by Linda “Brasse” Carlson

I was happy to run into Steve Danuser and Jason Roberts at ION. Who are they, you ask? Two very talented guys—I remember them when they worked with EQ and EQII, but now they are with 38 Studios, developing an MMOG that nobody is allowed to talk about.

Both were attending ION as speakers: Steve was moderating “Taking Your Community from Pre-Launch to Live,” while Jason led a development panel called “Changing a Live Game: Lessons Learned and Techniques Applied". I could not resist the urge to talk to them about the project they are working on, even though it was still under wraps. You just never know…



You can see their reaction above.
Steve “Moorgard” Danuser, Community Relations Manager and Lead Content Designer, and Jason “Dymus” Roberts, Lead Mechanics Designer, 38 Studios.

38 Studios was founded my Major League Baseball player and MMOG fan Curt Shilling. He drew in well-known fantasy author R.A. Salvatore and world-class artist Todd McFarlane. These are three huge names in their respective fields, recognizable to geeks of all walks of life, not just gamers. This trio soon began to surround themselves with a lot of talent from all corners of the game industry.

There is a simmering and constant level of interest in their yet-unnamed project, but 38 Studios has been keeping things very quiet.

I resisted the urge to kidnap Jason and Steve and take them to a secret underground bunker to question them with imaginative techniques – after all, that will never net me a beta invite when the time comes. I opted for the civilized method instead and tied them to a couch in the lobby.

My first question: So what ARE you allowed to say about the game… anything?

Steve started, “Well, ok, so we’re making an MMO and it’s fantasy themed,” and then trailed off with a wicked grin as I rolled my eyes, before continuing, “That dovetails into a whole bunch of stuff, because ‘fantasy’ is so broad a category. We’re talking about something that is very story-based. Obviously when you’re talking about working with a guy like R.A. Salvatore and people who are so great at constructing these epic stories with great characters… they’re memorable, they make you care about them… that’s something that is very key to the MMO we’re doing. Without saying a lot about the people, the talent pool is drawn to make the best MMOG that we possibly can.”

It is no secret that 38 Studios has recruited a lot of developers out of big-name game companies. They are all talented, they are all opinionated, often coming from very different game company backgrounds. Each undoubtedly has drive and ideas and directions they want to go. I asked Jason what it was like working with so many high-profile people on the team. Was there any conflict?

“Actually, no, it works together really well,” replied Jason, “We’ve got a lot of opinions, but a lot of times, when they start talking about the options and solutions, the right answer bubbles up to the top. With the nature of the talent that we do have there, the people can recognize the right answer when they see, it, or make compromises for the sake of the game.”

Steve added, “The nice thing is that while you may recognize a lot of names from companies like SOE, there are a lot of other projects people have worked on together, such as VR-1, there is a lot of synergy and trust of each other already.” VR-1, now a part of Jaleco Entertainment, developed games such as Fighter Ace III for the PC and Nightcaster for the X-Box.

“New companies that just start up and put together people that don’t really know each other simply don’t have that level of trust,” continued Steve, “There’s a lot of inherent belief in one another, people who have performed well together in the past. We have a team where people say ‘Hey, I’d really love to work with that guy on a project again,’ or ‘She was really awesome on that, I’d really like to have her on this team.’ We’ve been able to assemble our team like that. It’s been really gratifying.”

I asked if the unnamed project has maintained the same focus and direction, or if Jason and Steve found that things had changed over time.

“Little things change,” said Jason, “but the large focus has remained very clear.”

So are they still on track in terms of the original concept? I asked.

“The original core for the idea of the game, what would make it really original and unique among MMOs, has stayed consistent since Curt and the first bunch of guys started talking about it and brainstorming,” responded Steve, “Like Jason says, detail has changed—there are some decisions you have to make when you had a cool idea that doesn’t fit any more. The core idea, the central experience of the game, has stayed the same throughout.”

At this point, Mary Kirchoff, 38 Studios PR Manager, joined us. She is an industry veteran, having authored many books for the famous Dragonlance series, as well as having worked as Product Manager for Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro.

Her appearance at our informal interview caused Steve to say, “I can’t get too specific or Mary will come across and hit me!”

“I have a taser,” she smiled, disarmingly. I bet she does have one.



Mary Kirchoff, Chief Marketing Officer, 38 Studios. Taser not shown in this picture.

One of my real concerns about the industry is that games seem to be increasingly difficult to actually get to market. There are many instances of what the industry calls “vaporware” where an announced project quietly vanishes and development teams are dissolved. More recently, we’ve seen games like Gods and Heroes: it was cancelled a mere two weeks before launch, an event so unexpected that pre-order boxes sat on retailer’s shelves for a month after.

I wanted to gauge how confident 38 Studios was that their project would make it to launch without running out of funding or without the partners arguing themselves into a corner.

Jason responded immediately, “Extremely confident. We have a very good focus. We set realistic expectations and manage those expectations. As long as we continue to do that, we will ensure that we will have something when we say we need to have it.”

“It is part of having so many people who have been involved in similar experiences,” supplied Steve, “When it first started, you see the names, Curt Shilling, R.A Salvatore, McFarland. It’s easy to see there’s money, creativity…” he paused, “But it doesn’t tell you that they can ship the product. It’s easy to look at the people and say, Oh sure, they have big name visionaries, but world class production who are all about setting the milestones, setting realistic schedules, making sure we’re reaching our goals and delivering to the quality bar that we’ve set for ourselves. That’s why there’s the addition of people like Brett Close, Mike Kosenski and Jen McLean - all of those people have vast experience gained over many years in the industry.”

Brett Close was hired early on as CEO of 38 Studios. His credits include heading up projects at Midway, EA and VR-1/Jaleco. Mike Kosenski, formerly EA's Senior Development Protector, now heads up product development at 38 Studios, while his vice-president of product development is Jen McLean, previously VP and General Manager, Games, for Comcast. Jen was named one of Gamasutra's Top 20 Women in Games.

Of course, I inquired if there were plans to release any concrete info this year.

Mary took this on, “Probably not this year. We were going to unveil the game at Comic Con, but we’ve since decided that if we can’t show it all, we’d rather not show anything, because we know that whatever we show, it won’t be enough for some people and too much for others. So we’re going to sit on it for a while longer, let it gel.”

I asked if postponing the unveiling meant that the game was delayed at all.

“We’ve built our schedule around a December, 2010 launch.” Mary replied, “That has not changed.”

38 Studios has licensed the BigWorld Technology Suite (a modular MMOG client/structure solution) and Unreal Engine 3 (a leading graphics engine), so they clearly have some idea of the direction their actual game structure will take. I was curious how the studio would ensure that the technological aspects of the game are still current at release, in terms of advancements in hardware, graphics, programming and animation software. In other words, how flexible was the game design itself.

“In terms of technology, what we are trying to do is ensure that the gameplay is independent of the technology,” said Jason, “We built a lot of systems that are adaptive, so that we can put in a lot of flexible modules. If we need to, we can make changes very, very well.”

Steve carried on, “The core of the experience has to be independent of the technology. You can’t rely on a certain level of hardware or gimmicks or anything like that. They make nice ‘back of the box’ features and make people pay attention, but at the end of the day, it’s the experience, the heart that’s put into it, the uniqueness that makes a game stand out.”

“Keep in mind that a large part of our development time is in developing our IP, we’re not staring a fully formed world—we had to create that as well,” added Mary.

This prompted my next query. R. A. Salvatore is a prolific writer, but I was curious if he was going to attempt all of the game writing, or if he was focused on developing the overall world background and lore. Known more familiarly as “Bob” to those he works with, this author has been working closely with 38 Studios for years. It is easy for a guy like Salvatore, creator of Drizzt Do’Urden and dozens of other memorable characters, to take a small jibe, such as the one Mary immediately offered up.

“He’s written a FEW words… none of them very good.” She smiled slyly. We all laughed.

Still grinning, Steve said, “MMOs are so vast, in terms of content required, that if you waited around for one person, no matter how prolific they are, you’d wait decades.”

I asked then if Salvatore is the one who sets up the structure and framework. Further, does he oversee all the content submitted by a staff of writers?

Steve nodded, “Yeah, definitely. One of the nice things about where it’s all located is he only lives a half hour away from the studio, so he comes in a couple of times a week and we have the content ready for him. We go over the things that we’ve done; he acts as a sort of global overseer. He knows so much about how to tell a great story, and he also knows that we’re building an MMO, not a book, so it’s us all working together to take his vision of his world, his characters, the places that mean so much, and translating that into a game that’s fun to play.”

I turned to Mary then, and asked, knowing that she is an author as well, whether she was doing any writing for the game. She laughed, “I am not doing any writing for the game, I barely have any time to do any reading!”

She continued, “Being in marketing but having a strong product background makes it much more interesting for me, gives me a greater understanding of what they’re trying to accomplish,” and then she paused for a moment, to consider whether her next statement could be made public or not. She decided it could, and I was all ears.

“Bob will be writing a prequel book for the launch of the game.” Mary revealed, “A lot of his energy, in addition to crafting the larger story that drives the IP, will go into telling the introductory story before launch.”

“There will be other novel lines that will support the content that Steve and others are writing,” she continued, “Characters that provide the infrastructure of the game will appear in a variety of novel lines, led by the prequel novel.”

I immediately wanted to know how they planned to market the novels, whether they’d be sold independently along traditional publishing markets, or tied in with game sales (particularly for the prequel).

“All of the above.” Mary said, “We will follow the traditional channels, but the appealing thing to me as a publisher is that this product line has the online experience to tie these things together within the game itself. We’ll use a mixture of the existing and new book models for publishing.”

It appears that this mysterious, fantasy-themed MMOG is poised to do a lot of cross marketing. I am the proud owner of a great many Todd McFarlane models, particularly his dragons, and can hardly wait to see what tangible products he brings to the world, in addition to the artistic design of the game itself.

The many questions I have for him will have to wait for another time.


For more information: http://www.38studios.com.