Miss Tweety's WaggaWorld Q&A
posted at 9:00 PM on Tuesday, January 9th, 2002
| Publisher |
| WaggaWorld Entertainment |
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| It's Worth Noting That... |
| The 5 top-selling games of 2000 were all Pokemon products, marketed towards children. |
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We do strange things here at the Corporation to bring you the newest tidbits in gaming news. I broke my personal rule against talking to people in Canada (can you blame me? Mr. Poppinfresh is from Canada) to bring you all the dirt on Waggaworld Entertainment, a new company working on bringing us the next generation of massively multiplayer entertainment. They’re up to their elbows right now, developing two new online products for your obsessive consumption.
The first is Waggaworld - and the twist to this persistent universe is that it’s aimed at the pre-adolescent set, ages 8 to 14. The player can choose from a male or female version of a monk, a wizard, or a fighter. No PVP, lots of grownups monitoring the playground, and you can’t die. Waggaworld Entertainment is also putting together an afternoon TV show and a trading card game (Elements of Mu-Paw) that tie in with the online game.
Further away in the future is a game made to appeal to the big kids - Charr: The Grimm Fate. I’d attempt to explain it here, but you might as well read the interview for that. The producer man is much better at telling you than I am.
So, without futher ado, here’s The Corporation’s exclusive interview with Stephan Cam, CEO and Lead Designer for Waggaworld Entertainment.
So, what gave you the idea to make a MMORPG for the 8 to 12 set? (Hook 'em young is what I immediately assumed, and frankly, it's brilliant, but I thought I'd check to see if there was another answer.)
Cam: Exactly! This is going to date me, but I grew up playing games like Zelda, The Ultima Series, Wizardry…etc. The audiences for these games were namely the 8-16 year old age group. Of course, we’ve all grown up, (at least height wise), and the market is now geared toward an older audience. We do, from time to time, see RPG’s geared toward a younger audience, but this is occurring less frequently every year. We decided to make an MMORPG suited for this audience to help ensure the genre had a market in the future. The Waggaworld product-line is much more than the MMOPRG, however, and has always intended to be a cross-media platform (i.e. toys, television series, publishing…etc). We actually started work on the series a few months ago and, if all goes well, should be in full production in the next few months. Waggaworld has an incredibly deep story line and fantastic group of characters - which is exactly what the 6-12 market needs right now.
The multimedia approach (television, computer game, trading card game)
is incredibly ambitious. Is Waggaworld Entertainment handling all aspects of development, or are you planning to subcontract some of the elements?
Cam: I’ve always been of the mind-set that if you are going to do something “keep it all under one roof”. There have been many extremely talented artists/animators who have wanted to work for us from their own studios, but I feel this takes away from the energy of the project. Communication lines can often fall apart, and I feel the “end product” can suffer if production is segregated. Our days at the studio are long and everyone exchanges ideas - if you’re not working “in house” you tend to miss a lot of this and may not understand the scope of the product. We have a great management team with vast experience in film, broadcast, publishing, gaming and finance. Yes, we are ambitious, but I think you have to be in this “day and age” with so many great products on the market.
How big is Waggaworld Entertainment in terms of the number of full time
staff members?
Cam: Currently, we have about 20 people in the various departments. For the past year these people have been working on the development for the Waggaworld (Waggaworld Online, Elements of Mupaw and Waggaworld the series) and Charr product lines. We started gearing up for full production in September and we’re adding 15-20 more people during the next 2 months (these will include animators, illustrators, producers and programmers). By the summer that number should double again.
What other projects have you and your team members been involved with in the past?
Cam: Waggaworld and Charr: The Grimm Fate are the first commercial gaming titles the team has worked on. Many of staff, were involved in various other “indie” gaming projects in the past and many come from a broadcast, film and graphic/server based programming occupations. Some of us have worked with Fox, Digital Domain, Imperial Entertainment, UUNET and companies of this nature.
Are you planning on releasing your titles as console games as well, and if so, what platform?
Cam: We are hoping to release games, eventually, to Console systems but are still awaiting negotiation with a platform producer. We did, however get a response from one of the “big four” stating very bluntly they had NO plans for publishing “Children’s Titles”, but might be interested in Charr. This shocked me actually. I thought to myself “no plans for children’s titles”? These were the titles that made the market possible! Anyway, that is a problem inherent in developing for console systems - you’re basically under their jurisdiction. Quite frankly, I prefer the freedom of developing for PC’s - we choose our own path and aren’t necessarily at the mercy of some “Big Brother” type telling you what types of titles to produce based on their companies market research. I love gaming because it is one of the few media forums that allow for “Ultimate Creative Expression”.
Tell me more about Charr: The Grimm Fate, as that will be the game most Corporation readers will be interested in. And while you’re at it, tell us why we should be looking forward to this game instead of the others coming out in the next few years.
Cam: One of the most unique features of Charr is its setting. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic period of the planets history. The people of Charr (who consist of races such as Elves, Commoners, Orcs, Fairies, Giants…etc) had reached the pinnacle of their technological success when the world was invaded by an aberrant species named The Grimm. Three hundred years later, the survivors of the invasion have begun to rebuild the world and “The Brotherhood of Fate” has declared a “Holy War” to abolish The Grimm presence from the planet. The races have reverted back to a medieval style existence where they don plated armor and wield melee weapons. They have also rediscovered the “Essence of Magic” - the lost Arcane disciplines that were abdicated in favor of technology. Technology is also being re-acquired from “The Wastes” and for the first time the people can take a stand against The Grimm.
Charr is simply a perfect blend between fantasy and sci-fi genres. In fact, there is such a huge plethora of items, players can choose to outfit their characters with more traditional fantasy style weapons/items or take a more futuristic approach. If they want they can blend the two - and truly look “Wastelandish”.
Earlier I used the words Epic, Cinematic and Immersive to describe Charr. Visually speaking, Charr will be absolute eye-candy. We are developing for next-gen video cards which allow us to use real-time motion blurring, high-count polygons, extremely realistic lighting effects and highly-detailed texture maps. These new cards will allow us to produce photo-realistic environments and characters; armor and metal will sparkle with lens flares; muscles will flex and tighten; and when a characters wields a weapon it will track and blur. Story-wise the player will feel like he/she is the main character in an action/drama film. The player could be asked to rid Charr of a villain, during the quest the music will intensify as he/she comes closer to finishing the quest. Once in battle, the score will be a non-stop action with victory ending with a “sweet-spot” camera roll and the players arms raised in victory.
There will be a plethora of other gameplay enhancements such as The Grimm, Dynamic Creature and Zone Spawning, Companions, Resource Management, Player run Homes and Cities (Havens), Vehicles, Cybernetic and Organic Modifications, Global Quests and Player Run Quests to name a few. (Click the above links to learn more about these concepts and elements - Ed.)
What sources inspired you for the backstory of Waggaworld? What about Charr?
Cam: I’m asked this question frequently. I’ve loved fantasy and sci-fi motifs since I was about 3 and my mother was reading me the “Grimm Bothers” fairy tales (hmmmm…that sounds familiar). Growing up my bookshelves were filled with every novel from these genre’s. The stories were told in different manners but the plot was always the same - the struggle between perceived good and evil. Think about it; the reason this plot works so effectively is that we can all relate to it so well. When you’re a kid, it’s the struggle against your teacher or the neighborhood bully (you’re the good guy he/she is the bad guy). As a teen it’s your parents who are the enemy. When you become an adult it’s you’re boss, government, oppression and just about everything else. This is the foundation of who we are as a people. It is the most simplistic plot and the greatest story of all time, simply because we have all experienced this struggle at one time or another in their lives. Waggaworld and Charr possess nearly the same plot; both involve a villain that one must overcome; in both you play the underdog struggling against the odds; and, of course, both stories offer hope. It is “the hope” against the struggle that drives us. How bored would we be in a Utopian society where there wasn’t this struggle? To quote a certain Agent “Did you know that the first world was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost.”
As far as direct sources I grew up an action film junkie. My favorite directors are Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Michael Bay and Nick Meyers (Star Trek 2 & 6). I love the artwork of Bromm, Gieger, Todd McFarlen, Frank Millar, Brian Froud and Massimiliano Frezzato. Film wise my top ten are:
Bladerunner (Ridley Scott)
Aliens (James Cameron)
Alien (Ridley Scott)
Star Trek 2 - The Wrath of Khan (Nick Meyers)
The Crow (Alex Proyas)
The Matrix (Wachowski Bros.)
Armageddon (Michael Bay)
The Terminator (James Cameron)
T2 (James Cameron)
Star Trek 6 - The Undiscovered Country (Nick Meyers)
All these films have a powerful cinematic feeling and, IMHO, are what action films should be about. When people play Charr they will feel as if they are a character in an epic motion picture. Between the storyline, graphics/effects and music the player will feel completely immersed in the game. Hopefully, the experience will be unlike anything to date in MMORPG’s.
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