For the climax of our three-pronged plan to get the community moving again, we present to you an EXCLUSIVE interview with John Dunbar, also known as Volbard. Sure, it took some begging and pleading, some bribing and stalking (actually, all we did was ask nicely), but we can finally present some good news, and some information about the latest game in development from Runic Games! The questions were gathered from our staff here at RGF and from our friends at Hellforge, and we picked the ones that seemed the most likely to get answers. Without stalling any further, we present to you the interview!

Thank you for agreeing to do an interview Volbard. I know you are hesitant to do interviews this early, but it will mean a lot to the fans who are out there waiting for news. Here are the fifteen questions gathered together by us at Runic Games Fansite and Hellforge, pruned down from a hefty 31. We’ve left the ones that seemed most likely to get answers at this early stage.Thanks again, from those of us at RGF and Hellforge for agreeing to this!

Question 0 – Before you begin, could you give us a brief self introduction? (Who you are, what you do, how you got into the business, that kind of thing)

I’m John Dunbar, a designer at Runic Games. What I do day to day is pretty varied; I make particle effects and level layouts, work on story and quests, and generally try to fill in any gaps in the production of the game. I also spend a lot of time arguing about what is and isn’t fun.

 

Question 1 – How does a developer bounce back from being so close to a release and not getting to put it out there? What makes you guys want to stay in the industry?
(Sp3tSnaz – Hellforge)
We’re game developers, what else could we do?

It was a huge disappointment when we lost Mythos, and it’s frustrating to have to make a lot of basic stuff from scratch again. Of course, the other side of that coin is that we’re in a lot better position this time around, and we learned a lot from Mythos that we can use to make the next game event better.

We already have a great team assembled, and that’s a hundred times better than trying to slowly hire people and work on the game at the same time. Putting together a full set of game developers who are good at what they do and who also actually like each other is hard to do. Since we were lucky enough to have already done that, we really wanted to hold onto the team and not waste the opportunity.

 

Question 2 – What (mistakes) have you learned from Mythos?
(Sol Invictus – Hellforge)

Since Mythos was originally envisioned as a very small and simple game, it didn’t have a lot of preproduction planning. As a result, a lot of stuff ended up getting jammed into it that didn’t fit very well, and the art style was a bit unoriginal. This time around we’re doing a lot more planning, and the artists have had the time they need to actually come up with a style, and the visuals will have a lot more personality as a result.

Also, when making randomized dungeons, it’s important to strike a balance between enough randomness to make every experience fresh, and enough intentionally staged set pieces to make the dungeons real and meaningful. I think in Mythos we went a bit too far towards the random end of the spectrum, and as a result all the dungeons felt really similar.

 

Question 3 – The last game you guys worked on was Mythos, so how similar do you think your current project will be to it (both in terms of technical aspects – you built Mythos off of some Hellgate code – and style)?

Well, you can infer the type of game we’ll make from our history. For most of us Mythos was at least our second Action RPG, and for some it was their third or fourth. Expect more in that vein.

 

Question 4 – Just to get it out there, are you guys making a straight out MMORPG?

Sorry, but we’ll have to get into that after we’ve announced the game. |^)

 

Question 5 – As far as technical aspects go, what kind of systems do you plan to support with the new game? (For example, DirectX 9 or 10?)
(Sol Invictus – Hellforge)

We plan to support a wide range of machines, but that’s as detailed as I can get right now.

 

Question 6 – Someone said when you started Mythos Physics systems were expensive and not really an option, has that changed now?

The price of Havok has come down to free, but it still may not be appropriate for our sort of game. We’ll definitely consider it, but a lot of fun things are possible without needing something as complex as third party physics.

 

Question 7 – If Physics is an option, are there plans for it to be visual-only or part of the gameplay?

I’m going to have to skip this one until we’ve announced game details.

 

Question 8 – How do you want to stand out from the crowd? What is your game philosophy? (fun/value/variety of gameplay types, etc)
(Sp3tSnaz – Hellforge)

Our goal is to create viscerally satisfying experiences that are accessible to a wide range of players. The overall gameplay will be faster than other games in the same category, and it will be a pretty different experience. We want to respect the players’ time, and you should be able to play the game in short sessions and still feel like you’re making progress.

 

Question 9 – What kind of themes are you aiming for in your new game? Mythos was “fantasy”, but you killed off all the elves and dwarves just to avoid the stereotypes. Are you going for something similar or planning on spreading out into other areas as well? (For those fans who wonder, any plans on “Steampunk” themes anywhere?)

We’ll talk more about this later, but we still want to avoid stereotypes and put our own twist on the world. Generic fantasy can get pretty boring.

 

Question 10 – What kinds of worlds or settings have you been inspired by?
(Sol Invictus – Hellforge)

I don’t know how much of this you’ll see in our games, but I like Lovecraft’s dream stories, like “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”. The bizarre settings and creatures are a nice change of pace, and it’s really easy to imagine the whole thing as a game world. I want to see that bone waterfall someday.

One of my favorite game worlds is Arcanum’s, the dichotomy of magic and technology worked really well because it permeated all aspects of the game. It was part of the story, worked well in quests, and affected combat and character progression. It’s much easier to feel involved in the setting when it has a direct impact on gameplay.

 

Question 11 – What are your thoughts on having a world where the monsters attack each other as well as you? This especially applies to beasts/animals, who shouldn’t get along as well as they usually do in games.

I think that sort of thing is cool to see once in a while, but it’s generally hard to implement in a way that’s really fun. In most situations, the monsters should be focused on you, the player. You’re the one playing, you’re important!

Most of the problem can be avoided by having monster groups that go together and seem like they should reasonably get along. The dungeons definitely feel better when they make sense and aren’t just a random soup of monsters.

 

Question 12 – What is the hardest part about making quests, both technically and creatively?

It can be difficult to make quests engaging when the player doesn’t really participate in a dialog. If the NPCs talk too much, then players will get in the habit of skipping past the blocks of text. If they don’t say very much, then the characters and world may feel underdeveloped.

One mistake I made when writing quests was forgetting that good stories are about people. I ended up with a lot of stories about killing monsters and retrieving treasure, and they were pretty hollow. It still worked ok, people don’t really need much excuse to go kill monsters and get loot, but I don’t think most of the quests were actually adding much to the game. The few quests that I liked, and I think other people liked too, involved developing characters and getting involved with their lives. The NPCs evolved in some way as a result of the quests, and it felt much more rewarding.

 

Question 13 – With recent games like Left 4 Dead creating replay value through a “Director AI” that generates content, not randomly, but procedurally, based on the player’s status (health, ammo, how recently since he’d killed a horde of monsters that rushed him, etc…) 　Have you played any of these games, and if so, have you taken any inspiration or found features that you could borrow from these games to implement into the game you’re developing for the purpose of adding replay value and content?
(Sol Invictus – Hellforge)

I love Left 4 Dead, I think the Director idea is brilliant. It’s also really cool to personify the AI like that. Games have had similar systems before, but when it has a name it’s easier to imagine it plotting against you.

Smarter level generation is definitely something I’m interested in, as is sending swarms of monsters after players. I really like it when waves of monsters ambush the player, rather than the player always creeping forward and taking out one little group at a time. The crescendo events are also a lot of fun, it would be great to do something like that in a different type of game.

 

Question 14 – What’s the coolest thing you are working on now that you are allowed to tell us about?

Neo-Zardon.

Note from Webbstre: For an explanation of this answer, please refer to these two responses:
http://www.runicgamesfansite.com/rgfforums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13#p56
http://www.runicgamesfansite.com/rgfforums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13&p=59#p59

Question 15 – Final Question: Is there anything you want to tell the community while it waits for news and announcements? Any ways we can help?

We had a really great community around Mythos, and I’m glad that many important members will be around to see what we come out with next. I miss having a great group of people sharing their ideas and opinions about our game, and I can’t wait to get back to that. Once we’re at a stage when we can invite people to have an early look at the project, you can bet that our friends that have stuck around since Mythos will be at the top of our list.

There’s a huge amount of work in front of us before we can get to that point, so please keep that in mind and be patient with us. I hope it won’t be too long before we can at start talking about the details and what we’re excited about, and maybe even announce the name. |^)

For now, I’ll be lurking on the forums, please stop by and say hello. Thanks to Runic Games Fansite, and to everyone who contributed questions!

 

(Post your comments here if you don’t want to read the analysis!)

And now for some analysis…

Answers 1-3 inspire confidence that the new game will be developed with more quality and (perhaps) at a quicker pace than Mythos was. Considering that Mythos developed from a server test, it really didn’t have any planning behind it, despite being of pretty decent quality for a beta.

Answer 4 implies that we are going to see more of the kind of game Mythos was developing into: a Diablo-style dungeon crawler with MMO-Style areas where players can interact. That is entirely inference, of course, and I expect there is even more than anyone has guessed at so far. Either way the fact that they didn’t outright say “Yes” implies that we aren’t going to see a new WoW clone from them, which should relieve some people.

Answer 5 could have a couple meanings… one would be the obvious marketing standpoint that making a low-tech game that plays on a wider tech-range of systems would make more money, but it could also mean that they want to keep a high quality level while keeping the tech specs low enough for a wide audience. We will have to wait to find out more higher-end tech info.

Answers 6 and 7 are a sparse, but Answer 6 could hint that there are other ways to get interesting environmental interaction without relying on Physics programs (and without just destroying things). For those that don’t remember or were not around, just before Flagship went down and after Diablo 3 was announced, the devs mentioned that they were talking about how they were interesting in the environmental interactions shown in the first demo.

Answer 8 encourages us to believe that we are going to get more Mythos-style quick action in the new game, which is a good thing.

Answers 9 is mainly confirmation that we aren’t going to see Elves and Dwarves in conventional forms again (all the Dwarves in Mythos were undead spirits).

Answer 10 Is interesting… I hope to see a bone waterfall and other fantastic sights someday too.

Answer 11 shows that some consideration is being given to the idea that not everything in the new game world will get along with everyone except you… but we probably won’t be seeing anything like the Battle at Kruger (http://www.runicgamesfansite.com/rgfforums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15#p241). It will be interesting to see how they make monster groups that get along in a way that makes sense.

Answer 12 will make sense to anyone who played in the Overworld on the test server for Mythos: up until the Overworld nearly every quest required you to collect pieces of monsters or fulfill a bounty, but towards the end we had interesting quests that made you do things like pacify the spirit of a widow’s dead husband (which resulted in partially bringing him back to life into an odd Zombie farm). The next logical question would be, how many quests like that can you make before it gets tedious for players to figure out what to do next?

Answer 13 is VERY interesting, and while there is no real confirmation of what kind of questing will be available in the new game, I think we will see something that gives them a means to compete with Left 4 Dead style questing and the new semi-randomized events in Diablo 3. Hopefully we will get more information on this in the future.

Answer 14 shows that Volbard and the others still have a sense of humor ^^;

The final answer gives us hope, especially that part that says “you can bet that our friends that have stuck around since Mythos will be at the top of our lists.” So if you are reading this now and you played Mythos, and you haven’t signed up for the forums yet, do it right away!

That is the end of our interview this time around, but have no fear! You can bet that any time we have a heated discussion going on around here, we will have some “guest stars” popping in to tell us their opinions, and if we are lucky we might even get more hints at info on the new game!

Now go post your own comments and reactions!

Thanks to Volbard and the folks from Runic Games for agreeing to do the interview, and thanks to Sol Invictus and Sp3tSnaz of Hellforge for inputting their own questions!