Richard Garriott Interview
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Q: You're trying to create an MMO that actually tells stories. Other people have struggled with this. If you're playing Guild Wars in a group, and a cutscene pops up, you often find everyone pressing the skip button.
A: First of all, we don't pause for long cutscenes so don't have that particular issue, for better or worse. But generally, I think storytelling is unattempted by most games. When we talk about roleplaying games, I think there's two kinds. I personally use the word 'RPG' when I'm talking about a game like Diablo. Diablo is a statistics-based game.
One of the things which Blizzard do phenomenally well is what I call the slot-machine mechanic. You face just enough challenge to get just enough reward to feel just powerful enough to go and face a slightly bigger challenge. They do that masterfully.
If you go back to every game I've ever developed, I don't think mine have ever come close to the skill for RPG-balance that the Blizzard guys manage. That being said, I think I'm one of the only people who really, truly attempts to create story content that is not only worthy of reading or participating in, but challenges you to think about the story as it's unfolding and participate in a meaningful moment of that story where what you do actually matters...
Lots of great games have nothing to do with literature. Tetris clearly has nothing to do with literature. It's a physical game mechanic. By no means are games required to ever go beyond that. Great games - in fact, most games - fit in to the game mechanic.
