Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Top Secret Interview Gets Declassified

Ten Ton Hammer Interviews Project Top Secret's Rusel DeMaria, Assistant Director for David Perry

Questions by Cody “Micajah” Bye

Dubbed as a “reality show” for the MMOG enthusiast, Dave Perry’s Project Top Secret has been slowly gaining momentum since its announcement earlier this year. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Top Secret, it’s a contest being run by Acclaim to single out one individual who has the design knowledge and ambition to eventually produce a game of their own. A dream come true for many MMOG aficionados, Top Secret has attracted attention from every part of the Internet.

Although the contest has been running for a few months, it’s hard to tell what exactly is occurring without browsing through the website. One look at the Top Secret main site and the links to the various wikis and forums, however, and you’ll find that hundreds of posts are being uploaded every day! Being very interested in the progression of the contest, the Ten Ton Hammer team tracked down Rusel DeMaria, assistant director for David Perry and author of several gaming-related books, to answer some of our questions concerning Top Secret.

A Dragon Rider by Elkhornio / AnjelusX

Ten Ton Hammer: While the winner of the competition will get the opportunity to act as the official Game Director / Design Director of Project Top Secret, will there be multiple opportunities to get hired onto your team by showing exemplary work ethic / ideas?

Rusel: To be clear, the prize being offered in the contest aspect of the project is for the director’s position in yet ANOTHER game that we will begin developing AFTER the Top Secret Project completes. The Top Secret project is all about the community creating the design for the game, with guidance from me and David Perry. As far as other opportunities, DP hired one person from the forums within the first week of the project. Still more opportunities may come, though nothing is announced or predetermined. We’ve certainly found a fantastic pool of talented and dedicated people already, and we have a long ways still to go, so there’s still plenty of time to join and have a positive impact – and be noticed.

Ten Ton Hammer: Can you give some details on the two individuals that you hired from their work on Project Top Secret? What are their jobs now? How did you find them in the crowd?

Rusel: David hired Michael Liebwein from the forums by posing a challenge to the community. Michael’s response blew us away and David hired him on the spot. Michael lives in Germany, by the way. Our team is truly international. Michael is now working with us as our “point person” on the design of a future game, as well as our go-to guy for all kinds of charts and organizational documentation.

We have also found a couple of people who we invited to be moderators, AnjelusX and Palleon. We found them quite easily, because both of them were taking the time to inspire other people in the project, and it was clear that they were having a positive impact. We also have a reputation system that allows people to offer positive or negative rep to other members. Anj and Palleon were the two top-rated members at the time we approached them, and what’s very interesting, and often misunderstood, is that their rep played no role in our decision. We chose them based purely on the quality of their posts and their impact on the forums, which was also how they gained their high positive reputations. Palleon ultimately got promoted to the role of Community Liaison, for which he dropped out of the contest voluntarily. Both he and AnjelusX, who is still helping the forums as a moderator, continue to be very valuable to the project.

Some landscape concept art. - No artist name given

Ten Ton Hammer: In order to point out some of the more knowledgeable individuals on the boards, you’ve created a reputation system that allows them to rise above the crowd. How did the reputation system come about and how do you see it eventually working? There are several members of the boards with high reputation, but are getting that rep mainly for drawing artistic assets and not lending ideas…is that an appropriate measure of rep?

Rusel: The rep system was established to give people a way of letting others know how they felt about their actions in the forums. If someone posted a very inspiring message or a great idea, or even a bit of very constructive feedback, they would likely get some positive rep points from other members. On the other hand, if they were negative or insulting to someone… well, we have very little of that anyway, but that would be grounds for a negative rep. Interestingly, some of our highest rated members now ARE artists, which is understandable, because the artists can take someone’s idea and make it real. Some of the artists have worked very hard indeed, and with many of our members, to help bring their ideas into graphical form. However, there are many people with high reputation who are not artists. We’ve found that the most constructive and helpful people tend to get the positive rep, so the system works. David always says, “Don’t bring me problems. Bring me solutions.” Our forums are very solutions oriented, and a great way to get positive rep is to provide solutions and point out positive directions, even for someone else’s original idea.