38 Studios' Close, Salvatore Talk MMO, 'Standing On Shoulders' Of WoW

Author: by Staff

Talking as part of an in-depth Gamasutra interview, 38 Studios' Brett Close and RA Salvatore have been discussing plans for the first game from the Curt Schilling-funded MMO studio, saying they will 'stand on the shoulders' of World Of Warcraft. Though Salvatore and Close weren't ready to give up too many details on their project in development, Salvatore did make some allusions to what motivates him as a designer: "I’ve been playing MMO’s for years, I love them, and the one thing I know as a player is that I don’t want anyone to hold my hand and walk me through something. I want to write my own books with my character. I would never – as a dungeon master and as now a game designer – I would never want to take that away from the player." On competing with WoW, Salvatore snarked, "Oooh, ooh, ooh. How do I write a book that's not going to compete with J.R.R. Tolkien?" But while he allowed that entering the same market as the industry-leading MMO is inevitable, he explained: "We always look at everything that’s out there as the giants upon whose shoulders we will stand. Not the grave we’re gonna dance on, the giant whose shoulders we’re gonna stand upon. I have an attitude about it, when other games do something that’s really amazing, there are two things I like about that. One, I get to play it. And two, it makes us feel better." You can now read the complete feature, which goes in-depth with the 38 Studios team and their vision for "industry-changing games" (no reg. required, please feel free to link to this feature from other websites).