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

At New York Comic Con, we caught up with 38 Studios Founder Curt Schilling to discuss the latest on Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. During the interview, we learned of the launch timeframe for Reckoning, whether R.A. Salvatore's involvement with the Cryptic Studios-produced Neverwinter will affect his involvement with the game, and also learn just a little more about what our character's initial experience will be like in 38 Studios' freshman project.

---

Ten Ton Hammer: How's development on Reckoning moving along?

Curt: It's coming. We're getting into some big milestones, some big completion dates, and the game - well, I'm obviously biased, but the game is a blast.

Ten Ton Hammer: So you're playing Reckoning internally?

Curt: Oh yea, I've been playing it for about 8 months now. This last twelve months is where you really turn it from an 85 to a 95, and we're trying to make sure we didn't drink our own Kool-Aid - start the focus testing, validate our decisions, and make sure what we believe to be true is true.

Curt Schilling at NY Comic Con

Ten Ton Hammer: That pegs Reckoning for a holiday 2011 release. Are you comfortable with that date?

Curt: Yea. Recognizing we need to be fluid there - there are a couple of titles that we're paying attention to, that everyone's paying attention to, and we're trying to make sure we have breathing room when we do our thing.

Ten Ton Hammer: R.A. Salvatore recently released Gauntlgrimm, the first of three tie-in Drizzt novels for Neverwinter, the Cryptic Studios-produced co-op Dungeons & Dragons PC game.  Has his involvement with Neverwinter impacted his time with Amalur at all?

Curt: No, not at all. Reckoning, from a story standpoint, is more a matter of R.A. checking in and making sure that the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed. The Age of Arcana, the time period that was chosen for the setting of the game, is something that was already written and fleshed out.

Ten Ton Hammer: Turning to the game, what's the level of individuality we'll see in Reckoning? Will the story line branch based on players' decisions? How much is the game about your story versus a generic story you're living out?

Curt: It's everything. It's a single-player role playing game, so if the single most important entity in the world is not you, there's a problem. And that's the case not only from an appearance perspective, but from a gameplay perspective. For someone who's relying on story and world to be tangibly different and carry forward to other products, the character has to be everything. A lot of companies pay lip service to the fact that you're the hero, but not a lot of games make you feel that way.  That's one of the things I've noticed happening with Reckoning in the last 8-10 months; a shift towards making sure that's actually the feel you get from the game.

Ten Ton Hammer: Do you start as a major character, a major hero in the story, or do you have to work your way up Jeffersons-style?

Curt: I can't really tell you right now, but needless to say, the entry point into the game has massive consequences across the entire experience. How, and where, and when you're coming into the game is an enormously huge piece of content.

Ten Ton Hammer: From the trailer, we know that the story explores the Well of Souls and how resurrection came to be in the history of Amalur. Is resurrection something that players discover haphazardly (maybe by getting too close to that giant winged, three jawed thing), or is it something that players are directly involved with bringing into existence?

Curt: Yes to both. I've always talked about how the first 15 minutes of gameplay needs to feel like the first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, right? You're going to have to catch your breath a couple of times. That's not just action and animation, that's got to be like, "Holy @#!T!" from a story perspective. So we've got to make you understand that right off the bat. It's a lot easier to do in a single player experience than as an MMO.

Ten Ton Hammer: We all know Todd McFarlane as a specialist in all things dark and gritty - you see his stuff all over the place here at Comic Con. But we've seen fairly idyllic environments presented for Copernicus too. Will both be part of Reckoning? Can Todd pull that off?

Curt: Yes. Yea, there's a darkness to Todd that doesn't always involve blood. There's a subtle, McFarlane way to do that. We wanted to nail the artistic vision of the world, and we wanted the two products to have a tie, artistically and visually. I mean, we're talking about immortality, which depending on your perspective could be incredible or really dark. Todd brings the angle to the dark side that few people could bring.  The other big piece is the animation. Todd is intensely involved with the animation on both products, and that's another one of the places where I feel Todd has a signature impact.

Reckoning niskaru battle

Ten Ton Hammer: So if Todd's the dark side, is R.A. the bright, heroic side?

Curt: Yes, but R.A. has both. R.A. always talks about creating a world that players actually care about enough to protect or destroy. So, you need both, and in my mind you create one side and then you go to the other side and do the push-pull. For a lot of the bright side, it was getting the beauty and the wow factor, and then going, "Ok, let's get nasty." That's where Todd came in.

Ten Ton Hammer: You've been playing the game for quite a while now, and I know you get down to the Big Huge Games studios in Maryland to check things out on a regular basis. Despite being involved in such a fundamental way, is there anything really special about the game that continues to surprise you?

Curt: There's a lot of things. The first thing is, you can hear about open world and play open world, but it's a far different thing to be on the developing side of open world. When you say open world, I can go off in any direction and I'm not going to run into a collision matrix that's unfinished art. It's massive on a scale I never could imagine. The second thing is that a particular amount of play time is being added in content per week. Watching the combat evolve, the tech evolve, and thinking about where we were at a year ago, there's a couple game systems that are coming online right now that are badass - our stealth system, in particular, is bad ass. Bad ass. Some brilliant people are involved in making these game systems for us.

Thanks to Curt Schilling and the 38 Studios crew for taking time out to chat at NY Comic Con 2010.