Runic Games Interview
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GB: What can you tell us about your plans for Runic's first project? In what ways would you like to make it similar to/different from Mythos and Hellgate: London? Travis: We really believed in what we were doing with Mythos. Mythos' concept was one of a game that didn't require enormous time investment, was fast, visceral, and immediately rewarding to play, and that could be picked up by anyone. We'd like to follow that same path with our next project, because we think there's a real place for it in the market right now. We don't need to compete directly with Blizzard for players - but maybe we'll borrow them for a while as they're waiting for their raid to start!
GB: How difficult will it be to develop and test a massively multiplayer action RPG without Ping0? Do you intend to create a similar network infrastructure for your own games?
Travis: Ping0 was integral to Mythos' development, definitely. We're considering actually releasing a singleplayer game on the road to the multiplayer title, which might have significant portions of the multiplayer core internally. It would be a shorter term project that would let us get a product back into the market, recover a lot of momentum after the sudden termination of Mythos, and give us time to hire the proper team to help complete the networking back-end. Peter Hu, who was the architect of Ping0's network technology, is actually one of our investors and will be advising us there. The technology driving the back-end for Hellgate and Mythos was actually quite complex and robust, designed to serve millions of concurrent users without sharding - for a new project we'd probably choose a simpler and more traditional model to ensure that we could complete it in a timely fashion.
Max: This is where a good solid partner becomes so valuable. Ping0 was a terrific bunch of engineers, but it was never our plan from the outset to run a network services company. We are primarily game developers, and going forward we'd like to focus on that.
GB: Mythos and Hellgate: London were both exclusive to the PC. To stay competitive and reach a larger audience, would you be willing to bring Runic's game(s) to console platforms as well?
Travis: We definitely would - it was long a desire of ours to get something like Mythos onto the 360 - and the other platforms have their compelling points as well. We don't have immediate plans to do this, but I certainly wouldn't rule it out.
Max: Worldwide, PC is still the king, and though it's in a down cycle in the US and Europe, it's not going away. We still think the PC is the best game platform for many reasons, but at the same time, we'd love to translate our action-RPG flavor to the consoles.
GB: Diablo III and Sacred 2 are only two of what will most likely be several upcoming competitors in the action RPG arena. With an action RPG/MMO focus, how do you intend to stay competitive with other big name releases?
Travis: I think it's key for us to serve a different portion of the market. Mythos had started to tend heavily toward accentuating its social aspects, and more MMO features - auction houses, a shared overworld, crafting, and the like. While retaining our fast-action and hordes of enemies, we were becoming a much more community oriented game than we had previously been. I think that's the space that Diablo III and Sacred 2 will probably skirt, and where we can succeed. Sticking with a free-to-play model with microtransactions could also be very important for us - there's no lower barrier-to-entry than free!
Max: I'll just add that as one of the creators of the Diablo franchise, all of us are very excited to see and play Diablo III. The Blizzard crew are a great bunch of guys and I'm sure they'll do justice to the title.
GB: Although it may not be a concern of yours any longer, what do you foresee happening with Hellgate: London? Would Runic Games have any interest in obtaining the rights to continue development on it?
Travis: Hellgate is a big project, and there's a lot of history there - it would feel a little strange to attempt to pick it up and work on it. Mythos, and that style of play was never really our focus, so I don't think there's probably any likelihood of anything like that happening.
Max: Yes, the greater wish for us is that somehow the Mythos project gets resurrected. At this point, however, it seems locked away in the iron grip of irrationality.
Thanks guys! We look forward to checking out your next game.
