the quests are always the same.
I hear in every hyped up speech "We don't plan on making the same mistakes again"umm nice talk,but that is all i see, is games making the same mistakes all over again,oh well talk is cheap,not like i expect a developer to come out and say "You know we are going to be giving you the exact same game as everyone else".
This guy mentioned that they went after the guy who created the VG Diplomacy idea,i agree it was unique and a cool idea.HOWEVER ! why can't people think up their OWN ideas?why do they need to hire people that can do it for them?Why can't developers hire fresh,new young faces,and have them create bonified UNIQUE ideas?
Look no further than FFXI,there is more unique ideas in that game and of course EQ2 brought in MANY unique ideas that it makes the rest of the industry look like inept developers.I think i will PUKE if i hear one more person talk about what "WOW" brought us,the real truth is NOTHING.Then i hear the word POLISH used with WOW,again i'm gonna puke,if you bring the industry NOTHING new?what is there to polish?you would have to be an idiot to botch up something already mastered by other games,that you copied.
What the industry needs,is a TRUE LEADER for starters.A game that has long term planning and a budget that allows it all to come together.The leader of the project has to hire people that are capable of THINKING for themselves,if not ,replace them in a hurry.
Slow down there buddy...You are basically saying once someone has put out and idea for another game they are completely spent. You are basically telling this community this man is only capable of thinking up the VG diplomacy idea and therefore needs to be completely replaced.
There is a reason we make resumes when applying for a job. It tells our employer what we have been capable of doing. You are not reading the interview correctly. This is not an example on an idea they want to encorporate into their game at all. This is to show an example that thy have an innovative thinker on their team who is capable of coming up with unique additions to their game. It was an example to show they are hiring people that have been able to think up unique ideas. It was to make hype for the minigames that this guy will come up with.
Oh and yeah....In that sentence I quoted you first say developers should work alone coming up with their own ideas, and then 180 and say they need to hire new faces to come up with ideas. What are you exactly arguing? I mean these developers pick up people looking for work. Teams of people work on these games, not just the developer....I mean one man would never make a successful MMO. You need to rethink your wording or look into what exactly you are arguing. You are all over the place in that post and its very hard to follow.
Damn straight.
That said, I'm looking forward to the game just from that single screenshot of a bunch of different race characters looking away from the camera.
I hope they make a good sci-fi mmo, I really do, and it sounds like they have enough experience (from games that have worked out, and ones that haven't) to pull it off. Maybe.
Of course, they have to play to the popular crowd, because that's where the money is, and they need the money. But hopefully they can do it while also delivering, you know, a good, fun game. WoW kinda killed that for me... Dumbing it down for the masses...
Without ranting on about WoW, I'm just going to say "I miss spell damage for hunters =(" and "sounds interesting, might be good."
Sounds nice, a game made by geeks for geeks.
I wish them all luck with whatever they make.
I see WoW being compared to EQ alot in terms of WoW copying and/or designing alot of the game play features from EQ. I played EQ for years, and WoW for only a month. I guess what made me stay in EQ for so long was the challenge of just leveling up, not to mention getting AA's. Forget questing in EQ. Not a whole hell of a lot to be found.
What Blizzard did with WoW (and the MMO genre as well) is essentially what Bill Gates did with pc's... made them more accessible to the common people. Linux is to EQ what Windows is to WoW.
And now the whole MMO genre has evolved to a point where there are certain expectations to be had with new games and new, innovative features. After playing Darkfall for a day or two I've decided I don't even give a damn if a game has groundbreaking features. Just so long as it works and the devs are mentally stable.
I have to say, I enjoyed reading that interview, it seems to be Carbine Studios know exactly what they're talking about. I'm looking forward to see what they're creating, and I have a feeling deep down inside that this game is going to be something good, and I get that feeling just because of their MMORPG background.
This game will be something differnt, and defenitly something worth checking out.
Well, it does seem NCSoft is investing hard in new titles, lets see how the MMO's market will be in 3 or 4 years. Personally i hope this will be a great game, like many others out there, we need variety and to end the current gap between WoW and all the other games out there, markets are much more healthy and interesting when real competition sets in.
The thing that makes me leary though is that anything that gets published by NCsoft usually has alot of eye candy but no depth or content to it and gets boring & repetitive before halfway to max lvl.
Im going to try to be nice about this, if you guys in the industry decide to put a picture up, shave and get a haircut and try to look respectable. Jeremy. That was directed at you buddy.
If you look so young you shouldnt be working, dont post a pic or better yet GROW A BEARD AND TRY TO LOOK LIKE A GROWNUP. Yes Im talking to you Dana.
You look like the rosey cheeked fourteen year old brother I never had.
*Waits for incoming ban*
See, the key is PUBLISHED by NCSoft, not developed by them. This is CARBINE STUDIOS. A completely seperate dev team than most other NCSoft affiliates. Do try to understand the difference. It might save some heartache in the future.
You are right there, this is a new development studio, and this is their first game. I think people don't give NCSoft enough credit, a lot of their games are fun, thats why they are an MMORPG giant. I could probably validate and agree with the comment that none of their games have any content and was just eye candy until I tried Aion.
However we know what happened when NCSoft tried to produce a Sci-fi/Fantasy blended MMO backed by a Western dev team with talented devs who have worked on past successful projects, ie Richard Garriot's Tabula Rasa.
Interesting for NCSoft to invest in so many different franchises, when they are working on Lineage 3, Aion and this new MMO simultaneously while patching and releasing new expansions for Lineage 2, Lineage, Guild Wars and CoH. In my opinion it would be far more benefitial if a development studio that large could work on developing an epic, super budget MMO with vast content that dwarfs WoW. On the other hand it wouldn't be wise to put all your eggs into one basket either.
Sounds like a dream team, I wish them success and look forward to trying out their game.
That describes EVERY video game ever made.