Explosions! Gun battles! Sword fights! High flying kung fu kicks with a
ninja grip! The current video game market is full of games that are
heavily focused on this sort of gameplay, and many are akin to a Labor
Day Steven
Seagal movie marathon. You just want them to end. Over the
last few years, this sort of mentality has slowly eked its way into the
MMO gaming mindset, and the gamers that currently enjoy the player
versus player combat of
target="_blank">Warhammer
Online and the new additions to
href="http://wow.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank">
style="font-style: italic;">World of Warcraft
are – for better or worse – children of that type
of high velocity action. Even our player versus environment experiences
are beginning to feel a touch of the adrenaline, as players in the more
crowded areas of their virtual world fight – and die
– over a rare monster or item.
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Adventurers,
roleplayers, crafters, and casual fans may all find a place in Gatheryn.
But what about all the gamers that only want to have the “in
your face” sort of experience when they deem it’s
necessary? These gamers – casual fans, roleplayers,
adventurers, explorers, and crafters – currently have few
places to turn, and no game that is wholly devoted to catering to their
experience. Trying to be one of these gamers in an MMOG is like staying
on the
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_the_Red-Nosed_Reindeer_%28TV_special%29"
target="_blank">Island of Misfit Toys; everyone is
sad, lonely, and desperately wants a home.
And MMO gamers aren’t alone. Hundreds of thousands of casual
gaming fans are yearning for something beyond their current
experiences, something that has a bit more flair and panache than the
umpteenth edition of
href="http://www.popcap.com/games/peggle" target="_blank">Peggle
[XXXtreme
Peggle!—Ed.]. That’s where Joseph
Walters, CEO of MindFuse, comes into play. Recently, Joseph and his
team
target="_blank">issued a press release announcing
a brand new upcoming online game known only as
style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.mindfusegames.com/"
target="_blank">Gatheryn. After a bit of research
and some dedicated thought, the Ten Ton Hammer staff can only describe
Gatheryn as a MMOAG: a massively multiplayer online adventure game.
To come to this naming conclusion, we got on the phone with Joseph (who
also serves as the Lead Designer for
style="font-style: italic;">Gatheryn) and asked
him a series of questions regarding his upcoming product. Honestly, the
Ten Ton Hammer staff was more than a little skeptical about the
project, especially after reading the initial press release. The term
“virtual world” was batted around like a birdie at
a badminton match, and nowhere in the entire document did words like
“combat” or “game” ever reach
the surface.
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Gatheryn is
NOT Second Life. Or anything like it.
And what’s the best known virtual world on the market?
That’s right.
href="http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/commentary/sexdrive/2006/08/71657"
target="_blank">Second Life. [
style="font-style: italic;">*shudders*--Ed.]
After hearing the first round of questions, Joseph was quick to modify
exactly what was included in Gatheryn. Although casual games will be a
part of the world, that’s not the whole story.
“I’m going to avoid talking about casual games
because our “mini-games” aren’t all
casual games,” Joseph explained. “A lot of them
will be casual games – for example, we will have checkers
– but there will also be areas where we have combat and
PvP.”
“We’re actually setting it up so that some
mini-games will have that [combat] element in them. But when
you’re in the big game environments where all the other
players are, you’ll never be able to pull out a sword and
kill anybody. We’re doing everything we can to remove a lot
of the griefing that goes on in other games. What we want to do is
bring in a larger audience, many of whom are probably aggravated by
what’s going on in the larger MMOs right now. We’re
adding in the casual games to expand the audience even
further.”
At this point in the game, the interview became a little more relaxed
as the distinction became clear that
style="font-style: italic;">Gatheryn
wasn’t a “virtual world” in the sense of
a game like Second Life.
But if players aren’t free to roam about and do / create
whatever they please, what would they be doing with their time? What
would a normal day in the life of a Gatheryn player be like?
According to Joseph, the first thing you would do – just like
any other MMOG – is go and create your character.
“We’ve built a huge number of character creation
tools,” explained. “We’re adding in a lot
of elements that we’re not seeing in other games to allow you
to customize your character a little more and follow what we think our
broader audience would want to see. You see a lot of face generation
stuff in games, but we’re actually trying to apply even more
of that to the body of the character. We want to allow players to add
weight to their characters and give them a chance to change their body
shape a little bit more.”
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Customizable
characters are integral to the Gatheryn experience.
After creation, players would then be sent into the world and have a
number of options presented to them. Again like a typical MMOG, players
can accept and complete quests, although some of these quests may ask
players to “play a three-in-a-row puzzle popper type game or
it may send them into an area where you’ll need to sword
fight NPCs to complete the quest. Or it could be something as simple as
picking a dozen apples and brining them back to the NPC.”
And the “adventure” doesn’t end with the
gaming, either. Joseph was eager to explain that creating and
developing community was one of his major goals and that the team has
“created a bunch of areas where players can actually go and
sit down in an open area. If you’re a subscriber you actually
get your own apartment as well and you can customize it and invite
people into your apartment. You can even add some of the games inside
your private apartment area as well.”
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Gatheryn Game Page.
