BT: So, with all that in mind about the importance of the franchise, how important do you think the Warhammer name is to the game? Would you still have done an MMO like this without the weight of the franchise?
JD: It’s hard to say. This particular team didn’t even exist until this project was started, so it’s kind of like ‘what would you do with your money if you hadn’t won the lottery?’
BT: What do you think Warhammer brings to the game though? Every MMO is to some degree trying to topple World of Warcraft, so are you hoping this’ll give you the strength to do that?
JD: Well, that’s kind of two questions. So, the first part is partly purely selfish since we were given 25 years of other people's works to steal from and make something out of. That gave us a chance to look at all things Warhammer and say ‘Well, that bit is good, and so is that, but that bit isn’t’.
BT: Taking the best of every world.
JD: Yeah, and that can really help bootstrap the development process at the start. We’re also big fans of the tabletop, so it’s like being asked if you wanted to work on a project built around everything you love. The answer is yes, of course you would – so there’s a real energy from that angle.
BT: And what about trying to topple World of Warcraft?
JD: Well, I don’t think that that is what anyone is attempting to do. Blizzard really opened up that market in a way that every sane developer is thankful for. Since WoW came out there have been very few unsuccessful MMO games. Maybe none of them eclipses [i[Warcraft[/i] in terms of population, but for the most part all of them have remained financially successful and built strong player bases.
What I think we’ll continue to see is that generically the market is going to diversify and as more games come out we’ll see more and more exciting things overall.
BT: And yet the attitude among a lot of players is that every MMO is trying to topple World of Warcraft, kind of like when Quake came out and everyone thought all the other games were just copying it.
JD: Yeah, but I think that anytime that anyone can bring mass attention to a new gameplay time then you’re going to find that that is good for the market. You can look around today and see that not every first person shooter is Quake – you’ve got games like Half-Life, Battlefield and so on.
In fact, when you think about it then the most successful shooters of the last few years have been the ones that have not just been like Quake – they’ve taken that idea and run with it. What was introduced with Quake has since been improved on and it’s the same with MMOs and World of Warcraft.
As developers they opened the door for everyone, now we have to go through and see what we can do.
JD: It’s hard to say. This particular team didn’t even exist until this project was started, so it’s kind of like ‘what would you do with your money if you hadn’t won the lottery?’
BT: What do you think Warhammer brings to the game though? Every MMO is to some degree trying to topple World of Warcraft, so are you hoping this’ll give you the strength to do that?
JD: Well, that’s kind of two questions. So, the first part is partly purely selfish since we were given 25 years of other people's works to steal from and make something out of. That gave us a chance to look at all things Warhammer and say ‘Well, that bit is good, and so is that, but that bit isn’t’.
BT: Taking the best of every world.
JD: Yeah, and that can really help bootstrap the development process at the start. We’re also big fans of the tabletop, so it’s like being asked if you wanted to work on a project built around everything you love. The answer is yes, of course you would – so there’s a real energy from that angle.
BT: And what about trying to topple World of Warcraft?
JD: Well, I don’t think that that is what anyone is attempting to do. Blizzard really opened up that market in a way that every sane developer is thankful for. Since WoW came out there have been very few unsuccessful MMO games. Maybe none of them eclipses [i[Warcraft[/i] in terms of population, but for the most part all of them have remained financially successful and built strong player bases.
What I think we’ll continue to see is that generically the market is going to diversify and as more games come out we’ll see more and more exciting things overall.
BT: And yet the attitude among a lot of players is that every MMO is trying to topple World of Warcraft, kind of like when Quake came out and everyone thought all the other games were just copying it.
JD: Yeah, but I think that anytime that anyone can bring mass attention to a new gameplay time then you’re going to find that that is good for the market. You can look around today and see that not every first person shooter is Quake – you’ve got games like Half-Life, Battlefield and so on.
In fact, when you think about it then the most successful shooters of the last few years have been the ones that have not just been like Quake – they’ve taken that idea and run with it. What was introduced with Quake has since been improved on and it’s the same with MMOs and World of Warcraft.
As developers they opened the door for everyone, now we have to go through and see what we can do.
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