By Paul Philleo
A wise man named MacGyver once said on television, the source of all great
truths, that "I learned something a long time ago: never laugh at what you don't
know." This television off-the-cuff genius later moved on to play Colonel
O’Neill, one of the anchor characters for Stargate SG-1, the popular science
fiction spin-off series from the 1994 movie. The purpose of this circuitous line
of thought about Richard Dean Anderson is to bear in mind his earlier advice
while we update you on Stargate Worlds.
This is the PC-only science fiction massively multiplayer game based on the
Stargate SG-1 television property you may – or somehow may not – have known
about or been keeping tabs on.
Kevin Balentine is the Senior Marketing Manager at
Cheyenne Mountain, the developer of
Stargate SG-1. He qualified that the game is being based on the broader, more
open-ended story arc that deviates from the overall plot progression from
seasons 8 and 9. Developing inventive stories and quests would certainly be
easier with a more flexible storyline, without annoying purist fans of the
series.
A few new tidbits about the game were shared with us to give insight into what
is scheduled to hit the table this autumn, when SW launches commercially. For
those who like to control more than their avatar, Stargate Worlds won’t offer
player-controlled vehicles at launch, Cheyenne Mountain’s senior marketing
manager said. For players who want to deal with their avatar and only their
avatar while adventuring, there’s some hope. “We want the game to be solo-able,”
he said. “Stargate Worlds is like most other MMOs in that it’s designed for
community play, but we want players to have the freedom to explore the game’s
universe on their own.”
When involved in the action-oriented combat sequences, in-game enemy AI won’t
react blindly or predictably, according to Balentine. Enemy combatants will
apparently react like first-person shooter opponents, flanking and using cover
to engage the player.
A new video trailer that was played showed off a taste of the planetary
diversity that’s likely to be represented in Stargate Worlds, from a forbidding
and sterile-seeming mechanical planet, to a snow-drifted wasteland not unlike
Star Wars’ Hoth planet, to a Paleolithic-type world overrun with vast jungles of
gigantic plant life. Graphics representing the worlds appeared to make good use
of the Unreal 3 graphics engine, even if there weren’t any demonstrations of
in-game combat or PvE involvement..
Cheyenne Mountain has shared nine new still shots from the diverse planets
populating Stargate Worlds, including two exclusive images for MPOGD. One image
artistically depicts the power station fans of the TV series may find familiar
and a new image from the steely mechanical planet of Agnos.
In the end, how does Stargate Worlds plan to operate successfully alongside
World of Warcraft, the undisputed king of mass market MMO games? Balentine
didn’t need much time to consider his answer: “We co-exist nicely with WoW…because
sometimes, you know, you just want to take your P90 and shoot things up.” Yes,
there are fans of trigger finger games, but you just can’t forget those legions
of Stargate fans, either. To see how this MMO game continues to develop and how
closely fans embrace it will be an interesting question to watch unfold as 2008
continues.
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