by
Cody “Micajah” Bye, Managing Editor



Building a massively multiplayer online game is no small task.
Thousands of man hours are spent trying to put together a product that
will keep players interacting with each other for years, and often that
task can be too time consuming or costly for publishers to undertake.
However, when a company does decide to dive into such an expensive and
lengthy project, it’s important that they keep their eyes on
the prize: the launch of their MMOG. A development company should do
everything in their power to insure that their game is not only an
excellent journey into an online realm, but that it also doesn't take
so much time that it affects fan reaction and the title's budget.

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Brett Close,
President of 38 Studios

So the latest announcement
from 38 Studios concerning the licensing of the Unreal Engine 3 should
come as no
surprise to those individuals that have been closely following the
company.  To learn more about this latest development, Ten Ton
Hammer’s Cody “Micajah” Bye sat down with
38 Studios’ president, Brett Close, to see what Close had to
say on the latest licensing acquisition.



To begin with, Close wanted to clarify just how much time and effort
the engineers at 38 Studios had put into selecting the latest batch of
technology that they had licensed. According to Close, the search was
exhaustive and incredibly thorough, and when the engineers made up
their minds, the Unreal Engine 3 was one of the techs that the company
decided to license. “In terms of a renderer and a
game-building platform from the client side of things, it’s
well established that Unreal is very strong,” Close stated.
“It’s one reason why they’ve been so
successful.”



Concerning BigWorld and the Unreal Engine, Brett said that using the
two engines in tandem gives them an assortment of options.
“It gives us tremendous choices on both how we move forward
on the tool side and the proto-typing and iteration side,” he
said, “as well as eliminating any questions on the back end
server stability and robustness side.”



Close wasn’t the only individual on the 38 Studios staff to
comment on the use of both engines to create their upcoming MMOG. In
the press release that went out earlier this week, John Laff, CTO for
38 Studios, added his own comment to the mix. “History has
taught us that the risk associated with building complex games is
reduced significantly when the core infrastructure and toolsets are in
place early on,” he explained. “With both Unreal
Engine 3 and BigWorld, 38 Studios is marrying two unbeatable
technologies to give us the foundation to produce the highest quality
MMOG we can while still allowing us to focus on making a game that is
uniquely ours."



“It’s all about risk mitigation,” Close
continued in his personal conversation with Ten Ton Hammer.
“This combination, for us, reduces a ton of risk.”



As Close stated in our earlier interview, it’s one of his
philosophies to get a playable version of the game put together as
quickly as possible. (http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/27397 )
“Get some hands on it and have enough gameplay where people
can say whether the game is fun or not fun,” Close said.
“The Unreal Engine, on the client side, is particularly good
at this.”



This statement was mirrored in the previously mentioned press release,
but this time by Jay Wilbur, Vice President of Epic Games.
“Unreal Engine 3 will enable them to quickly iterate and
define their look using high-end graphics and toolsets, integrated
middleware, and collaborate with an entire community of
developers,” he said. “38 Studios is comprised of
some of the industry’s top technological and creative minds,
and we look forward to seeing what they do with our engine.”



But with the announcement of BigWorld and Unreal Engine 3, does this
mean that gamers will soon be seeing assets from the upcoming 38
Studios game? When asked this particular question, Close chuckled and
wanted to assuage any fears about seeing materials for the game and
when this might occur..



“Internally, we already have assets prototyped,”
Close said. “The short answer is that whether or not we show
them sooner rather than later is a choice for us. ”



With the licensing of both the Unreal Engine 3 and BigWorld
technologies, 38 Studios continues to draw ever closer to the point
where they will be able to show a visible product. When that time comes
is obviously the studio’s to decide, but the Ten Ton Hammer
staff knows that the studio will have plenty to show off when
they’re ready.