MMORPG: The game isn't the only thing that's changed. I think the community has too. In what ways have you seen the community evolve and grow over the 10 years?
Leah Ruben: Well, I know 10 years ago ... I don't know if Twitch was a thing, but I know not many people knew about it. If it existed. And now, we just have so many people streaming on Twitch. That's kind of become the new MMO hangout. It's just hanging out on Twitch. And YouTube, again, I'm sure there was YouTube back when we launched, but it wasn't really a big thing. Now ... we make sure that when we launch on test, we're like "is this going to look good on YouTube?" - when people put it up on YouTube and stream it. So, there's just this huge community that's evolved around just hanging out and playing our games. I think that's so cool.
Sam Johnson: Being a relative newcomer to wizard, I don't have much to say on that question. I mean, one thing that you see, and I agree with Leah, it's not just here - it's everywhere. There's this new layer of meta commentary. It's practically community based journalism almost. You know, like your website and everything. It's been really cool moving into wizard full time and finding this community that is creating so much stuff.
Leah Ruben: Yeah, back in the day it was just the game and then the websites. And then Facebook evolved, and Twitter evolved, and Twitch, and all these new social platforms ... there's just so many places where the community can connect with each other and we can connect with the community. It's awesome.
MMORPG: Do you two have a specific favorite in-game memory?
Leah Ruben: ... I mean, from a work perspective, I remember us launching Alpha for the first time. And, it was kinda like we had this big field of snow. Seeing the first players and the first people in our community get in and start playing - it was like footprints on new fallen snow. That was so exciting to me. We had made this thing and we all thought it was fun. But, it was the proving ground. It was time to test that. Will other people think it's fun? And I think they thought it was fun. (laughs)
MMORPG: (laughing) Well, it's lasted 10 years!
Leah Ruben: Yeah, you know, that's a pretty good test of time. (laughs)
Sam Johnson: Um, for me, being the new kid, I have a much narrower window to work with. But, it was definitely when the update (Wizard City makeover) went up. Running around in there, and watching players, and watching them converse, and watching them ride the merry-go-round ... that was really cool. You could feel, you know, it was a launch day again. I mean, every server update is that way to a little degree, but this was very different.
Leah Ruben: I mean, we always watch social media and go in-game and watch what people are saying, but I think almost everybody on the team was feeling that. We're just like, "what do they think? How's it going?"
MMORPG: Is there a particular feature or idea that you worked on that you're most proud of?
Sam Johnson: I would have to say the thing that I'm proudest of - and I can't take full credit for this at all - one of my writers who works for me is really the point guy on this, and it's thanks to his passion that it works. But, basically the degree to which the designers have become able to create dramatic scenes without it being a full on art-driven cinematic. We can have dialogue between characters, and we're playing with the camera and where it goes. Like in Empyrea one -the first introduction of Khan - when the camera does that move from the village up to where he is. That's the sort of thing that years ago would have been impossible. Or, we would have had to take an animator away from animating other characters and just have him do that. But now, we've built in features so that the designers can be much more proactive in creating drama ... and it's not just quest goals. The story is coming alive.
Leah Ruben:I work with design fairly closely on a lot of the features and systems that go in ... but jewel socketing was something that I had kind of come up with years before we put it in. I wrote up a design for it and worked really really closely with design on that one. So, I'll say that. While there are probably some other things that I could think of, the socketing system was one of my favorites. Just cause ... I came up with the initial design of it.
MMORPG: Sooo ... Empyrea Part Two. What can you tease about that?
Leah Ruben:Well, you did see our character that we revealed (on KI Live), right?
MMORPG: I did ... it was really cool looking!
Leah Ruben: We're not saying who it is yet. She's a Nimbari warrior, and we mentioned previously that the Nimbari we had seen before were more studious - so she's different. We wondered what she could be up to.
Sam Johnson: I will say that coming in; Empyrea in general was an interesting challenge from a writing standpoint because it's the end of the arc. And, just because of the nature of these things. You know, every sequel has to be bigger than the previous one. So, the stakes at the end of Mirage are very high, and we amped them even higher at the end of Empyrea one. And so, it's like, "okay, it's resolution time. How do we get from A to B? And where do we want B to be?" The writers and other people got dragged into that conversation too. We had a very interesting time making sure that we could wrap things up.
MMORPG: Have you guys heard of two truths and a lie? I was going to change that to two lies and a truth, if you guys were willing to do that? Two lies and a truth about Empyrea Part Two?
Sam Johnson: I have not heard of that ... and it sounds very intriguing.
(I explain what it is and Sam thinks really hard about his answer.)
Sam Johnson: In Empyrea Part Two ...
- You fight Old Cob.
- You fight (Grandmother) Raven.
- You fight Merle Ambrose.
MMORPG: Ooooh! You're good at this game ...
Leah Ruben: Yeah, they're all fairly implausible and plausible at the same time.
Sam Johnson: (evil laugh) As I'm fond of saying to the pirate community ... that would be telling.
MMORPG: So, I have one last question ... what lies ahead for Wizard101 even beyond Empyrea Part Two?
Sam Johnson: Well, there's one thing I want to say straight up - because I read the forums and the speculation and all that. The end of Empyrea Part Two is not remotely the end of the story of Wizard101. There will be a fourth arc ... I have a few ideas in place for where I want it to go and what I want it to be about. I think my main thing that I've been challenging myself with in trying to come up with this stuff is basically ... the first two arcs, even the third arc, have all pretty much been about "a big bad guy is going to do something that's going to destroy the spiral." So, we spend a lot of time running around and learning what his plan is and then we stop him at the end. Can we do an arc that is fundamentally different from that in structure?
Leah Ruben: Can we? (laughs)
Sam Johnson: Well, I'm hoping that we can. That's what I want to do. In terms of stakes and whatnot, I don't want to set a different tone, but I think we may take a break from fighting gods for awhile.
Leah Ruben:In terms of stuff that's not story arc, we're already sitting down to plan 2019. We're at the point where we're like, "oh ok, here are all of our ideas we want to do and they don't all fit." So, some of them are already pushed to 2020. And we definitely want to do beyond there. We're not stopping. There's no stopping here - we're full steam ahead.
Sam Johnson: No pun intended.
Leah Ruben: (laughs) Right. And we plan to have just as many cool things next year and the year after as we have in the years past.
Wizard101 wouldn't have gotten to its 10 year anniversary without its passionate community. Both Leah and Sam couldn't thank the community enough for everything that's led up to this incredible milestone. So, way to go, wizards! And happy birthday, Wizard101!