Project Mercury/Copernicus Interview
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You've written for games before. You're currently writing for the single player game and the MMO, right?
I'm not really writing for the single player game, I'm overseeing, again from that high perch, just to make sure. They've got Ken Rolston, Mark Nelson, they've got all the talent they need down there. These guys are amazing, they're writing for the single player game and I'm making sure that it smells like our world.
Do you find it an extra challenge writing for an MMO versus a single player game?
Well when I wrote for the single player, yeah that was a very linear story that I was telling, and I was creating the characters, that was the Forgotten Realms Demon Stone game that I did with Atari. It was very linear and with an MMO, it's really more world creation and then the story aspects of it that I contributed beyond that, which I really can't talk about, yeah, you have to anticipate much more the reactions you're going to get, knowing full well that they're going to be all over the place.
If you do X, how does it affect the person who just wants to explore on his own and doesn't really care about leveling? How does it affect the person that wants to do nothing more than fight other players and PVP? How does it affect the person whose sole goal in this game is to get the best gear? You don't know all the answers, so you have to be very agile in the way you build it, and the other aspect is of course, how are you allowing the players to be the heroes? That's the biggest question, because when I write a book I give you the characters, you walk down the road and live vicariously through my heroes. You play an MMO and the only hero that matters to you is the one you rolled up, and the ones your friends rolled up.
