Ten Ton Hammer: Would you
say you’re just testing the waters? The Azeroth Advisor was
popular when it was first introduced, but it wasn’t *that*
popular. Are you just trying to build up the user base and get some
clout behind the Azeroth Advisor?
Schilling:
Essentially – when this article comes out – it will
be the launch of the product. It’s received 3+ years of
“beta testing” already done. What we’ve
done in the last 6-8 months with it is refine it and put the 38 Studios
touch to it. I’m very anxious to see how players and
customers react to it, because this really is our first product.
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The Azeroth
Advisor technology may become a part of other MMOGs as well.
We’re going to be able to take this product and use this
product to engage the MMO player in a way that we couldn’t
otherwise. That will add value to us. We won’t ever
unwillingly send players information or data involving things that they
aren’t fully comfortable doing.
This is not a player or a customer grab. At the end of the day, if we
deliver an incredible product and an incredible experience, I
don’t need to go get other peoples customers.
They’ll come to us. That falls on us, and I’m okay
with that. There are a lot of angles to this that just aren’t
apparent to the naked eye.
Ten Ton Hammer: What kind
of changes have you made to the product? The cosmetic changes to the
Azeroth Advisor are very evident, but have you made any other changes
besides that?
Schilling:
We’ve started to. Cosmetically, we’ve changed
almost everything about it. There’s a level of quality that
we believe we need to set the standards for today and carry forward.
From a content side, before we purchased the Azeroth
Advisor it was mainly focused on getting you up to level 70. Now,
we’re working on creating a lot of different content that
will be relevant to those level 70 players that are raiding, into Arena
combat or battlegrounds, or even content for the hardcore tradeskiller.
That’s a huge portion of the audience, and it can be looked
at as a huge handicap for us.
We’re taking that and turning it into something that
ultimately could be positive. We’re going to be sending these
newsletters to people for an extended period of time, and we need to
have the content for that. Plus, Wrath of the Lich King is coming
out, and we’re getting the drop on that as well. When that
launches, we’ll be doing another launch with the Wrath
content included. Level 70s, for the first time, will be experiencing
the Azeroth Advisor as it was intended to be delivered. It’s
supposed to be a step ahead of you at every level, pulling you to the
instances and the zones you can quest in. You’ll get 10
levels of that at level 70.
After that, it’s up to us to keep you engaged. I had two
level 70s before I even found the Advisor, and when I started getting
that third character up to 70 I realized that I was seeing content that
I missed with both of my first two characters. The game is so big, that
I doubt anyone has seen all the content unless they have six or seven
level 70s. There’s so much that you simply miss a lot of it.
As a business man, I look at it this way: if you’re going to
spend 100 million dollars to create a game, wouldn’t you want
players to experience that content? If I can point them in the right
direction…..
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Copernicus
will definitely have an Azeroth Advisor component.
Ten Ton Hammer: Are you
going to bring the Azeroth Advisor technology into other MMOGs as well?
Schilling:
Absolutely. We’re in discussions with a bunch of different
companies – and not just companies that are working on MMOs
– from Xbox Live franchises to other franchises. There are a
couple reasons for that, number one being that we can have this service
available to a company in a personalized newsletter format in six
months.
We’re really looking to branch out to be able to service any
product that has a global online community.
Ten Ton Hammer: Will you
be looking to expand your “stable” of writers in
the future?
Schilling:
Yes. We’re always looking for good writers and
we’re engaging with writers from a variety of different
games.
Ten Ton Hammer: And
I’m assuming you’re going to have an Azeroth
Advisor type service when you launch Copernicus?
Schilling:
That’s a no brainer, right? There are so many things
we’re going to be able to add compared to what was done with
the Azeroth Advisor. Mentor Media created that three years after WoW
launched, now you’re going to have a game that’s
been built side-by-side with this technology. There’s so much
potential in the product – from delivering story to
delivering video to delivering anything you want – and
that’ll be implemented well ahead of the launch of our game.
Ten Ton Hammer: Are you
working with Blizzard at all on this project?
Schilling:
We did. We had several meetings and I got the chance to talk with Mike
Morhaime a couple times. Frankly, we would not have been able
to do the things that we wanted to do if we stayed a revenue generating
product. We were going to sign a license with Blizzard and it was going
to come with all the things – good and bad – that
that comes with. We could not afford to do that. At the end of the day,
it had to be the best decision for our company and the customers of our
product. That was the decision we had to make.
Ten Ton Hammer: Is there
anything else you’d like to say about the Azeroth Advisor to
“clear the air” about the product and the future of
it with 38 Studios?
Schilling:
As I said on the Instance, a lot of people are going to come up with
the wrong conclusions if they don’t think for more than a
second about the product. It’s a very short-sighted and
narrow view. If you build a product or a service, the product will
speak for itself.
It’s a real odd business model in the sense that if you look
at what we’re trying to sell and who we’re trying
to sell it to, it’s a very experienced, long-standing player
base that has already – for the most part – blasted
through all the content. It should allow us learn more about ourselves
and our process, to continually manage the product and perfect the
product.
But we’re not taking anyone’s money to learn our
lessons. Is it costing us money? Yes. It’s not diverting
energy. It’s not diverting resources. It has its own
independent team that operates and functions with it. But
we’re giving it a chance to learn a lot about our internal
process in the meantime, and that’s valuable to us.
At the end of the day, the product will speak for itself, and we
recognize that there is a shortfall in the content for high end
players. We’re going to deliver that in a timely fashion and
we’re excited about meeting the potential of the product for
the release of Wrath of the Lich King as well.
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Unfortunately,
we couldn't get any new details about Copernicus.
Ten Ton Hammer: Finally,
could you give us any hints about Copernicus?
Schilling:
It’s a fantasy based MMO….
Ten Ton Hammer: *laughs*
Schilling:
Things are going great. We’ve done some licensing on third
party technologies in the past few months for the game. We have a lot
of internal play testing going on. It’s been a thrilling
experience.
Ten Ton Hammer:
You’re in heaven right now, right?
Schilling:
I’ll be in heaven three or four years after we launch. Right
now it’s a mixture of heaven and hell; it’s a
grind. It’s a daily thing. But I love it, because
I’m surrounded by incredibly talented, passionate people.
Ten Ton Hammer: Thanks
Curt! We’ll talk again at BlizzCon!
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Copernicus Game Page.
