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Special Sections: Gen Con '02 While at the GenCon GameFair in Milwaukee Wisconsin, we were able to steal Chris "Vosx" Mancil from Ubi Soft away from the Shadowbane booth for a short time to ask questions that have been on everyone's mind. Shoving a tape recorder in his face with the threats of Klingon Jail he relented and spilled to us. This is the second part of our interview with Vosx, be sure to read the first part!
Div: How about the learning curve? No one reads the manual. You always see "RTFM!" but no one ever does. What kind of learning curve is there in Shadowbane? Will players be able to pick it up in a few hours just by playing? Vosx: That's a hard question to ask. Personally I think the interface is very complex with a lot of layers, a lot of customization. It can be made to be easy or simple but it can be a little difficult too. Point and click for example, a lot of people are not used to it. But we have also seen for example, recently at MacWorld players who have never played a MMO game before, jumped in the game and were playing right away. A player from EverQuest or Asheron's Call for example may have some problems. It depends on what your prior experience is. We will have a good guide though! Not just the strategy guide, but the guide that comes with the game. I think right now it's at a hundred fifty pages. It will also have a quick section as far as on just what to do. Plus, being in the newbie zones, being in the safe hold areas where you just don't jump into PvP will allow you time to sit there and figure it all out. It will be very self-explanatory. You don't have to read the guide to get in there and start playing, but it could help. And again, we will also have a quick reference section to help you learn as you go along, so you don't have to spend a lot of time studying to be able to work the game. Div: Speaking about the guides and the player manual EBWorld is advertising the strategy guide is being written by Brady Games. Usually the people writing those guides have no idea about the game, do you have actual players helping in the writing of this guide or a team effort via Ubi Soft? Vosx: Yes. Brady Games is working with Ubi Soft to do our strategy guide that will be sold next to the game in the stores. We have players who were contracted from the beta, and with beta testing experience helping with the guide. It's a strategy guide that will mean something. It will hopefully have the weapon and armor lists, but it will be more then just the quickest way to get to 50th level. We are going to have a lot of role-play in there, maybe some player art, and lots of cool stuff. It will have a lot of role-play guides for the different classes, like how to play the Druid, how to play the Irekei. We are going to make it a lot of fun for different play styles. It should be a really good guide. They are working with Wolfpack Studios and Ubi Soft to get all the materials they need. This will be in stores the same time that you get the Shadowbane box. Also, our manual that comes with the game will not be some rinky-dink thing. It's going to be a pretty massive manual, and Sam Johnson wrote it too! Div: So it won't be the cheap flip cards. Vosx: We may have those but you won't need to buy the strategy guide to enjoy the game. Merdian is writing a great manual. Div: What's your biggest obstacle next to get the game out, anything yet to overcome before going gold? Is the game ready? No comment? Vosx: No, I'll give you a comment. We still have a lot of balancing to do, plenty of bugs to nail down. We still have to hire the rest of the Customer Support team our CSR teams. We still have to get through open beta and do stress testing, that's still a pretty big hurdle. We will see how that goes, but we are planning on releasing November 5th. We have a timeframe right now and we are on schedule. I think we are going to make that, or at least I am optimistic. Div: Speaking about CSR's, will they be in house or contracted outside across the oceans someplace who know nothing about the game? Vosx: As a matter of fact, my CSR's stare directly across from me. Our CSR's are not like GM's in other games. Our CSR's are there only for Harassment or people who are stuck in the world. They do not get involved in the game for player actions, unless its exploitation and cheating. They are there only for Customer Support issues as a customer not as a gamer. They are not there to ban people unless it's obviously against the rules. They are there to help players with the problems they have and so forth. Feature Characters will get involved with the players. We are not like the 'do all be all GM's' like other games who have all powers. Our CSR's will have limited roles and we hope to have good policies. Right now we want all customer support calls to be under five minutes or at least having an acknowledgement in less than five minutes to a petition. We hope to sustain that. Right now we are, but beta doesn't surely count. We have a really good staff, every single one of our CSR staff I've met, and I've met them all, I like them. They are very excited to be with us. They are willing to help and they treat our players really great. If anything, the only complaint we have had is that they have been reluctant to ban troublemakers and so forth. I hope it stays that way. They are very appreciative of our players and our testers. I think they are going to make a great staff when we go live. Div: Loaded Gun Question. Several established 'rant sites' have gone out of their way to wage war with Shadowbane as the Holy Grail to PvP and the PvP Community. If they could see the game today, would they say it's a damn good game after all? Would and is everyone satisfied in your opinion? Vosx: Well... No on the satisfied question, we are not satisfied with everything at the point we are at today. We are very happy with the way we are progressing but we have some pretty big shoes to fill. We have a lot of goals to accomplish that no one else has done before. It's really trying. It's difficult. So, we are optimistic at where we will be when we finish up. So no we are not satisfied with today, but where we will be tomorrow or next week. We are very satisfied with our testers and the things we have accomplished. But there will always be things we can improve and do better, and new ideas to take us place we never originally thought we could go. As far as the rant sites, they sometimes have good points to make. I don't think they have given us a fair shake, but we have not always been fair to them as a fan community either. I think that when we release the game, and they see it and come to us with biased opinions or not, and experience Shadowbane, they may see what we are trying to do and what we have accomplished. I then maybe some of them will change their minds. It's really easy to bash a game when you haven't seen it. That's a fair statement. When they actually get into the game and get to look at what we have, they will be in a better position to slam us or give us some credit. I won't hold a lot of it against them. They are not predisposed to take a lot of the PR. They go out of their way sometimes for controversy, but that's part of the business. No matter what game you do, you are going to have that. Sims Online even got that. Part of a Ranter's job is to take parts that aggravate them and then to use that as an example or simplify it in other ways for controversy. I don't always think its simply for destructive reasons, though some do it for simply that, sometimes they just want change. Div: You mentioned that you have some big shoes to fill; we've been there before. World War II Online, Anarchy Online even Asheron's Call. Will the game on the first day have content and will we be able to log in and play on the first day of release? Vosx: There will be content, and we hope (laughs) to have a good launch. I can't sit here and say we are going to have a great and perfect launch. There is no one hundred percent guaranty because we really don't know yet. But, as our fans and our enemies have been quick to point out, we have delayed this game's release several times and mainly because you can not release a game out the door that does not work. You are never forgiven for that. Look at the games who have done it, they have not been forgiven and they have never recovered. You cannot release an MMO and forget those huge lessons no matter what the pressure is. So yes. We will have content, we will have events running, and we will have feature characters running and hopefully as much of a stable world as we can provide. We want to have people who can log in and play, experiencing all that we have to offer and then hopefully decide to stay with us. A lot of people are going to buy the game just because they have heard of Shadowbane. So we have to have a stable launch with good content. We want them to not just buy the game, but to stay with the game and subscribe to it and be happy subscribers after that. Div: Some of the other publishers of Shadowbane have taken potshots at Ubi Soft when they can as each of you are competing within your markets for subscribers. Has anything with "The One World Petition" which now has almost 2000+ signatures on it been resolved so that players can play where they want? Vosx: Well first thing is, we have a good relationship with the other publishers. Often times it's easy to misunderstand the language as it transfers over into English at times. We have good relations with both of them and we work really well together. I don't necessarily think its pot shots at us. It may be misconstrued that way but I don't get that opinion. There are misunderstandings, but you will have that in any business relationship. As to the one world petition we have noticed that, and what we have agreed to do, between all three publishers is that we would like to see the problem resolved; however there is a very real issues out there that we don't know. Will Shadowbane be a huge success, will we have a smooth launch, will we be finished on time? There is always a risk. No matter how big of a fan I am and I scream that we are going to kick everyone's butt when we get into the genre, that's not necessarily true because I want it to be. So we are going to work hard to see those goals and aspirations a reality. We have all agreed that after we launch the game and our billing systems are complete and all our localization is done we are going to revisit this issue as soon as the game is out. Right now, all three publishers have invested a lot of money, so we need to get the game out, we need to see how well we all do and then this is an issue we are going to resolve later, and invest resources into it. We have all agreed that this needs to be solved. We have all agreed that we are going to wait until after launch. We have all agreed that we are going to revisit this. Every publishing partner wants to do this, it's just a matter of do we want to divert resources from releasing the game or spending time on fixing this, and we have agreed that it's not appropriate. We are going to finish the game, release the game, and then after the most important things are done we can start working on this issue. Div: Is there anything you want to add? When are we going to go drinking! Vosx: [edited out] Be sure to stop by later. Oh yeah, Thieves kick ass again! Just wait and see! Div: I'm going to publish that! We look forward to seeing you in Shadowbane! Let's go drink to crush! Thanks for the time. Next: Coming tommorrow, "...and one summer at Bane Camp..." Discuss: That Bane thing continued!
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