BioWare Interview
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Jonric: How much experience do you have playing massively multiplayer games? What are your feelings about this category in general, its potential and the major hurdles that must be overcome in order to realize this potential?
Greg Zeschuk: I can probably lay claim to having considerable experience playing MMORPGs. I started at the text MUD and MUSH phase - Ray often tells stories about how it was impossible to reach my house years ago because my phone line was constantly busy due to modem use to support my MUD addiction. I played a considerable amount of Ultima Online, a brief span on EverQuest (I specifically prevented myself from playing because of my lack of impulse control), and most recently Anarchy Online followed by Dark Age of Camelot (which I'm playing and really enjoying almost every night of the week). In fact, some of the distillation of our ideas on Neverwinter Nights came from our experiences playing Ultima Online.
Overall, I have concerns about the number of titles in the category - I believe there's a very finite group that play MMORPGs and they move from game to game depending on their experiences. The challenge in the category is to create a game that has a more broad appeal than the current games in existence - only in this way will the market be able to support multiple AAA online titles. A second point to make is that the category, prior to Dark Age of Camelot, was marred by very shaky product releases followed by painful bug fixing and balancing phases. Dark Age showed that it can be done right; I've been incredibly impressed with how well the game's release has gone and how smartly Mythic has managed it - they deserve all the success they're getting.
