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Playnet News Break Transcript #4 - 9/13/00

(Transcribed by Weasel, Sixxo)

The fourth Playnet News Break audio interview, featuring Mark "Snail" Pribe and conducted by Ron "NewzGuy/Flapz" Jackson, was recently available for mass-consumption. This transcript is provided for those that were unable to obtain the MP3 file, or for those that want to have a clearer understanding of what was being said.

Ron "NewzGuy" Jackson: Many players who follow online sims, especially the up and coming World War Two Online title from Cornered Rat Software, have at least a passing acquaintance with the more visible people in the gaming industry, people like John "Killer" MacQueen, one of the founders of online gaming, Chris "Mo" Sherland, Roger "Frying Tiger" Long, they spring to mind. Not as many people are familiar with the executive producer of Cornered Rat Software, Mr. Mark Pribe. His first handle in gaming was "Escargot," very classy, right? Well, his fellow players would have none of it - before long, his expurgated handle emerged - "Snail." He's a man steeped in codes of honor and conduct that were fleshed out during his long career in the U.S. Navy. Mr. Pribe is the man in charge of all Playnet titles; he oversees every aspect of games coming out of the company's shop, from game design through development and production. What features you find in a Cornered Rat title and how they are implemented in the game have passed his critical eye. You won't find much on the bulletin boards from Mark, but when he does speak up, you can bet it's a worthy issue. He agreed to sit down for a multi-part interview about the upcoming massively multiplayer entertainment title, World War Two Online. In this edition, we begin with an overview of how computer games on the net are changing.

Mark "Snail" Pribe: A multiplayer game, and you've heard some of the other developers talk about this, everybody can't be the center of the universe in the multiplayer game. In a traditional box game you buy from the store, you're it - everything revolves around you - and so when you make a multi-player game that's the players against the world, all the players become sort of trivialized, because the balancing that has to happen so nobody's too powerful against the world, and in the game we're making it's built from the ground up to be player versus player. I mean, really, WarBirds was, Air Warrior was, the only people you are fighting are other players and when the only people you're fighting are the other players, you give them all the same tools, they get as powerful as they can get versus the other players, so what you end up with is players that get very good at it, and World War Two Online, those will be the guys that are running the country - those will be the guys that runs the air force and the navy, and there will be guys running the theaters, below them there will be the Colonels running missions, being in charge of a base, or captain in charge of a CV. There will be a structure, right down to the lowest guy; the private is right down there, but that private, although what he's doing at the moment may seem trivial, he can perform a heroic act that has great meaning within the game because he's not balancing against anything but the other people he's fighting - and he has the capability, the potential, to become the General, and the biggest guy in the game. So, the players can balance that themselves - and they go into the game expecting that, they go in there expecting to fight other players and that's the opponents they're going to be fighting, so they won't be mad when somebody else kills them, there's no need to, that's what you're there for. "You killed me!" Well, fine, everyone says that, but you don't quit the game because of that, because that's what you're there for, that's what you expect. And so our job becomes kind of providing a world and the tools for everyone to do that, and then letting them go, and letting them see what comes out of it. Part of my motivation is to try to tell a story, but I don't have a God complex that I want the story to go the way I wrote it, you know, if I did I'd be writing books. I want the players to write it, I just want to nudge them here, nudge them there, give them tools, and see what comes out of it, with all of us telling the stories together. So, hopefully, we'll get... the newspaper we'll put out will have stories in there, the World War Two that never was, the great battle that never took place, or somebody went out and did something just completely unexpected, or ballsy, and succeeded, or failed, spectacularly, and, you know, we'll all get to see that, we'll all get to take part in it even though it's this guy doing it, you know, whoever the General is, it's his goofy plan that failed, but you were part of that, so when you tell those stories, years from now, everybody's part of that whole thing, even the guys on the other side were still part of it, and everybody gets to live that same sort of adventure that we've created.

Ron "NewzGuy" Jackson: The critical thinking that goes into game design for the new century has evolved into more than technical advances; it's an art form. Countless meetings and design sessions are held before the first line of code is ever written. Mark is proud of his design team, Cornered Rat Software, and he's also impressed with the feedback he gets from the community of people who have gathered around a game that hasn't even been released yet.

Mark "Snail" Pribe: We've been pretty good... The players have come, and they ask a question, we've seemed to cover all the bases already, and we went through a long, really long design process, with a bunch of brains beating on the concepts we have - which was a lot of fun, but was very hard... But we managed to cover most of the bases. So I'm sitting in the chat room, answering some questions, and some guy goes, "Are we going to be able to capture capital ships?" - and that's a really cool idea, but, let me get back to you... I don't know! But it's a neat idea to think about; there's a lot of play-balancing and proofing things that have to go on there, to make that work or not work, but it's just something we didn't think about - it's seems obvious in retrospect - "Why didn't we think about that? We thought about capturing other things... why didn't we think about capturing capital ships?" Well, because the country has to pay for them, and there's persistent objects blah blah blah blah blah, but, I sat there with Chris (Mo), and I says "Well, this is what the guy brought up, and, uh, I don't really see a reason why they couldn't capture capital ships," and we kind of stared at each other for a couple of minutes, trying to think of something, and we couldn't, so, well, now I forget who the player was, but if you hear this, your idea is on the agenda to be at least talked about. I'm not promising it will happen - but we'll think about it.

Ron "NewzGuy" Jackson: In the next installment, we follow Mark's lead into gameplay issues, including the highly anticipated World War Two Online.

Thanks to both Ron "NewzGuy" Jackson and Mark "Snail" Pribe this latest edition of Playnet News Break, as well as Andy "Weasel" Moore for helping me with the transcript (or was it me helping him?). For those that would like the original MP3 file, it can be obtained here (3.66 MB).