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General: Behind Carbine Studios
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com had the opportunity to speak with Carbine Studios Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney about his new studio, the kind of game they are making and the general development philosophies of the developers behind the as-yet-unnamed game.
MMORPG.com:
You have a lot of talent gathered from some pretty prominent MMOs. Can you give us some examples and some idea of their positions within the team?
Jeremy Gaffney:
Obviously, we have a bunch of guys with WoW experience, but we also have folks who worked on EQ2, Warhammer Online, Vanguard, Gods and Heroes, Pirates of the Burning Sea, City of Heroes and a number of other MMOs. Those people have positions throughout Carbine, with many of them in senior positions in programming, management, art, and design. In general we think that most of the games that come out have strong points in one area or another - being geeky fanboys ourselves we've tried to get people who worked on systems that excited us. F'rinstance, the gent who was behind that neat Diplomacy minigame in Vanguard is working on our tradeskill minigames, and one of the guys behind Warhammer's cool public quest system is heading up our content team and working on our own unique content systems. Oh, and I shouldn't forget Tim Cain, our design director, who is also pretty well-known for his work creating Fallout.
;)
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
These folks, at least initially, seem to get it, although they still seem to be stuck in the levels quagmire.
New rule: Everyone who uses the words 'fluff' or 'technobabble' to shrug off most of what's worthwhile about fiction gets beaten with a book and shipped in pieces to whatever schools they attended, as well as their parents.
kk, my interest is piqued. It seems in their pursuit of this game, they fell back to levels to simplify the character advancement. This maybe the trade off for them to make a good experiance in other areas. Wait and see ...
What's the name of the game?
I already do tons of reading, both professionally and for leisure. I really don't want to read a book before I'll even understand the game world. So I have to disagree with you on this. If I'm able to learn about the world as I play it, that's more entertaining for me. That is, afterall, why I prefer games to books. I prefer to play through a story than read one.
It looks like it's currently called "unnanounced Massively Multiplayer Game." Pretty exciting...
Nobody is commenting on the name of the MMO yet. Only thing Carbine has said to date is that it is a combination Sci-Fi/Fantasy type game.
My ONLY concern with Carbine Studios is if they dont give us something soon we may TEND to lose interest. Remember we are gamers and our attention spans go fast.
Well the two screenshots they used are looking good so far, have to wait to see what the rest will be before making a more informed judgement.
I'm interested - they are saying absolutely the right words that makes the game interesting to me. I'll be watching this one.
Regards,
mszv
they spoiled it with that " sandbox have replayability " in comparison with theme park game.. like mmo replayability is the reason we play mmos.. god no, im sick tired of all those mmos
who focus so much on xx-xx lvl content.. and end up broken and empty at the end..
no i wont be making new char.. no i wont be making new alt.. yes there are ppl who like to it extent.. but if you dont have class system.. which is only reason ppl make alts.. how getting " guns reached lvl 15 "on all 3 of my chars gona be interesting at all
the fact that replayability was like big point to them.. and they mentioned 0 about importance of endgame content.. disappointing..
did noone said.. when wow launched 1-60 was fun for first time.. for many it lacked quests.. many hated.. noone alted in first 1-2 years.. yet they had what.. 3 mln within half year..
why.. it was smooth , polished.. and constant endgame content.. kept players playing
you must have all those kicked funcom employes , which couldnt figure if they want pve or pvp game.. and in the end.. game had content for 1.5 month , oh ye.. warhammer devs too.. another game with content for month..
you aint aiming high..
its not replayability. that keeps players playing.. its the end game content.. just look at this topic.. it should have 20 pages of "oh very interesting " by now.. but it doesnt.. im probably not the only one who found those points very disappointing..
Well he got ONE thing correct,Games had better start breaking NEW ground.This is something i would like to see ALL staff members ask in interviews.They shoudl ask these develoeprs ,what UNIQUE ideas have they brought to the gaming industry.This alone would spark interest,as many would soon realize they have done NOTHING,and maybe get the hint that they should start to do some actual thinking behind their projects.
There is NO WOW formula,that one makes me laugh EVERYTIME i see it,as it is actually an EQ formula,WOW copied it because in essence they do NOT have any unique ideas of their own.I often see developers/staff/other players talk about "This game or WOW has FUN quests",i am like WTF?I played WOW ,it does NOTHING FUN for quests it is the same old BS all over again,who are people trying to fool?As a matter of FACT,there is no unique questing done in ANY GAME.There is some cool quest ideas spread out amongst several different games,but the core of the quests are always the same.
I hear in every hyped up speech "We don't plan on making the same mistakes again"umm nice talk,but that is all i see, is games making the same mistakes all over again,oh well talk is cheap,not like i expect a developer to come out and say "You know we are going to be giving you the exact same game as everyone else".
This guy mentioned that they went after the guy who created the VG Diplomacy idea,i agree it was unique and a cool idea.HOWEVER ! why can't people think up their OWN ideas?why do they need to hire people that can do it for them?Why can't developers hire fresh,new young faces,and have them create bonified UNIQUE ideas?
Look no further than FFXI,there is more unique ideas in that game and of course EQ2 brought in MANY unique ideas that it makes the rest of the industry look like inept developers.I think i will PUKE if i hear one more person talk about what "WOW" brought us,the real truth is NOTHING.Then i hear the word POLISH used with WOW,again i'm gonna puke,if you bring the industry NOTHING new?what is there to polish?you would have to be an idiot to botch up something already mastered by other games,that you copied.
What the industry needs,is a TRUE LEADER for starters.A game that has long term planning and a budget that allows it all to come together.The leader of the project has to hire people that are capable of THINKING for themselves,if not ,replace them in a hurry.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Slow down there buddy...You are basically saying once someone has put out and idea for another game they are completely spent. You are basically telling this community this man is only capable of thinking up the VG diplomacy idea and therefore needs to be completely replaced.
There is a reason we make resumes when applying for a job. It tells our employer what we have been capable of doing. You are not reading the interview correctly. This is not an example on an idea they want to encorporate into their game at all. This is to show an example that thy have an innovative thinker on their team who is capable of coming up with unique additions to their game. It was an example to show they are hiring people that have been able to think up unique ideas. It was to make hype for the minigames that this guy will come up with.
Oh and yeah....In that sentence I quoted you first say developers should work alone coming up with their own ideas, and then 180 and say they need to hire new faces to come up with ideas. What are you exactly arguing? I mean these developers pick up people looking for work. Teams of people work on these games, not just the developer....I mean one man would never make a successful MMO. You need to rethink your wording or look into what exactly you are arguing. You are all over the place in that post and its very hard to follow.
Damn straight.
That said, I'm looking forward to the game just from that single screenshot of a bunch of different race characters looking away from the camera.
I hope they make a good sci-fi mmo, I really do, and it sounds like they have enough experience (from games that have worked out, and ones that haven't) to pull it off. Maybe.
Of course, they have to play to the popular crowd, because that's where the money is, and they need the money. But hopefully they can do it while also delivering, you know, a good, fun game. WoW kinda killed that for me... Dumbing it down for the masses...
Without ranting on about WoW, I'm just going to say "I miss spell damage for hunters =(" and "sounds interesting, might be good."
I am playing EVE and it's alright... level V skills are a bit much.
You all need to learn to spell.
Sounds nice, a game made by geeks for geeks.
I wish them all luck with whatever they make.
I see WoW being compared to EQ alot in terms of WoW copying and/or designing alot of the game play features from EQ. I played EQ for years, and WoW for only a month. I guess what made me stay in EQ for so long was the challenge of just leveling up, not to mention getting AA's. Forget questing in EQ. Not a whole hell of a lot to be found.
What Blizzard did with WoW (and the MMO genre as well) is essentially what Bill Gates did with pc's... made them more accessible to the common people. Linux is to EQ what Windows is to WoW.
And now the whole MMO genre has evolved to a point where there are certain expectations to be had with new games and new, innovative features. After playing Darkfall for a day or two I've decided I don't even give a damn if a game has groundbreaking features. Just so long as it works and the devs are mentally stable.
I have to say, I enjoyed reading that interview, it seems to be Carbine Studios know exactly what they're talking about. I'm looking forward to see what they're creating, and I have a feeling deep down inside that this game is going to be something good, and I get that feeling just because of their MMORPG background.
This game will be something differnt, and defenitly something worth checking out.
MMOS played: WoW,War,Cabal Online,AoC,Lotro,Fylff,EQ2,UO,RoM,
Well, it does seem NCSoft is investing hard in new titles, lets see how the MMO's market will be in 3 or 4 years. Personally i hope this will be a great game, like many others out there, we need variety and to end the current gap between WoW and all the other games out there, markets are much more healthy and interesting when real competition sets in.
The thing that makes me leary though is that anything that gets published by NCsoft usually has alot of eye candy but no depth or content to it and gets boring & repetitive before halfway to max lvl.
Im going to try to be nice about this, if you guys in the industry decide to put a picture up, shave and get a haircut and try to look respectable. Jeremy. That was directed at you buddy.
If you look so young you shouldnt be working, dont post a pic or better yet GROW A BEARD AND TRY TO LOOK LIKE A GROWNUP. Yes Im talking to you Dana.
You look like the rosey cheeked fourteen year old brother I never had.
*Waits for incoming ban*
See, the key is PUBLISHED by NCSoft, not developed by them. This is CARBINE STUDIOS. A completely seperate dev team than most other NCSoft affiliates. Do try to understand the difference. It might save some heartache in the future.
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Tried- L2, Ryzom, WAR, DDO, PWI, Tab Rasa, Requiem, Champs, AA, JD, PWI, SUN, Dawntide
Played- SWG (pre-cu), AoC, VG, WoW, LoTRO,CoX, EQ2, DAOC, GW, PotBS, Aion, MO,APB, NASA, Fallen Earth, DCUO, Rift
Playing- EVE, Black Prophecy, TOR
Waiting for- Tera, Jumpgate Evo, WH40K, WWE, WOD, TSW
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"Hey, if Activision liked it, then they should have put a ring on it," Double Fine President Tim Schafer said. "Oh great, now Beyonce is going to sue me too."
You are right there, this is a new development studio, and this is their first game. I think people don't give NCSoft enough credit, a lot of their games are fun, thats why they are an MMORPG giant. I could probably validate and agree with the comment that none of their games have any content and was just eye candy until I tried Aion.
However we know what happened when NCSoft tried to produce a Sci-fi/Fantasy blended MMO backed by a Western dev team with talented devs who have worked on past successful projects, ie Richard Garriot's Tabula Rasa.
Interesting for NCSoft to invest in so many different franchises, when they are working on Lineage 3, Aion and this new MMO simultaneously while patching and releasing new expansions for Lineage 2, Lineage, Guild Wars and CoH. In my opinion it would be far more benefitial if a development studio that large could work on developing an epic, super budget MMO with vast content that dwarfs WoW. On the other hand it wouldn't be wise to put all your eggs into one basket either.
Sounds like a dream team, I wish them success and look forward to trying out their game.
That describes EVERY video game ever made.
What Happened With SWG Went Down YEARS AGO! Please Try To Stop Whining About It In Every Thread I Read. Mourn It, And Finally MOVE ON With Your Lives! Thanks A Heap.