Stargate Worlds (PC)

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VideoGamer.com: So when am I getting my console version?

DE: Yeah, I've actually had that a few times! You know Xbox 360, or even Xbox 720, the client's based on Unreal 3, so it's really at that point based on how we adjust the AI.

VideoGamer.com: Can't you just save the file as an Xbox game?

DE: (Laughs) Yeah! So how then would you port that over with the controls? It's definitely something we want to look at down the road and how that ports over to console. I think the client we utilised will open up some of those doors but it's how we cross those controls really that's going to help us with that.

VideoGamer.com: What about a PS3 version? PC translates well to Xbox but less well to PS3.

DE: Yeah. It definitely has its challenges. We're just so focussed on PC I haven't really spent the R&D on it to make sure how viable that is. The success of that is going to open up either how far we go with that, if we move into Asian markets or not, it will depend on the success that we have.

VideoGamer.com: So the success of the PC version will determine whether you look at a console version?

DE: Yeah. And that's something that, you know porting it over to even like a Mac or even some other things, we want to first get this game out the door, we can still focus on Live team and expansions, but from there recruiting other teams that are good at porting those products to really take the package and now port it over appropriately for us.

VideoGamer.com: In terms of system requirements, what are we looking at?

DE: We're Unreal 3, so there are pluses and minuses with that. The way that we've built a lot of the textures and the art was really baking a lot of the actual visual elements right into the texture. So if you take all the great bells and whistles that the Unreal 3 has out you still have the visual appeal. Some of my tech artists that have been working on the game have reduced it to lower end specs and we've had some very positive results. But we don't have an official 'this is our min spec' yet.

VideoGamer.com: But your goal is to make is as scalable as possible?

DE: Absolutely.

VideoGamer.com: What's your personal favourite class?

DE: It's been interesting. I play all the different archetypes. I love the soldier because I also want the soldier to play with the staff weapon so there's something definitely gratifying by shooting a staff weapon. There's also something very gratifying about taking a commando stealth and going through a POI and using nothing but a knife to take out all of my enemies, and nobody seeing you doing it. All you see is a bunch of mobs falling over because some stealth commando has gone in there and knifed them out. It's pretty cool.

VideoGamer.com: How will the UI work in Stargate Worlds? Will you be able to modify it?

DE: A lot of people mod their UI. In traditional MMOs there's the one you launch with and then the community goes out and mods it. We definitely want the community to mod our UI but we also added a graphical widget you can use in the game. So let's say you're Joe Shmo that just wants to go around and play with all the different elements on the UI, you can change the opacity, move all your buttons around, add more buttons and you can save a profile and send to friend, because it's just a file on your client, and he can load that up and you can have a drop down list of all the different profiles. So as you're playing as a soldier and the next thing you're playing as a commando, you just swap out your profile and then your whole layout will change based on that.

VideoGamer.com: One of the more frustrating things with World of Warcraft is how rigid the UI is.

DE: Yeah. How many people actually use the original UI to play World of Warcraft? Everybody I see play, they always have a mod installed. We definitely want communities to play around with it, but also I'm hoping that people just with that small widget can do some cool things, put it up on the forums and share it with their friends. I'm interested to see what they come up with.

VideoGamer.com: What kind of pricing model are you looking at?

DE: We're looking at the standard pricing model right now for MMOs. A monthly subscription.

VideoGamer.com: There are a lot of MMOs being shown at Leipzig this year. Warhammer Online, DC Universe Online, Champions Online, Age of Conan. Is the MMO market in danger of becoming over saturated?

DE: It's hard because, OK, you've got 10 plus million people playing World of Warcraft, I think that has benefits to the MMO market, it's opened up that door. And seeing Age of Conan do well, Lord of the Rings do well, I think people just want to have these alternate universes that they can go and play around with. I think the US and European markets are going to start playing around with their pricing models in the next few years and see what variances they can have.

VideoGamer.com: Like micro transactions?

DE: Yeah. Not everybody wants to have five MMOs paying 12 Euros a month sort of thing.

VideoGamer.com: Not many people can afford it.

DE: Yeah exactly.

VideoGamer.com: So you think there are enough players to support all of these MMOs then?

DE: I think people will go and find their unique niche that they enjoy and stick with it with the current pricing models. Once we mature more like the Asian market and we have the ability to play with those different micro transactions, it'll be broader for people to have multiple MMOs that they can stick around with and play with and create new characters with.

VideoGamer.com: Right now you just play one MMO at a time. You might stop after six months and move onto another but I don't know many people who play more than one MMO at the same time.

DE: Yeah exactly. We're hoping with the way that we're doing extra content after live and levelling, instead of having to wait a year, someone might play for six months and then quit, and then wait for the expansion pack. I want to create a service that people will continually go through. It's like watching a TV series - you always watch the next episode. We want to be able to give them new episodes and new content that they're always going back and checking out.

VideoGamer.com: Will you call your expansions episodes?

DE: Mini expansions right? If we move to Atlantis or another universe, then we'll have a boxed Atlantis expansion. But mini episodes and seasons, that's going to be free content that we're just going to hand out.

VideoGamer.com: That's great Dan, thanks for your time.

Stargate Worlds is due out for PC Q1 2009.

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