Miss Tweety's WaggaWorld Q&A
posted at 9:00 PM on Tuesday, January 9th, 2002
Continued from Page One
Will there be PVP in Waggaworld? What about Charr? If yes to either, what kind of PVP (teams, unrestricted, some safe areas in which you can't kill another player, etc)?
Cam: A big issue these days. Waggaworld will not have any sort of PVP - simply due the audience and the nature of the storyline. Charr will have restricted PVP in VERY FEW areas, but there will be no penalty for being killed by a PK’er other than a credit loot (which could be substantial). PK’ing will have serious ramifications in game however. Killing another player in these restricted zones will effect reputation. If the reputation becomes “Pathetic”, NPC’s will hunt down the PK’er. Actually, when we first designed Charr it was going to PVP because it seemed to fit into the “post-apocalyptic” theme. We had an excellent PVP system worked-out. It was really interesting because NPC’s could hire players to assassinate other players, disturb trade-routes…etc. The problems came however, when we decided what ramifications the PK’er would face. Would the PK’d players Havens or Guild get a “free kill” on the PK’er. Would the PK’er face jail time? Would Uber Guilds and Havens wreak havoc on smaller guilds and monopolize the game economy? To make PK’ing fair to all players, and free of exploits, PK’ers would have to face serious penalties for the act of murdering another player. These penalties would have to be harsh enough to deter exploits. In the end we found ourselves questioning the entire PVP issue altogether. How much fun would it be for a PK’er to be hunted down or sent to jail for 2-3 game days? Strong arguments were made stating that most PVP games are filled with “grief players” and the shared opinion was that these players were only happy when they had an unfair advantage over another player - in a fair fight a PK’er would rarely try to PK. Also, many sources stated that most MMOPRG players do not like PVP in any form. PVP servers on EQ are outnumbered nearly 15 fold by their blue server cousins - there’s a reason for that - players don’t want to be exploited by other players. In the end, the only reasonable solution to PVP was not to incorporate it in the world. We decided to spend our time on actual gameplay issues rather than thinking up ways of penalizing “grief players” and solving the inherent problems of a PVP world.
If there were, however, enough players that wanted a PVP server I would gladly cater to them. Originally, we coded Havens to be PVP, in that Havens could declare war on other Havens. If Havens successfully defeated another Haven three times the conquered Haven would have to pay a Tribute (or tax) to the Haven that razed them. We scrapped the whole idea of Haven wars because we didn’t want to be perceived as a PVP game to players. The code has been written and could easily incorporated into a PVP server.
When do you expect Waggaworld to go into beta? How do you plan to beta test the product, considering the perception of children not necessarily being good beta testers?
Cam: Beta will commence in June/July with a candidate search. We will have two groups testing the product, which are namely adults 16+ and children of our intended market (8-14). The adults will be looking hard for the obvious bugs while the information we obtain from the children will be more along the lines of how “easy” gameplay is. It’s important when you’re developing products for a younger audience that you do conduct two separate test groups. If we only had adults testing the product they’d miss the point and want it to be more complex. A children’s only test group might miss some economy bugs and deeper gameplay issues which may not directly effect them but the overall game in general.
What system specifications do you anticipate for your games? I understand this is subject to change.
Cam: Waggaworld will require a Windows 95/98/ME, P200 or higher with 64Mb ram, 56.6k + internet connection, Shockwave 5.0 and Shockwave friendly browser.
Charr will require Windows 95/98/00, P3 800 or higher with 128Mb ram, 56.6K (cable/DSL preffered) + internet connection, 2.0 GB Hard Drive, 32Mb D3D Direct X Certified Video Card (i.e. GeForce2 32Mb), Direct X Certified Sound Card. (Don’t Forget Charr is not slated for release until first quarter 2003).
Where do you plan to market your products - North America, Canada, or on a more global scale?
Cam: North America will be our primary market. We’ve also had a lot of interest from Asia and we designed “Waggaworld Online” to be easily ported into a foreign language. I think Europe could be a great market, however many countries in Europe pay for their online services by the minute. This can be very costly to net users (especially user who play Online Games). If demand is high enough for the product in these areas we will, however, support it.
I could be wrong, and please correct me if I am, but I think you're the only MMORPG company based in Canada. Do you think this will have any effect on customer service in the US market?
Cam:I’m not aware of any other company in Canada producing MMORPG’s. We’re already looking into having a National office in the US to support that market. It wouldn’t be unlikely to move WE’s entire base of operations stateside in the future. The US market is 10 times larger than the Canadian market and Americans have a larger disposable income than Canadians - (it’s no wonder people call it “the land of opportunity).
Are you planning to distribute the product yourself? If not, can you tell me whom you're hoping to work with in that area?
Cam:We are talking to a few distributors about both games but I can’t talk about it yet. I will say that I would love to be involved with Interplay in the future. The company rep’s some fantastic studios and their titles are on the money. Some of my favorite games have come from Interplay rep’d studios, (Shiny, Black Isle), so it would be a personal victory if they were interested in even one of our titles (*coughs*CHARR*coughs*)! Hopefully, they’ll hear about us in the near future.
In your opinion, what mistakes have been made in the MMORPG industry in the past, and what are you planning to do to avoid those pitfalls? What's been done right that you hope to emulate?
Cam:Well it’s really hard to judge other titles since they were really “first gen” MMORPG’s. One thing I think many players have grown out of is this “hack and slash” until you get Exp. or Items mentality. There has to be a point to the game. In Charr, for instance, The Grimm has nearly eliminated the entire world. Players must work together to actually overcome this abomination. In Charr you can actually defeat The Grimm - (I’m not saying that will be the end of the game but it is something to work toward). Rich storylines that immerse the players will be what determines the success of the next-gen MMOPRG’s. If developers continue to produce titles that contain only basic plots, players will get bored and move on to something new - immersive, in-depth story-lines will be KEY. Secondly, Customer Service will be VERY IMPORTANT. I play MMOPRG’s a lot and I think some of the customer support out there is appalling. For example, I’ve had items stolen from me in “trade bugs” and the “World Masters” have done nothing. This is absurd on two fronts:
1) Players pay MMOPRG producers for a service - they deserve support not some lame excuse that “I have to be present to witness the crime”. This is completely unacceptable from a player stand-point. I can tell players everywhere, because I’m designing an online world, that a “World Master” can tell what item has gone to what player in a matter of a keystroke. Basically, this means the “World Masters” are completely aware when you have been conned and by whom - regardless whether the player has deleted the character he/she used to commit the crime.
2) Essentially, these companies are saying, “yes I know this person stole your item and gave it too another person - but too bad for YOU.” In my opinion, that is TERRIBLE customer service. Basically, these companies are saying it’s ok to be a jerk in the game because there will be no ramifications.
…Sorry, that’s a complete cop-out!
In Charr there will be a 2-strike rule. If you are caught exploiting the game or another player more than twice you’ll be banned. Players who were victimized will be compensated immediately. Our “Codes of Conduct” will be simple, all encompassing and will not contradict each other. Kill Stealing, Player/Game Exploits, Racial/Religious Slurs and Camp Stealing will be at the top of the list. We’ve also decided to reward “nice” players with gifts from the “Brotherhood of Fate”. There will be a separate “Player Reputation” which will be monitored in a number of ways. These players will receive VERY nice rewards in game (i.e. Uber Companions, “World Master” quests, God items…etc). Personally, I would rather have the servers filled with honest players who enjoy the game. Actually, one of our lead designers, Steve Lynes, suggested we shouldn’t ban players at all. We should simply stick all the “grief players” on the same server and let them live with their own kind - not a bad idea actually.
For fun we’ve programmed all players with something called Humiliation. This is only for minor offenses, but if a player screws up a WM (World Master) can appear and literally kick the crap out them, drain their life for 15 minutes, or stick them in “the White Room” for a short period of time. As I mentioned, this is only for small offenses and is really meant to be fun while giving the player something to think about.
Lastly, I’ll never understand why some companies allow players to use 3rd Party exploits freely in their games. Games are designed with physical rules to make the world fair for everyone. Exploits allow players to have an unfair advantage over other players and the games mechanics - where is the fun in that? Sure, I’ve used cheats in the past, but I always have more fun playing a game the way it was meant to be - actually working for an item or a quest. We’re building a system that will be as free as from exploits as possible. It will be next to impossible to run 3rd party programs that will affect game-play.
As far as what we hope to emulate, I think we’ve learned a lot from our predecessors. Some of the MMORPG’s out there have great ideas when it comes to, classes, group dynamics and chat. Others are strong in the way they deal with player skills, spawning and political structure. It is a learning experience in gaming as with all things. We want Charr to possess all the strengths of our predecessors while limiting their weaknesses - of course Charr will feature many new elements that are not currently available in these titles.
I’m sure the 3rd and 4th generation titles will correct any problems we have. This is good - it’s the way it’s supposed to be. In the end it’s about making products that are extremely satisfying to our customer “the player”.
Any other comments you'd like to add?
Cam:That was a long interview, thanks for the great questions - I think we covered quite a lot. I will add that both games “Waggaworld Online” and “Charr: The Grimm Fate” will be titles to watch for. As always, we like to hear ideas from other players, so please drop by our forums!
You can also stop by Corp's forums to discuss the merits of elves with guns.
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