Talk:2018-10-31 Simurgh interview with Steven Sharif

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Transcript

1:47

Simurgh: My first question is going to be what's the origin story of Ashes, like where did that come from? Because I've never-

Steven: So Ashes of Creation was a campaign that I had developed for a Pathfinder several years ago. I ran as a home brew with some of my Dungeons and Dragons Pathfinder friends. Additionally before that we did some D&D third edition with some old guildmates of mine that I used to play Lineage II and Aion with. So it's about a, I would say- let's see what year is this? Since 2018, I would say it was about 2010 or 11 when I first made an Ashes of Creation campaign. So it stems from that story. Obviously I expanded on it.

2:39

Simurgh: Right. So actually that's another question. I had one of my guildies ask you know how much of the lore was pre-planned and then how much of it actually kind of come to evolve after you decided you were going to make this game?

Steven: I would say about, of the content that will be in the MMORPG, I'd say about 80 percent of that is made for the MMORPG. 20% of which which would be the overarching storyline, the primary antagonists and protagonists, creation mythos, the religions, the nations and the you know just the context for those quests that we're creating for the MMO. The context which I would say was about 20% of content sets the stage for all the quests that we are creating. So 20% was there before moving down this [inaudible]. I had to really just jump up and create a whole bunch of storylines with Jeff's help for the players to participate in.

Simurgh: Jeff had a pretty big part in helping?

Steven: Before we really got into production Jeff did a lot of design work on the blueprint side and the engine and stuff like that. He helped me flesh out some of the storylines that were personal to the players. Not necessarily what was there for the context of the universe and bigger ideas. Those are all points that I had created from the homebrew campaigns. But he kind of took those in a way and personalized them so that it could be a quest line for people to participate in the MMO and stuff. Kind of got into the nitty gritty details of why well what is the captain of the guard in this city have to say?

4:21

Simurgh: Cool. So another question we had was how far do you plan to develop the Underrealm. This is kind of a new question we thought about recently, my brothers and I, and I actually talked about Elloa- another contact creator in the community- and we had this conversation a few weeks back and you know we talked about the Tulnar a little bit and know what mighta happened when people were left behind; because that wasn't too long after you mentioned you know what the story lore was for the BR. And we talked about the Tulnar and I kind of wondered you know are there gonna be you know like multiple levels to it? You know how far is that going to evolve and like even post-launch is that's something that maybe you're planning to evolve?

Steven: So the Tulnar society has more of a caste-like system where based on what physical features you show, based on where that your ancestry and lineage lie between the races that came together to make the Tulnar kind of determines your order in that caste system to degree. So when players get to create their characters and determine whether they're going to have any influences of reptilian, mammalian, humanoid; that's going to kind of determine their reception from NPCs as well, when they interact with those Tulnar PCs. So that's kind of a little bit of the history of how that society works from a caste perspective.

Steven: The expansiveness of the Underrealm itself is quite large. It does persist across a lot of the playable game area that's above ground; so there are alternatives in the Underrealm for passages for traversal throughout the world. And you know one of the one of the aspects of the lore behind the Tulnar was that, you know, in the pantheon of gods that exist having foretold the future through the Goddess of Fate to the Goddess of Creation, these areas in the Underrealm were created in a way to allow for refuge of which the gods knew would be left behind that couldn't make it to Sanctus. So that was a pre-thought that was there, that creation of the Underrealm to facilitate that realm where refuges can seek [inaudable]. It might have been a little bit of a lore drop.

Simurgh: Yeah I was about to say, I feel like you just leaked. That was awesome.

Steven: I might have leaked a little bit.

6:34

Simurgh: That was great. You saw it here. That's fantastic. Yeah that was actually a much bigger answer than I expected. Thanks so much. Are there any cool concepts or features - this is a little bit of a long one - concepts or features to Verra that hasn't translated well into game design that maybe were narratively great but haven't really found their way into a design in the game space yet?

Steven: That's a good question. I can't really think of any feature in story of Verra- the world of Verra that we haven't been able to concept in design theory. I can't really think of anything that has been an issue. Yeah I don't think there is. You know, obviously, aside from stories there are systems right. So the systems are not necessarily all derived from the story right. There are basic components or systems that we know MMO players enjoy, we enjoy, and we find a place for those within the narrative. Now vice-versa, finding a place for- finding systems within the narrative and applying those- those are pretty situated within the design theory.

8:03

Simurgh: So this is a definitely question I've wondered about for a while and then a lot of other people have too. Originally you know when the game was kick-started, you know it's really about getting this viable product that you mentioned before; and you know one of my thoughts is- this is you know probably coming back to a games that I have played for a long time for example World of Warcraft. You know there's the question of longevity and what are some ways that content-wise maybe you can share even if it's just generalized that you maybe look to extend beyond like initial launch. We've got the nodes that's gonna keep this ever-changing world, but what are some ways that kind of foresee sending the game into as long of a lifespan as it can have.

Steven: Yeah, so I think one of the important things about longevity is answering the call of the players with a product that they want. That's the first thing. Because without a player base there's no longevity. So the first thing is making sure that when we create a game, we creating a game that answers the call of the players; and I think we've resonated fairly well on our design features and our business model for players. With that momentum and with the number of people we expect currently we already see we have registered accounts and pre-purchased accounts for, we know that the launch is going to be considerable size. With that we intend to move forward with major content releases yearly. Twice a year I believe we're going to have major updates; and then quarterly we're have some quarterly updates as well; and monthly updates; and weekly [inaudible] or whatever that might be. So you know always providing a way forward for both the story that's being told in the game, but also taking into account the activity of the players within their servers, specifically. Taking what they do as an indicator of where the direction of the community wants to go from design feature standpoint; where they want to expand. Those are important things that we need to make sure we watch and iterate on: Not just kind of take the player by the nose and lead them in the direction we want to go. So we watch the activity of the players. We collect data on on what they're doing in game and what's popular in-game and then we formulate our expanded content releases. We do so around those facts and figures.

10:20

Simurgh: That's awesome- actually leads into my next question, which is a little bit different, which is you know I know you're a Trekky and we are you know my brothers and I we're definitely Trekkys- always trendies; and so you know one of the things that I thought to myself when I think it was it was probably a year ago during the last livestream where you did the 24 hour thing: Yeah you played Heroes of Newerth and I think Civilization II, right? And yeah that was a extremely successful charity event.

Steven: Absolutely. Over 16,000 dollars in 24 hours from our community made that possible, which is really you know a nice place for a community to put under their belt like hey we came together for good cause before even we had a product [laughter]. That's pretty cool.

Simurgh: Yeah that was one of my- that's probably one of my main points was you know when I see the guy that runs the game sits and digs in and his staff dig in for 24 hours and it says a lot about game devs.

Steven: That 24 hours was tough. I gotta say. At the end there I was getting a little bit delirious. I don't know how this Saturday's going to work out. We'll see.

11:28

Simurgh: We will know surely yeah. But you know what I thought was- okay so my perception of multiple servers has always been multiple realities of the game and so you see that a lot in Star Trek and so I thought to myself if he's a really big Trekkie I wonder how much of that translates into parts of the story at all? I'm curious about that.

Steven: Well interesting note on the name Intrepid comes from a classic starship, the Intrepid class, which I really liked in Voyager. I liked the design of that ship. Janeway's ship, so additionally previous companies I've owned also had some Star Trek references in the naming. So, but you know the idea of parallel universes, different dimensions, especially with the recent launch of Discovery playing on that fungus that connects these dimensions together. You know, did it play a role in this design? Not really. It didn't. Just because- I mean the concept of having unique servers is something I've always thought of from a MMO perspective. I didn't like the cookie-cutter type of experience, right. I thought that server choice should matter. Communities that you play within should have dictating over- excuse me- should dictate the narrative that you're just your server tells, the story that it tells. Those things I always felt there missing from some game design stuff and I think that the nodes facilitate a very healthy environment where players can exercise their control over their environment and they can see real differences between what the decisions they've made as a community versus the decisions that server B has made for their community; and they can experience what those decisions yield in content. I think those are really cool ideas to have. It hasn't really been seen in MMOs before.

Simurgh: No. You get the pretty traditional PvE, PvP, RP.

Steven: You're on a railroad. When you hit your destination and end-game is the gear conquest; and player driven mechanics. It's like okay, now come on.

Simurgh: Yeah they really just kind of lead you along a path; and that's the thing about games like WoW unfortunately. Just really kill me is it's like the grind is so it's the same thing over and over and over; and so for me you know the key component to the game is change, much like out here in the world. Yeah I think that's a lot of really great conversation with other people in the community. It's always kind of tied back into that the culture of the server is gonna really dictate what the future of the server is and what the societies and all that are going to look like, so that's really absolutely awesome. Yeah that's a that's really kind of rounding off my my questions. I know I don't take up too much of your time because you got busy schedule as it is. But yeah with that being said I do appreciate your time.