Developers Posts(For New Members)

[Dan Carley]

I wanted to do this topic for New Members so you don't start the Topics that have been started before I know how it can feel alot of people get anoyed with it so here I go:

General Hammond:

Game Engine

I'm on the development team, so I can shed a little light on the topic of "twitch" gaming. We are not designing Stargate Worlds to play like a first-person shooter, although we are attempting to make a squad-based modern infantry combat play system. As in the show, most of the combat in SGW will be at range with a machine gun, rifle, staff weapon, zat gun or some other device which can hit you from far away. Given latency issues with both the internet connection and the client/server, it is nearly impossible to create good gameplay which would be consistent for everyone regardless of their connection, computer spec, or the overall population of the server.

We would rather focus the combat gameplay around using the environment for cover, practicing smart tactics, and taking advantage of skills, equipment, and command/control. It would be unfair to make the combat reliant on player reaction time or the quality of their system.

In addition to the above, we'll be adding explosives, smoke, electronic countermeasures, stealth, and the skill system to make the combat experience a exciting part of gameplay. We also want airstrikes, orbital bombardment, vehicles, the "FRED" as a respawn point, ammunition, personal shields, kevlar armor, and a bunch of other stuff to enrich the fighting in our game.

One of the vignettes I would like to see in combat is the "Zulu" mission. Your intrepid SG team is outnumbered by more than 10 to 1 against a technically inferior enemy. You have a prepared position (perhaps a bunker) with a 50 caliber machinegun, staff weapons, grenades, and perhaps a mortar. How long can your team survive before being overrun?

If we can make a situation like this exciting, we'll be pretty pleased. Thanks!

Graphical Side

What StuRose didn't mention was that Bridge Studios also gave us a huge amount of digital artwork, including the models/textures for the spacecraft, weapons, and the city of Atlantis! We're going to use everything we can; we want this game to include original material used on the TV show.

Space

The TV show has repeatedly demonstrated how easy it is to destroy a Goa'uld mothership.

We will have spaceships. My belief is that you can't have a science-fiction game without whooshing spaceships. And explosions.

Forums, Site & Release Date

We are in pre-production as of this posting. Part of the preproduction process is to develop a quality schedule for the development and deployment of the game.

We'll keep everyone informed about our progress through the community site, which will be launched very soon. It is our goal to keep the community involved throughout development so we can build a game our fans will want.

We have a couple of tricks up our sleeve to help with the lengthy development cycle. It helps that most of us have built MMOs before.

MMOs never stop being built. Because of this, we need to think about Stargate Worlds not just as a game, but as a service business. Part of being a service business is to listen to your customers. We will do this continuously as part of our jobs.

Worlds

We believe in dynamic worlds. There has been a huge amount of design work invested in this area. We'll begin sharing this with you in the upcoming months.

Jim Brown:

Races

It's a bit early to lock down playable races, but i can confirm that, yes indeed...

Humans will be a playable race ;-).


Actually, as many of the familiar races as humanly possible will be represented in the game. But, not all of them lend themselves to being a playable race.

All four of the early races (Asgard, Furling, Nox and Ancient) will be represented through their technology, and whereever appropriate, their direct presence, or playability.

As will Goa'uld, Tok'ra, Tollan, Unas, Jaffa, etc.

How each fits within the structure of the game is still something being considered.

Remember, too, Stargate Worlds will coexist with the show, which continues to evolve. Ori will be present, but will have to represent the Ori of the show when the game is released, not just the Ori from last week's episode.

Finally, human races can all be best described as "human." Though different factions/loyalties may exist, a Tollan is, for all intents and purposes, human, being transplaneted like so many races, from Earth. Just really advanced, technologically. So, what would be the difference between playing a "human" using Tollan technology, or an actual Tollan?

Goa'uld and Tok'ra, even though they prefer human hosts, still represent a blended, or symbiote being. Unique play options, if they become playable.

Replicators...

Gate Functionality

Just wanted to respond to the first post, with regards to the gate. Stu is very correct that we're all fans of the show, and will be working very hard to ensure that the game is faithful to the show, but also accomplish the goal of expanding on that universe, and offering the player more.

That image of the planet with a base and stargate is a bit misleading. You can see a ramp from the gate, and DHD, but the team walking away from the gate appears on the back side, giving the impression they emerged that way.

In the game, we will try to have all gates uniquely mounted. This is something the show cannot afford to do, so we see the common stone stairs very often.

The gate, however, is a primary mode of travel. So, everywhere it's located, it will need a clear approach, and large ramp. That is... of course... if the gate is fully functional.

Quickie on the gates.

Our goal in all areas is to be as faithful to the show as possible. However, play mechanics do require some tweaking. And the gate may be one of these areas.

To the individual player, the gate will operate exactly as you see it in the show. If the planet you are on has nobody else dialing in or out at the time, then all will appear exactly as you'd expect. Approach DHD, open dialing interface, select destination, gate cycles, opens, and you're ready to step through.

Presumably, every member of your team will be flagged for the gate, too, able to step through to your destination.

However, if the gate is on a crowded world, it's likely that the event horizon would just remain on, so long as various people are coming and going. Players would then receive an icon telling them they've opened the gate to their destination, and step through.

Naturally, there will be plenty of beta, and balance for this, to make it as optimal as possible. But the reality of a 100% accurate gate system (1 way only, one destination at a time) is that players could wait a LONG time just to be able to connect to a busy world. And invariably, when you do that, one of your group will be in the bathroom ;-).

the gate system I described in no way invalidates what you're describing.

It may very well be that the "exception" to the one destination at a time rule only applies on populated worlds. Also, keep in mind many worlds will have unique sutations on them. Perhaps you can gate in, but cannot gate out unless you find a powersource for the DHD, or find another way off (transmitter to signal a ship, etc).

The key will be to balance the play value, against the "reality" of the show. And where the gate's concerned, believe me, it's a topic of much discussion, and we won't rest until it really works, on all levels.

The real issue with the gates is, what is their purpose in the game. On some worlds, they're just a nexus, where players come and go. This would be your central areas. Home bases for the SGC or other factions, for instance. And on these worlds, making players wait sometimes 30 minutes or more for their turn at the gate would be far more frustrating, that cool, I suspect.

Anyone remember the long "touring" griffon rides in EQ2? Fun the first time, a pain in the neck every other time. I believe they finally shortened them.

But, on worlds where the gate is an integral part of the adventure, well, perhaps there they do function absolutely as you expect, and you can be prevented from escape by someone else dialing in. We will see.

Monthly Fees

It's WAY too early in the development of this project to really examine monthly fees. An MMO is a very expensive game to develop, and it's a service, not a "product" in that we maintain an ongoing full development team. Not just doing expansions, but a full team constantly adding new exciting content (and fixing that ultra rare gaming thing some people call a bug) ;-).

So, fees... yes. What will they be? I'm guessing industry average, whatever that is at the time of release.

As for questions of release, I can say we are farther along than some suspect, not as far as others speculate. Very shortly we will release a comprehensive FAQ that answers some of those key questions as best we can.

[Dan Carley]

StuRose

Concept Art

Fear not. We are big fans of SG-1 and Stargate World will very much follow the look and feel of the TV show. We already know what that looks like, and already have full access to all of Bridge Studio's (the creators of the show) concept artwork and reference material. As Art Director, I need concept artwork to explore beyond the show and explore the boundries of what is possible.

Production has already started on game assets that are patterned directly after the show, and so far, I am pleased with what I am seeing.

We'll get you shots of that in the coming months! Now. Back to work....

Kha'tie

Added Notes

I ask you all to respect that there are over 700 members now and to not PM me unless absolutely necessary. Also, we have very few Moderators as of yet so I am going to be watching EACH of you to see how you behave toward, speak to, and interract with your fellow forum goers. If I see a lot of maturity and wisdom among you I will be asking more of you to help us Moderate here.

As for questions asked and answered, I'm going to ask for your help again, here. Please, if you find a question or thread that has been already addressed and answered, simply quote the answer if you can, try to be as accurate as possible based on the Cheyenne Team Member's words, and that way, all the news will begin to spread.

There is more news this week so after that many of your unanswered questions will be discussed and you will have a lot more information to help spread here in the forums.

Thanks for your understanding and your help!

But most of all, thanks for caring enough to be here.

Beta Testing

We will try to be less than 4 years. We are currently in pre-production.

As for beta testers/players, we will let you know through the community site and these forums when we would like you to sign up for this! I am sure we'll need large numbers especially close to launch so, you will all likely be invited.

Will be Updated

Along with

Feb 13th 2006

Kha'tie

Originally Posted by Kha'tie

Thanks for doing this, Dan Carley!! And you can quote me on that!

General Hammond

Game InGeneral

Sometime in the near future we'll be making a formal announcement about the technology we're planning on using to create Stargate Worlds. One of the milestones we recently completed was a technical design document. This document gives us a strategic overview of the overall technology plan, with particular emphasis on tools and the production pipeline.

Our main focus in creating Stargate Worlds is to concentrate on delivering a great game design. This philosophy requires us to deliver fast prototyping tools and environments so we can test our design assumptions expediently.

Our next priority is to deliver state-of-the-art graphics. None of the existing technologies are "full-featured" for this requirement. For instance, Unreal does not provide a client/server API as it is not designed for out-of-the-box MMO development.

Again, we'll discuss technology in more detail in the near future...

Feb 16th 2006

Jim Brown

Soloing & Guilds

Believe me, a LOT of energy is being spent in design to ensure that, while we have massive amounts of elder play that massive guilds can exploit, the solo player, or casual gamer can enjoy the full range the game has to offer, as well.

There will always be things a casual gamer doesn't really have the ability to do. Huge raids that take 8 hours to complete are something not everyone can experience. But for those who can, are the bread and butter of their gameplay.

But, we've even explored mechanisms where the casual gamer, with only an hour to play, can not only participate in these 8 hour or more raids, but can provide significant assistance, and enjoy the rewards of that participation.

The challenge we face is to tie together the various styles of play, and allow them to support one another. In this way, players without a lifetime to devote to gameplay can still absorb all the cool stuff they want, and never lack for something to do. While players who really enjoy diving in and living the adventure are always seeing new challenges.

And, no, you're not whiney at all. This is a very important issue. In no way do we want to provide less for those players who like to spend all weekend in game. But we don't want to require you to do that!

As for giant guilds and massive construction projects, these would not dominate most player's game experience. You can actually participate in a massive construction project a little bit at a time, as you wish. It's not something you are forcing 500 players to all sit still and do for 2 weeks ;-).

The idea is for guilds to be able to provide concrete benefits to their members, and for each member's activities to help the guild as a whole.

Like solo play, and whacking bad guys? Go for it! But if you're in a guild, your solo activiites will benefit the whole guild, as well as yourself.

Are you an archeologist? Well, again, your knowledge will help all your guild members, and you never know when you'll need covering fire, trying to dig up tablets while under enemy fire.

March 3rd 2006

General Hammond

Canon/Story Line

We are in the process of meeting with the Stargate producers and writers to begin the task of integrating our story arcs, characters, and other key elements. There is a lot of energy and enthusiasm between our two groups to really make the show and the game work closely together. We'll have more specifics on this topic later in the month.

It is our intention to stay true to the themes of the show, and any expansions or deviations will be done with the full participation of the original creators.

May 19th 2006

Ledaye

Space Flight

Sure, be happy to. To design and impliment Space Combat with fighters and capital ships and to make all that fun, exciting and playable for the long haul is a whole schwack of effort and would delay the release of the game. Believe me it is NOT that you don't have space combat fans here in the office; we're here in droves (Joe and I especially . . . wanna read my treatment for a combined tactical/strategic space combat sim? It's here in my drawer somewhere . . .)

But, especially in an MMO, for the sake of establishing an emotional connection between the player and the game, working on avatars and designing exciting avatar gameplay is priority #1. Believe me, if you don't do that, it feels VERY weird. So, Avatars #1, spaceships of all flavors #2.

Now that we've established that, another fly in the ointment is that space combat on the scale shown in the episodes is a different technical problem than land-based, person-on-person combat. On the show, they fly all sorts of ships in space as well as very close to the terrain. With the speeds those ships travel, this is problematic. There are technical issues to be ironed out here.

Our game will always focus on modern & sci-fi ranged person-to-person combat, regardless of when or how well we deliver space combat.

Hence, in the first boxed release, we will focus on the things that are most important to us.

What we do further on down the road has not been decided. As some of you have mentioned, Galaxies delivered their ground game first, their space game second. There were good, smart development reasons for doing it that way.

Chris Klug
Creative Director

Interview/General Game

First off, you guys need to understand that we don't huddle in a room, planning who-says-what-to-whom-in-which-interview. We answer the questions as best we can at the moment we're asked them. And then Katie slaps our wrist when we mis-speak.

We want you to know what we're doing, sure, but we also don't want to have you guys all froth at the mouth expecting something we *think* we can do and then be angry with us when we have to pull that feature later because something didn't work out the way we planned. This isn't an exact science, as many of you obviously know.

But I will say this: the game is NOT SGC-or-Earth-centric. We are working on making sure that other races and other points of view are presented in a balanced fashion.

Chris Klug

Developers Introductions
http://forums.stargateworlds.com/showthread.php?t=1870

And Do Check out the CME Conference Call for Additional Details :
http://forums.stargateworlds.com/showthread.php?t=454

*glue*

[Kahless2001]

Well thats alot of information there Dan #00215 ..lol..

and it seems as they're progressing nicely, ive played Ryzom, the Matrix Online and SWG (a little) so id like to think i have a certain expectation from a stargate game.

I am a little concerened though about all the range weapons.. to be honest i get more enjoyment out of melee combat, and i think others will too... however i am not entirely sure how this will fit in the game.. as simply having lots and lots of range weaponry will make battles somewhat lengthy, and as a result you might loose your team members when they need to leave etc.

I am certainly looking forward to some original thinking (as the team have already demonstrated).

[Taram]

Nice information here. I have to say I'm pretty excited about this MMORPG (and that's saying something). I typically don't get excited about *yet another MMO in development* but we're talking SG-1 here... Quite possibly my all-time favorite TV series (which is funny because I thought the original movie was ho-hum at best).

Will definitely be keeping an eye on this one guys. Good luck with it! The Stargate Community will definitely be behind ya'll.

[Miriamele]

Great work Dan, such a complete compilation!
If you don't mind I wanna translate it to spanish just in case some of our latin visitors doesn't speak english well

[HerbieZ]

Indeed, some excellent information. As time progresses, would you mind also displaying important chronological points such as predicted release dates, and testing/creation stages as well as announcements of the game?

[Dan Carley]

Originally Posted by Miriamele

Great work Dan, such a complete compilation!
If you don't mind I wanna translate it to spanish just in case some of our latin visitors doesn't speak english well

No feel free I know alot of people probably can't read it lol

[delta games studio]

some good info there thanks.

[Miriamele]

Originally Posted by Dan Carley

No feel free I know alot of people probably can't read it lol

Thank you very much!

[Dan Carley]

Originally Posted by Miriamele

Thank you very much!

any time

[ByrcheWroot]

Good to know that actual fans are working in development as oppossed to just any Joe Schmo.

[Nodster]

Originally Posted by ByrcheWroot

Good to know that actual fans are working in development as oppossed to just any Joe Schmo.

WHAT do you mean there are people out there in the world that are not a fan of SG1, how dare they, its blasphamy not to be a fan of a great show.
lol

[Dan Carley]

Originally Posted by Nodster

WHAT do you mean there are people out there in the world that are not a fan of SG1, how dare they, its blasphamy not to be a fan of a great show.
lol

I know alot of people who don't like stargate lol but back to topic

[Sinister]

I just found out about this game. I have some catching up to do.. I have seasons 1-7 on ###. I'll be picking up season 8 tomorrow.

[Khatie]

Thanks for doing this, Dan Carley!! And you can quote me on that!

[Dan Carley]

Originally Posted by Sinister

I just found out about this game. I have some catching up to do.. I have seasons 1-7 on ###. I'll be picking up season 8 tomorrow.

Cool wait till u get to season 9 and atlantis ^^

[Sinister]

Originally Posted by Dan Carley

Cool wait till u get to season 9 and atlantis ^^

So i should watch 8 first.. then Atlantis then 9? I feel ashamed that i havent kept up with the episodes

[Dan Carley]

Originally Posted by Khatie

Thanks for doing this, Dan Carley!! And you can quote me on that!

w00t I just did and will be adding to the button of the full post

[Dan Carley]

Updated ^^

[telrika]

Out of curisoity can you give us any information on how actul missions will work? I assume they will be instanced and require a handful of other players in the form of squad mates. Also I know it's a bit early, but any chance for pvp or perhaps the ability to play a non-SGC team with chance encounters depending on the mission?

[Dan Carley]

Originally Posted by telrika

Out of curisoity can you give us any information on how actul missions will work? I assume they will be instanced and require a handful of other players in the form of squad mates. Also I know it's a bit early, but any chance for pvp or perhaps the ability to play a non-SGC team with chance encounters depending on the mission?

Not at moment we can't cus they are still in Pre-Production and little info on how the game will properly work and then maybe mission/quest details

[Venger]

Skills or Classes?

[ProgrammerGuy]

First off this is my first post and wow I am shaking with excitment. I have been dreaming that someday someone would come out with an SG1 MMO.

In the word's of the great RDA:

"I hope we're gonna get some big hunkin' space guns!"

Also, I have played many MMO's and am curious if this is going to follow the standard; Kill, loot, kill, loot, format of most MMO's?

[Spaceman]

Originally Posted by ProgrammerGuy

First off this is my first post and wow I am shaking with excitment. I have been dreaming that someday someone would come out with an SG1 MMO.

In the word's of the great RDA:

"I hope we're gonna get some big hunkin' space guns!"

Also, I have played many MMO's and am curious if this is going to follow the standard; Kill, loot, kill, loot, format of most MMO's?

Welcome to the Forums. I as well could not wait until somebody made a MMORPG based on Stargate. What Dan created here was an excellent idea. Members like that will help make the game a success. I am going to try my best to help make this game work as well. Thank the Gods for CME WOOHOO!