Interviews:Pwned Radio live interview with Dan Elggren

From Stargate Worlds Wiki (SGW)

Interview mp3 Transcript – by Bema

H1: Dan Elggren from Stargate Worlds, a new MMO that’s coming out fairly soon. Well it’s still in development so we’re going to ask him when it’s coming out.

H2: ...and Dan joins us on the telephone now. Dan how are you?

Dan: Hi guys, how you doing?

H2: Fine thank you. I guess we’ll lead with that question then. How close are we to actually seeing Stargate Worlds?

Dan: Well...actually that was one of the last questions I was hoping you were going to ask me.

<Laughter>

Dan: We’re probably looking at later next year. Mid to late next year, but you know the betas and all that stuff I think we’re going to add a lot to that (?)

H2: The betas – yeah do you need Beta Testers?

Dan: Oh absolutely, I was defiantly hoping you guys would join us.

H2: Oh we’d love to

Dan: You guys are really on the ‘friends and family’ if you don’t mind (?)

H2: Absolutely – would love to try it out.

H1: We love testing games.

H2: So this is based on the Stargate movie/TV show?

Dan: Yeah. The core of the story is going to be on Stargate SG-1, so yes there’s the current sci-fi series that’s running right now.

H2: Mhmm. And what kind of format is it going to be.

Dan: Its PC.

H1: Hey Dan, this is Shane. How you doing bud?

Dan: Hey man.

H1: Let me ask you this: If you’ve worked on games before what’s your background in games?

Dan: Yeah absolutely. I actually go back to some of the older days. I don’t know if you remember some of the games like Small Soldiers –

H1: Oh yeah

Dan: -Clue <and some others I couldn’t quite get>. Some of these really old games like all the Field & Stream Hunting games. That’s where I started off. But recently I’ve actually been working at EA and working on the Medal of Honor franchise.

H2: Yeah those have done well.

Dan: Yeah.

H2: Hah. Yeah those are some of the best games available.

H1: Well that’s a nice resume booster there.

H2: Absolutely.

Dan: It doesn’t hurt!

H2: Well the Stargate Worlds – is that going to be a role player?

Dan: Yeah. Definitely an RPG type game, but you know it’s got to add a lot of different aspects to you know...it’s got to live the Stargate Universe.

H2: What will that entail? Briefly of course?

Dan: Well it’s really about the core of the game play. You talked a little bit about World of Warcraft and sort of how WoW does that 1-on-1 type of scenario. It’s more of the 1-on-many types of scenarios. You’re in Stargate right? You’re General O’Neill, you’re Sam Carter – you’re whoever you want to be in this universe and you’re doing that one-on-many type of scenario which is modern combat with sci-fi weaponry. So if I shoot a Jaffa you know in the battlefield, his buddy standing next to him isn’t just going to stand there and ignore him. There’s a smarter AI that means he’s going to join in, he might flank you, he might move throughout the battlefield to get a better position on you.

H2: Is that proprietary AI that your using, or are you adopting somebody else’s?

Dan: It’s proprietary.

H2: Excellent. How are you going to utilize Stargates into the story?

Dan: Oh absolutely. You’ve got a galaxy right? Instead of this flat universe or flat world that you just run on, you’ve got a galaxy that you can sort of run through. You can go to new worlds, worlds that you’ve maybe seen on the TV show or within the movie but also the guys up at MGM have also given us the ability to...you know...go anywhere we want with the Universe and create some very unique worlds that you’ve never seen.

H2: Are there going to be cut-scenes of the show, and or the movie? Or will it be totally new?

Dan: It’ll be new but the story line is going to be really based in that universe. So if you’ve seen the show you’re going to feel like you’re at home. But if you haven’t seen the show we’re going to bring you in and introduce you to a whole new galaxy.

H1: You know Dan that was one of my questions. A lot of games like World of Warcraft and Stargate Galaxies; they all have a good tutorial system. Have you guys worked on how you’re going to bring people into this new world of theirs?

Dan: Oh absolutely. To me the tutorial is one of the things we’re going to work on until...you know...post-ship. We’re going to work on this thing forever. It’s critical because you’ve got to bring people into the universe. Someone who’s never heard of Stargate, they’ve got to come into the universe, get to know the story and everything else that goes into it but also how do you play the game.

H2: Do I get to kill people?

Dan: Oh absolutely.

H2: Ok – just wanted to check. You never know

Dan: Yeah – there’s always the licensing (?) to restrict that, but you know - that’s the Universe.

H1: Dan – is this going to be a Sony Online Entertainment game?

Dan: No.

H1: No? Because I know there’s a Stargate card game. Are you guys affiliated with that?

Dan: Nope.

H1: Nope?

Dan: Nah – that’s through MGM and they’ve got their...what they do with the license and we’re sort of our own entity within the MMO. We only have the MMO license with MGM.

H2: So you’re setting up...well the races and professions? Do you know how many of everything you’re going to have yet?

Dan: Oh yeah. I don’t know how much you guys do know about the races so you might have some exclusives as we go through this.

H2: Cool.

H1: That’d be great.

Dan: So the Stargate Universe, as I’ve already talked about with Sam Carter, O’Neill and those really cool characters that you know in the universe. You’ve got the SGC, built off of the commander of O’Neill and you also have Sam Carter the scientist and also Daniel Jackson the archaeologist and also maybe like Special Ops guy, like a pure warrior, and that’s just the SGC. From there you’ve got all the aliens you sort of run into in the Universe. So like the Jaffa, who’ve got like a Free Jaffa universe as well as that ‘loyalist’ Jaffa that really still follow the false gods that are the Goa’uld. But you know how would it be to play the Goa’uld so you know, hey let’s play the Goa’uld. You could be a god in this game.

H2: Will it be team based in that regard? Or will you just use allies as needed?

Dan: Well you know – I played WoW for...way to long and I was a loner in that world. I didn’t really group up at times so I want to make sure that I cater to both sides of the fence. So if you want to play this game by yourself you can absolutely do that. But you know you’re in an MMO as well so there’s that combat of your SGC team that you can absolutely go into and we’re going to give you a lot of benefits if you go and do that.

<Break in show/interview I believe>

H2: We’re talking to Dan Elggren of Stargate Worlds, the game that is in development right now and there a lot of people are eagerly anticipating it.

H1: You know Dan, speaking of the Goa’uld – you know the symbiotic or parasitic being that’s inside – is that going to be an actual upgradeable character? Or buff? Or piece of equipment?

Dan: It’s definitely going to be its own entity. So when you go in there and create your own character you’re pretty much a snake inside a Jaffa’s stomach and you have that ability later on in the game to maybe pick a new host.

H1: So actually the host is what is going to be the upgrade?

Dan: Exactly. You’re really just building off your character, the Goa’uld symbiote.

H2: But the host won’t be a separate player then.

Dan: Yeah. Well a separate NPC.

H2: Is time travel going to be incorporated into the game?

Dan: With time travel in the Stargate Universe, I think it’s just you have to have some kind of time travel so to be able to take that story of time travel and then either go back in time as a hero and help change the future or destroy the past to conquer the universe. So the story line is really going to play into that ‘how the world evolved’ as you go through your leveling process. With time travel you could go to a world one time and then actually go back in a different time period. It would be a different world, even though it’s kind of the same.

H1: With Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest, is there going to be that typical grind that’s going on with leveling or are you guys going to think of something new for leveling?

Dan: You know – ‘grind’ is such a four letter word to me. I’ve done too much of it and I guess some people find it fulfilling but I’ve never been a big fan of it. It’s definitely one of those things I want to be able to like change, or at least our team is going to be able to change, for this universe. To me I want the storyline to be something that I want to make sure people are pulled into, so that as you’re exploring that storyline and going on those missions it’s not a grind to do it. So you’re not killing ten pigs to, like finish your quest. You’re going to complete a unique storyline to bring you to that end.

H2: So you can jump into some action right away? You don’t have to like meet all the towns’ people and talk to them and then go and kill the wild boars...

Dan: Exactly. I don’t know if you ever read that text once WoW pops up – you like get that big paragraph and you’re like “ah ***** it – what do I get?”

<Laughter>

H2: He’s actually right there...

H1: Let me ask you this – are you actually going to have some voice dialog or some voice acting here so you don’t have to read all that stuff?

Dan: Absolutely. I’d love to be able to have some very cool pieces of parts when you’re talking to O’Neill you’d actually hear Richard Dean Anderson

H2: What does the MGM relationship bring to the game that you wouldn’t have otherwise?

Dan: I think it’s that access (we get) to Robert Cooper, Brad Wright, Richard Dean Anderson and all those guys up at the show and I’m hoping to be able to travel up there next week to be able to talk to these guys. It’s been amazing that we get like early scripts and just really good detail of what the universe is doing 6 months ahead of time. So in a game universe I can adapt it and make that happen in our universe.

H2: How did you decide, or where told, it would be a PC only game?

Dan: I think it was more a core decision for our company. When we started this game, it’s been a year in development now, Xbox Live and PS3 hadn’t really proven itself as viable, and I don’t think it has yet as a viable MMO market. So we’re sticking with a core of PC’s, but the tools and functionality that we have at the backend is going to make it very easy to bring this thing onto another platform.

H2: You mentioned it will probably be ready next year for release. Does that mean it’s being optimized for Vista players or 64-bit play?

Dan: Oh absolutely.

H2: Yeah? DirectX 10?

Dan: Oh absolutely – it’s got to be. You guys have probably heard in the news we’re using the Unreal 3 editor so we’re using the cutting edge graphics so make sure it’s not only beautiful, but plays very well.

H2: <joke> So I have to buy another graphics card next year?

Dan: I hope not man – you got to be able to play it on your old machine as well as your new one and make it look beautiful.

H1: You know Dan, you’ve got quite a unique situation here where by you’ve got a TV series going on, so you have events happening in this TV series, and then we’re actually going to be able to be in this game and see it unwind or unfold there in the game. Is there enough lag time, or time built in so you can time it out right?

Dan: Yeah absolutely. With having the scripts and all that in there and knowing all the information before hand, you know, we’re going to really make sure that the unique things they do on the show, say if they have a certain world or certain event happen, we can actually have that happen the same night that it airs.

H1: That would be really cool, because I don’t know if any MMO out there has that going on right now.

Dan: Oh no – not at all.

H1: So there’s defiantly going to be something unique. WoW has been the same for years until Burning Crusade came out, but this has an ever changing universe.

H2: Are you worried about the crowded market place for MMOs?

Dan: To me MMOs are still very much in its infancy stage. We’re just bridging the gap of how MMOs and this type of game play is really going to come into play.

H2: I think when you can leverage something that has the brand of Stargate, people don’t think of it as “here’s an MMO I can go buy”, but rather “Hey – the Stargate game is out”. I think that’s a different approach for it.

Dan: Yeah – and the cool thing is I do love the Stargate universe, I’ve been a fan boy for years, but I’ve got to make a great game. If I don’t make a great game it doesn’t matter what I call it.

H2: There have been plenty of great science fiction movies, and some of the games were good and some weren’t so good.

H1: Matrix had a great opportunity there and they kind of blew it.

H2: Star Wars was somewhat hit and miss. Some have been great and some have not been.

Dan: Yeah – I license like Star Wars. I mean wow. Talk about the ‘King of Licenses’, but it comes down to being a great game and that’s the bottom line.

H1: Being a fan is obviously going to help you make that great game.

Dan: Oh yeah – and I’ve got a studio full of them.

H1: There’s a couple of questions that as a player of MMOs myself. Do you guys have a workable, playable version yet?

Dan: Well yeah – to an extent. I have small worlds I’m playing with right now, we have the combat system up and running, we’re iterating on that regularly. We actually had the whole studio log in last week and we had a little PVP action

H1: How is the PVP going to roll out? You guys going to do anything different?

Dan: We’re defiantly working towards something unique. I think it’s going to be playing (?) on the characters, to make sure they have some unique styles for archaeologists like Daniel Jackson. You know he’ll be able to have certain ‘diplomacies’ that he might be able to have within a PVP universe. So he might be able to chat before going into straight combat.

H2: Do you win the PVP battles?

Dan: Of course! I’m very competitive and I’ll be the first to say it.

H1: We’re not going to have a load of Daniel Jacksons running around are we?

Dan: No, No. I don’t think I mentioned it earlier but we’ve got the Asgard as well and having them and the Goa’uld and all these guys – we’re already working on all the unique variances within a character within the SGC and I have my Art Director, who is just amazing at how he can add a military theme to make so many characters look so different.

H1: I’ve got one more question here before we wrap up. With guilds and everything are we going to be able to do player cities or homes?

Dan: I’m actually going to call that a ‘to be determined’.

H1: So you’re still figuring it out?

Dan: Yeah. I want to get the core of the game play polished before I get into what I call the B’s and the C’s of proprietary properties.

H2: Ok – well is there going to be a BFG?

Dan: Well it’s sci-fi isn’t it?

<Compulsory goodbyes & ‘good lucks’>