Interviews:Ten Ton Hammer talks to Joe Ybarra at ODGC - Part 1

From Stargate Worlds Wiki (SGW)

Interview at Ten Ton Hammer

Puzzling out Stargate Worlds

When asked about the puzzles in SGW, Joe was eager to explain why they were a fundamental part of the gameplay experience that had been considered from the very beginning of SGW’s development. “When we were first coming up with features to implement into the game, we wanted a non-combat gameplay mechanism to really reinforce some of the things in the show that were non-combat related,” he said. “If you actually watch the series, combat is a fairly small motif when compared to the rest of the actions the characters in the series partake in.”

For those of you that are unfamiliar with SGW, Joe is referring to fact that Stargate SG-1 is more oriented around discovering new technology, analyzing alien artifacts, and opening new Stargate coordinates. While combat with the enemy does occur in the television series, it is only a small part of the overall storyline and basically falls during the climax of episodes or long-running storylines rather than being regular occurrences.

The target audience for the game was also taken into consideration when the puzzles were being developed and discussed. “We wanted to reach out to the customers that aren’t necessarily into these games (MMOs) for the combat,” he continued. “There’s a fairly large percentage of those players that are out there, and we didn’t want to ignore them like some games do.”

According to Joe, CME currently has seven different mini-games that players encounter within SGW. These games are triggered by different activities that the players engage in when they are exploring the various worlds. “Imagine that there are alien ruins on the planet you’re exploring,” he began. “You’re an Archaeologist archetype character. What are you going to do when you walk into these ruins? You’ll walk in and there will be areas you can click on, such as a “rune totem” or another sort of aged script. The Ancients were notorious for leaving those things scattered about the universe.”

“When the player clicks on these areas, there will be a little casual mini-game that will pop up that the player will engage in and try to decipher what it says,” he said. “The game might have the player match icons or orient different sections of a puzzle to beat the game. These sort of mini-games are scattered throughout the world, and you might need to do them to unlock a new area or expand an ability.” These puzzles, according to Joe, will also level up, getting even more complex as you progress farther into the game.

But what Joe described was oriented more towards a solo-play activity. There are also puzzles that will be sharable with other members of a player’s party. So if you’re in a situation that’s particularly nasty and you have a really complex puzzle in front of you, your party members will be able to help you through it.

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“Traditionally, it’s almost like the stories are for solo-players,” Joe said. “Most games don’t have storylines that mesh at all, and often one players story is completely separated from another player’s story.

“In our game,” Joe continued, “Because of the nature of what we’re trying to do with the overall architecture and game design, we want the two factions (good and bad) constantly interacting with each other. There are plenty of planets that have zones and puzzles where players are going to meet up and have to deal with one another.”

When I asked Joe whether these combo puzzle areas would require PvP to find out who has access to it, he assuaged any fears that we may have had concerning forced PvP by stating that only PvP servers will have open PvP at these points. Consensual PvP is still a possibility, but it is not forced between the players.

Alternatives

One of the other avenues where puzzles have influenced the SGW gameplay is in quest completion. According to Joe, quests will have various ways to complete them. “Let’s say you have a locked door in front of you,” Joe said. “In SGW, you have a variety of options to choose from on how you want to get this door open. You could blow the door open. You could lockpick the door, which is a mini-game in itself. Or you could find the computer controls for the door and hack into the system to open the door. You’re not limited to one function when it comes to getting through an area.”

As players access these puzzles, it’s not something that is done as an “out-of-time” experience. “All puzzles are going to be done in real time,” Joe said. “There’s a countdown timer that forces players to be on their toes to try to complete these games. However, the sense of urgency to complete the puzzle is determined by the type of situation you’re in. If you’re out by yourself looking at ruins, you’re not going to be in a hurry. But if you’re party is waiting for you to pick open a door’s lock so you can escape from a gang of murderous Jaffa, the situation is a little more dire.”

Giving Players Dead Space

Another type of mini-game that Joe’s team at CME created was developed to address this issue of “Zen gaming” or “dead space” where it’s necessary to give characters something to do besides work on a storyline or actually do something productive. For example, fishing in the World of Warcraft is like this, as it’s not particularly essential to fish to keep a character progressing in the game.

“In MMOs, you have to have dead space; activities for players where basically nothing is really happening,” Joe said. “These are needed when players want to kill time or basically want to log-in and use their client as a chat room to talk with other players. And we have a couple of games that really achieve this level of play.”

Benefitting From Puzzles

Even more martially inclined characters will want to help the scientist and archaeologist types to go and solve their mini-games, because if they’re in a group and a mini-game emerges, they’ll receive XP as well. So it’s in the best interest of all the players to try and do as many of these mini-games as they can, if they wish to explore an avenue other than combat.

Concerning puzzles, Joe really wanted to emphasize the fact that SGW isn’t going to be wholly focused on combat, and all of these incentives are available to players who are interested in completing and finding different sorts of puzzles. With martial character escorts, players of all types and races will be traveling across the various worlds in this Stargate-based MMO, completing puzzles and reaping the rewards.