In a recent interview, Bioware opened up about their unnamed MMORPG and discussed the importance of narrative, character customization and not being World of Warcraft.
Every MMORPG developer on the planet has to consider World of Warcraft when creating their next game. When asked about Blizzard’s major hit, Bioware Austin co-studio director Gordan Walton said that, “There hasn’t really been anything that’s been built to beat it yet — but we just want to be competitive. We’re not looking to kill World of Warcraft. Will some people who play World of Warcraft play our game? Of course. But we’d be better off if we got new customers, too. It’s not a zero-sum game out there.”
In order to differentiate their game in a market dominated by one title, Bioware is looking to bring their signature style to the genre. “We want to encourage players to continue to make progress in their story, to do new quests, consume new content, constantly move forward. The grind is not attractive in any way. Going and killing the same dragon over and over again is not something I want to do. There are lots of different ways to encourage players to move forward. Simply putting more weight on storytelling experience points is a good way to do that,” said James Ohlen, creative director on the project.
Bioware is currently one year into the project and almost finished the design documents for the game. There is currently no release date.
Source: 1UP
Published: Nov 28, 2006 02:05 pm