Stargate Worlds

Friday morning at Comic-Con began with a host of Stargate-related panels held in Ballroom 6, and I had the chance to sit in on a discussion about the upcoming Stargate-themed MMORPG Stargate Worlds. I actually almost missed this event, however, because a several hundred person long line for Joss Whedon (of Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) materialized within moments (like, literally, in a 3 minute span) just outside the ballroom, as his panel was immediately after the Stargate talks.

The panel consisted of Brad Wright, the co-creator and executive producer/writer of Stargate; Dan Elggren, head of Firesky Studios; creative director Chris Klug; art director Howard Lyon; and director of technology Demetrius Comes. They spoke at length about how passionate they are about the Stargate franchise (and even joked that they all had to be tested to make sure they had seen every episode), and how they planned to take that passion and translate it into the game to make an authentic Stargate experience.

It was emphasized about how important it was to the development team that someone who watches the show can feel at home within the game. The story will take place between seasons eight and nine of the television show, and they were able to confirm that all major characters within the show will make appearances in the game (as quest givers, mentors, etc.). The events that unfold within the game will tie into the story of the series, and there was even talk about how additional SG-1 movies based on these events may be made in the future. Again, they emphasized, they want to make sure that players feel like they are a part of the episodes.

Speaking about the early development of Stargate Worlds, Klug mentioned that when he wrote the original high level design document he tried to figure out exactly what it was that made the show work so well. Ultimately, he decided that Stargate wasn't so much a science fiction or a fantasy story as it was a story about the characters that was wrapped up within the realm of science fiction and fantasy. Once that clicked for him, he was able to create something that Wright would say was an excellent deconstruction of the series.

According to the developers, there is a lot more to Stargate Worlds than simple combat, and that it will feature a number of puzzle and social aspects as well. Specifics about the game mentioned were that there would be some Bejeweled-style mini games to perform tasks like translating Incan runes. In addition, they want to create an experience that everyone can get into and enjoy, whether or not they're gamers. To that end, they will stray away from the 40-man raid experiences some games employ and create a game that people can play both solo and in parties.

Speaking of player-versus-player combat, they confirmed that there will be PVP servers and dueling, and that they plan to launch battlegrounds and arenas at a later time. They also said that they wanted to have story-related reasons for launching it.

When asked about how they think Stargate Worlds will fair against other already existing MMOs, the team said that they feel that it will stand on its one and attract players based on the series' appeal and its feature set, which will be very different from most other competing games, and that they want to take advantage of the fact that they'll have the only game on the market with a TV show. "We'll let WoW keep its 11 million players," they said, "and we'll take the 25-30 million Stargate fans."