Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Creating an MMOG like Defiance is a job filled with its own set of challenges and constantly changing development schedules, but adding a television show to the mix for the game to interact with is only going to make the process even more challenging.

At this week’s D.I.C.E. summit, Defiance executives Nick Beliaeff, vice president of production at Trion Worlds, and Mark Stern, president of SyFy, offered a look behind the curtain at some of the challenges that the television show crew and game developers faced while creating what has been dubbed a “transmedia” project. One of the biggest challenges that the two teams faced was agreeing on story and characters so early given that Trion had to begin creating assets for the game long before the television show was to start filming, something that led to a few heated exchanges between the two teams.

“There were times when Nick and I had to get in there and pull people apart and pour cold water on them,” said Stern.

The two teams agreed to set the show and the game in two different locations. The game takes place in San Francisco, where combat is the reality, and the show in St. Louise, where things are more political. Some of the reasons for this decision are obvious given that more than a few players would no doubt try to shoot up the shows cast if given the chance (you know who you are).

“I didn’t want gamers running through my town with guns, shooting up the place,” Stern said.

The television show and game of Defiance will have a degree of interaction although it’s still unclear as to how deep that interaction will go, especially with the filming of first season of the show completed and the second already in the works according to Stern. Whatever the case, the new project should be interesting to watch to see how it develops.

Defiance the game is scheduled to launch on Tuesday, April 2nd for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. The television show will air its pilot episode on Monday, April 15th on the Syfy channel.

Source: Venturebeat