Rift: Planes of Telara Interview
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MMORPG.com: So with the new decade coming in and 2011 around the corner, what changes do you see to the industry that are happening as a result of the last ten years in MMOs?
David Reid: It is super important to look at where we are going with games. As generational changes happen, people want to know what is bright and exciting in the future. If you look at some of the big high profile launches in the past few years that maybe did not hit the bar, there are a few things that were endemic to all of them. One thing for sure was that it felt like many games just shipped a little too early. With a little more time it would have made all the difference. These are very expensive products and they take a lot out of you. So having the time to polish the games is really important. Beyond that you also have to add something to the genre. It is not enough to ask an MMO guild to win over one person in that guild. You have to offer something new to everybody. Look at the healer for example. You better add something different to healing for those players if you really want to bring them over to a new game. It really is about adding more to the genre as a whole. There is also a technological shift happening as well. We spoke a lot about the platform that Trion had when we first started the company. How content was going to be delivered etc. It is now time for us to turn that into scenarios and into things that actually matter for game play. The rifts that open up in the game are dynamic and show how game play is changing. As these invasions occur they can change the game drastically. Every now and then when we do a demo we walk into an area and an invasion is going on and the demo can get very rough. This type of dynamic game play is really exciting stuff. In an industry where there has not been a lot of difference, we really have something here that is really exciting. The MMO business is not a cute little business any more if you are launching a new game you better give a very demanding audience something to really look forward too. Game companies in general are really starting to think about innovation. If you went to shows this year, you are starting to see more innovations in games for the next decade. It is going to take some new great ideas in game play to be successful with the MMO audience. We are excited that RIFT falls into this category.
