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

So does that mean 38 Studios is attempting to create a world that’s at least more dynamic than the current static MMOG worlds that we see today?

“Oh yes, much more dynamic,” Brett responded. “Things are absolutely influenced by what your character does.”

“Yeah, I mean obviously its harder to do than a static world. The question you have to ask is, ‘What is the granularity of dynamicity?’ How granular do you want to go? Are we talking about the butterfly effect? Will killing off this wolf cause an imbalance in the general ecosystem so later the trolls will all die out? Are we getting that crazy? Obviously not, but are there clear cause and effect things that make it clear that what you do with you and your crew has meaning in the world? Absolutely. Does that fit in to a larger story context? Absolutely.”

“Ideally what you want to do is allow the player to create their own story within the tapestry that he’s laid out,” Brett continued. “That’s critical. On the other hand, you can’t have a world like Second Life where players can do whatever they want. If you don’t have some sort of structure, you’re not delivering an entertainment experience.”

Brett and Cody discussing storytelling in MMOGs.

“Really it’s one of those fundamentals of game design,” he said. “If you clamp people down too much, they’ll think they’re playing on a rail. But if you open it up too much, players can’t find the entertainment experience in the game. That balance is sort of the magic of very solid game design.”

“Frankly, there are a lot of interesting parallels in game design and movie writing,” Brett added. “There are a ton of games out there that explore that sort of experience. Of course it’s not easy, but it’s been done in single player games. Now it just needs to be done on the MMOG side of things.”

By a ton of games, I assumed that Brett was talking about single player games. As his background is mainly in single player titles (although he was working on a MMOG game at VR1 Studios), Brett seems perfectly suited to bringing the single player gameplay to the massively multiplayer realm. I asked him about this, and what sort of things he’s brought from single player games to the multiplayer table.

“I think there’s a lot to learn from the single player games,” Brett said. “MMOGs are great, they’re an enjoyable experience and there’s a lot of value in what they do. However, in many ways it seems like the community experience has allowed players to overlook the sort of story experience that’s missing from MMOGs but inherent in a vast number of single player games. There are a lot of things in non-MMOGs that are just…fun…and you don’t see a lot of that in MMOGs. It makes you go, ‘Why?’ There are a lot of experiences there that are really cool! Clearly there’s a lot to learn there.”

“I still believe – and this is an embarrassing statement – I still believe that people will pay a chunk of money to go have a solid, entertaining experience,” Brett continued. “Look at movies and when the price of a movie went up to $10 a ticket. There was a lot of complaining at first, but now people are more than willing to pay $10 to go see a movie. If you do it right, people will pay your price because it’s good. It’s worth the money.”

But there are so many people that believe fantasy MMOGs are dead! The one portion of the 38 Studios game that we do know about is that the game is going to be set in a fantasy world. Yet everyone believes that fantasy games are a dying breed. I posed this concern to Brett, who responded with the best counter-point I’ve heard on the subject.

“It’s sure too bad what happened to Harry Potter after the whole Lord of the Rings thing,” Brett said with a smile. “Definitely quote me on that. Fantasy is sort of ingrained into our DNA. Star Wars was fantasy! You look closely, and there are reasonably similar analogs that apply in Asia and vice versa. There’s just something about fantasy that crosses those boundaries.”

The 38 Studios Mascot, Munch

As we wrapped up the interview, I turned the ball over to Brett so he could close out with whatever thoughts he’d like to express to the Ten Ton Hammer readers. He did voice his thoughts and offered a little hint on the content in the upcoming 38 Studios game.

“It’s exciting because we have so many options and opportunities in front of us,” he said. “Specifically in the MMOG industry, it’s just not being done. We want people to step back and just say, ‘Wow.’ We also want to engage the user on a cerebral level, because they’ll have opportunities to piece different elements of the story together and start to see some of the larger story arcs going on within the game, like what’s occurring with the various races in our world.”

“It really needs to be the next step,” Brett said. “There will be lots of other companies that continue to make the MMOG 1.0 type experience, and that’s fine. There are plenty of people who see value in that. We just see so much more that can be done in MMOGs.”           

Thanks again to Brett for sitting down with us and conversing about the future of MMOGs, and his game in particular. For more information about 38 Studios and their games, make sure you check out the Ten Ton Hammer ComicCon coverage!

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