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

by Cody "Micajah" Bye

To say that the Stargate license is a tremendous boon to any video game development studio would be an understatement. First as a moderately popular movie then as the longest running science fiction series in United States history, the Stargate brand has captivated audiences throughout the 90s and for most of the first decade in the 21st century. Stargate SG-1 continues to be an immensely popular TV show even as it runs in syndication, and Stargate Atlantis thrives in its time slot on the SciFi channel. Stargate has garnered fans throughout the world, and it certainly would gather a large amount of fans to any video game that gets made.

This is a bit of concept artwork showing off the vendors in the Lucia slums.

Enter Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment and Stargate Worlds; the company's upcoming MMOG based on the activities, characters and actions as seen in the movies and television shows. Since September 2005, CME has been working to create a world that will capture the attention of the diverse Stargate audience and still remain a fun and interactive game for those players that may not be familiar with the Stargate universe. It's a daunting task, but one that the folks at Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment take up with zest and panache. The experienced crew - made up of industry veterans like Zeb Cook and Joe Ybarra - has certainly shown enthusiasm for their work.

However, over this last summer the crew at CME went into a "blackout" period, a time when the developers weren't talking to anyone but the crew inside their own offices. While they were still at work, the developers at CME simply needed some time to get to work and make the game that everyone wants to see. The last few months have seen a reemergence in the activity at CME, and Kevin Balentine, the company's senior marketing manager, has been releasing information slowly to the public. While he was at the inaugural showing of the newest consumer video game convention, E For All, Kevin called into our conference line for a quick check up with the status of Stargate Worlds.

Balentine pointed out that most of the concept artwork we're seeing is an accurate representation of what's going into the game.

Initially, we really wanted to check with the team and how their overall morale was doing with the current major upheavals in the MMO market. With the loss of Gods and Heroes, the two month reprieve for Warhammer Online, the delay of Age of Conan and, prior to all that, the slow disintegration of Sigil, the MMOG marketplace has never been in a more distraught environment.

However, Kevin seemed pretty confident about the morale of the team in general, saying that they are surprisingly happy. “We’ve got a lot of experience and some really good management,” Balentine began. “We’ve got leaders from the business side of the fence and the gaming realm, so I think they struck a nice balance in terms of guys that know things have to ship and guys that know that things have to ship right.”

“To give an example of the management’s techniques, they just reorganized how our vacation and sick time is being used,” Balentine said. “Instead of being separate, the employees just have one pool of days that they can use however they need it. So it’s nice for guys like me who want a little longer break when it comes to Christmas time. It’s a small thing, but people really appreciate it.”

“As far as the guys working on the game,” he continued, “they’re involved with the fan forums, and they’re excited about what they’re working on. Our staff is constantly trying to think of ways to expand the area that they’re working on, and it’s apparent that the entire team is extremely committed to what they’re working on. Every time you walk by an artist’s desk they’ll have two screens running: one with their work and the other with Stargate episodes running. So it’s definitely a good place to work.”

The Stargate Worlds universe is living and breathing; it's far from static.

Pleased to know that the Stargate Worlds team wasn’t taking the MMOG market shake-up to seriously, we turned our questions more towards the game and the future of that world. While it’s been stated in previous interviews that there could be some tie-ins between the game and whatever Stargate TV series is running, we wanted to run the question by Balentine again to see what the current situation was concerning TV/Game tie-ins.

“As a matter of fact, this is one of the things that’s really going to propel us into the future,” Balentine stated. “In the terms of licensed Hollywood intellectual property, your blockbuster film is good for your single player video game. Your television series is the equivalent of an MMOG. That’s the dynamic that we see. There’s a great degree of incentive and a great degree of work for us in having a tie-in with this television series on a regular basis. We want to push people towards the series and have the series push people towards the game.”

“Our idea is to have things show up in the series, and then when you boot up your computer and log into the game the same sort of situations or creatures will be in the game,” he continued. “It goes both ways, though. We can introduce something into the game, and then the next week when you watch the television series you’ll see the new items, creatures or areas in the show. That’s what we’re shooting for.”

The developers at Stargate Worlds are hoping to expand the fan base from the television series.

“If you look at the progression of Stargate,” Balentine said, “it began with the movie, which wasn’t a blockbuster but had its fair share of fans. The television series (SG-1) expanded on that popularity so that it was larger than the movie ever was. Stargate Atlantis – through the first three seasons – were just as good or better than Stargate SG-1 as they ran concurrently. We want to take those numbers and expand and build on those numbers like the previous versions of Stargate has expanded on the fan base.”

As we neared the end of our interview, we wanted to find out what the current situation was concerning the development of Stargate Worlds. I mean with a several month blackout, how are fans supposed to know if the game is on schedule or if things have been delayed? We asked Kevin to find out and his answer left us fairly speechless.

"We've got a playable version of the game inside of our building,” Balentine said. “I'm not prepared to release our beta schedule yet, but I can say that we're going to be releasing the game in the fourth quarter of next year. You can do the math and figure out when our beta program will be."