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Pacing

Even with this focus on exploration and puzzle-solving, Joe and the CME team really want to keep the pacing of the game relatively high. While the modern combat system lends for a relatively high-energy style of gameplay, that quick pacing is necessary in the rest of the game for the players to remain engaged and not want to simply shoot bad guys all day.

“That’s why the users are constantly moving through things and finding answers to problems, because we have to keep the pace of the game constantly at that high-level,” Joe said. “There are really two strategic reasons why this is important to us. First, if I’m going to build all this content, I want the customers to see it.”

Pacing is important to Ybarra. It needs to remain as fast as the combat.

“The other thing is – staying with the economics of building this thing – my live team doesn’t need to be focused on just expanding one section of the gameplay,” Joe continued. “Players are going to be playing at various levels, so the live team can drop content in at whatever level they feel needs the most work.”

With a background as rich and diverse as the Stargate series, it’s no wonder that the game developers would want to have players experience all that the game has to offer. They’ve put in time and energy into seeing the game succeed, and the fans will want to see the world just as much as the developers want them to see it.

Tying Back Into the Series

Speaking of the fans, while he was talking Joe brought up a very intriguing point about the future of the game. Although much of their game is based on actual selections from the TV series, some of what Joe and the CME team are working on is original content within the Stargate universe. Since the game is backward looking, the producers of the TV series are actually interested in having the CME team put particular items from the upcoming series and Stargate Atlantis into the Stargate Worlds game.

On an even more exciting note, there may be some original Stargate Worlds content being integrated into the new series. “They’ve actually requested some content from our game to be used in their shows,” Joe said. “In exchange for that, they want to put something really solid and recognizable from our game into the pilot of the new show.”

The Stargate folks want to the series and the game together to make a cohesive world.

And post-launch, this tieback into the show is going to be even more reinforced. “Players will be able to see certain items, races, or locations and know they came straight out of the game,” Joe said. “We want to reinforce to the players that we’re releasing two products at once: A game and a new show.”

“Even farther out of launch, we’d really like to translate content between the game and the show in real-time,” Joe added. “When something new is opened up in the series, we’ll put it into the game and vice versa.”

Updates on the Game

According to Joe, there may be some new content going out soon on one of the storyline progressions in the game. This particular storyline focuses on the eventual destruction of Tolana and how this looks from the development standpoint. Developing Tolana was important because it helped refine the development of the worlds through each Stargate coordinate and it really emphasized the storylines from the show.

“Tolana is actually visited in three different stages during play,” Joe said. “You start off in Tolana and it looks great. Everything is very advanced and new; nothing is wrong with the world. You come back to Tolana later and it’s being assaulted by the Goa’uld. There’s all this stuff going on, explosions and fire-fighting are rampant. Lots of action.”

“Finally, the third time you visit Tolana, it is destroyed. There’s nothing left but rubble,” Joe finished. Hopefully we’ll be getting some screenshots from this progression soon, because it sounds amazing!

Final Comments

That’s all folks! We finished up our interview with Joe and I would just like to thank him again for a spectacular interview experience. With all this new information, Stargate fans should be drooling with anticipation.

I know I am. 

Click OGDC here to read the Stargate World Interview - Part One.

Make sure you check out the rest of our OGDC '07 coverage!