Lord of the Rings Online MMO News, Guides, and Features at Ten Ton Hammer

Ten Ton Hammer: [laughing] You just stick the disc in there and play. No installation required.

Strandberg: Yeah, and as challenging as all of the technical certification requirements and the rules and restrictions from the inspectors can be sometimes, they are there to make sure that every game offers that experience. They make sure that your X button is always to confirm in any choice and to make sure that you can’t have a loading time that is more than 15-30 seconds.

Ten Ton Hammer: Really? I can still remember it feeling like the original Morrowind had, like, five minutes of load time [laughs].

Strandberg: Sometimes exceptions are allowed. But now as a whole, the console in my mind just offers a much more accessible and much better experience as a gaming platform, which is why console gaming is so popular. It will work on your video card. You know what I mean? You don’t have to rebuild your rig every time you buy a game or download the latest video drivers or things like that.

I think we at Turbine feel console is the superior platform, right now. If we can develop an MMO that meets all of the console criteria for accessibility, that’s going to be huge. It will be a paradigm shift in the MMO industry.

Ten Ton Hammer: So, do you think Turbine is ever going to make a PC MMO again?

Strandberg: Oh yeah.

Ten Ton Hammer: So you’re not stopping with the PC stuff, you’re expanding your horizons a little bit?

Strandberg: Exactly. We love our PC MMOs as much as everyone else.

Ten Ton Hammer: It’s certainly a different sort of style and different sort of experience for sure.

Strandberg: Those are the two obvious things. It’s a challenge for the designers and engineers to migrate our design philosophy and our code architecture from the PC to console. Then a lot the things I have been working on is… everything else. A lot more goes into launching and operating an MMO. Maybe a lot of people don’t see this because mostly they just look at the gameplay, but on top of that there is the whole service aspect, what we call online operations.

Ten Ton Hammer: Those are your Community Managers and your Game Masters and that sort of thing?

Strandberg: Exactly. It’s customer service. It’s billing support. It’s account management, network operations, tech support, quality assurance, and all that stuff. While the infrastructure is relatively similar, there are changes everywhere [laughs]. See what I mean?

Ten Ton Hammer: From a customer service point of view, are your tools to deal with GM complaints and that sort of thing harder to implement on a console?

Strandberg: Not necessarily, but maybe [laughs]. If you get stuck in LOTRO or DDO today, you just file a ticket to a GM that ends up in our help and reporting tool system. Whenever a new ticket comes in one of the customer service reps will see if they can help out as soon as possible.

Of course, we need to have that on the console as well. People are paying money to play online in some way, shape, or form. And when people pay for something, they demand service. So, how do we migrate our existing PC help and reporting tool system over to the console? Maybe all of the information would first have to go through all of the hardware manufacturer’s checks and balances. Some of the issues may be completely unrelated to what we’re doing. Some of them will have to be funneled over to the manufacturer to their customer support department, especially if it has to do with money and cash collection, which will go through the manufacturer’s billing interface. On top of that, the communication between the game and the game server will have to go through their authentication layers.

Ten Ton Hammer: Whichever console you’re on?

Strandberg: Exactly, just to ensure the integrity of the platform. Again, it’s not a revolutionary thing, but there are small differences in a lot of places.

Ten Ton Hammer: Do you think that with the console audience vs. the PC audience, we are going to have a casual-hardcore split between the two MMO crowds?

Strandberg: Depends on the game.

Ten Ton Hammer: It seems like the casual audience would be much more prone to just go and buy the game on their console. It’s easy since you don’t have the barrier to entry.

Strandberg: Some of the most successful console games are actually really hardcore. I am reluctant to use the word casual. We’re not necessarily making a casual game. It can still be a really deep and engaging game. It’s just that at first glance it’s really accessible and inviting and easy to get into. The barrier of entry is so low that, sure, maybe some people will experience it as casual, but once you get a little deeper into the game and open up all of the features and realize the whole depth of the game, you just realize, “Holy crap! There’s hundreds if not thousands of hours of gameplay in here.” You get a tremendous value for money.

Ten Ton Hammer: Thank you so much for your time, Henrik, and we look forward to talking with you again!