Microsoft elected not to give a keynote presentation at the Game Developer’s Conference this year, opting instead to let their 2007 game lineup and the talented people behind it do the job for them. In addition to presentations for Shadowrun, Forza Motorsport 2, Blue Dragon, Fable 2, Mass Effect and others, Microsoft scheduled a roundtable discussion that featured Hironobu Sakaguchi of Mistwalker, Raymond Muzyka from BioWare, and Peter Molyneux from Lionhead Studios. The subject of the discussion was ‘The Evolution of RPG Development’ and each of the renowned designers had a different idea of just what exactly that entailed.
The discussion opened with the question of how the development of RPGs has changed over time. Hironobu Sakaguchi answered that advances in technology have allowed for more immersive graphics and better story-telling opportunities. The more life-like the characters on-screen, the easier it is for most gamers to grow attached to them, and the more effective the game. Molyneux argued that despite the improvement from the bitmapped graphics of Wizardry on the Apple to the lush 3-dimensional worlds we have today, the actual structure of RPGs hasn’t changed that much so there’s still plenty of evolution left in the genre. Ray Muzyka argued that the genre has advanced by influencing other genres – as more and more action and adventure titles begin to implement RPG elements like building character skills, storytelling and the like, the RPG genre is becoming broader.
Myzuka’s answer lead directly into the next question – with more and more genres borrowing elements from RPGs, how will the RPG genre define itself in order to maintain its identity? Myzuka responded by outlining the ‘activity pillars’ that Bioware keeps in mind for each of the games they develop, including Mass Effect. The four pillars are story and character that the player cares about, a sense of awe and discovery that comes from finding new areas, gaining new equipment or unlocking new areas, expanding your character’s abilities, and exciting combat. Molyneux voiced his agreement, but quickly turned his focus away from the mechanics of the game and toward the feel. Molyneux argued that role-playing games should provide the player with the feeling of being in a hero’s shoes and allow them to experience the emotional journey from essentially nothing at the beginning of a game to a hero by the end of it. Sakaguchi reiterated the sentiment that an RPG should emotionally engage the player, but argued that it could be done by providing an engrossing narrative and having them interact with great characters that express world-views they can relate to.
Turning the focus toward combat, the panel was asked whether or not turn-based battle systems would continue to exist. Sakaguchi, responsible for so many classic turn-based RPGs, answered that in order for the traditional turn-based combat to survive developers must implement it with a meticulous attention to detail. The combat in Sakaguchi’s upcoming Blue Dragon is entirely turn-based, while his other major project Lost Odyssey features real-time elements to add something new to the turn-based combat his games are known for. Furthermore, he’s also working on a few other projects that will feature real-time combat. Molyneux responds by citing his own preference for turn-based combat since it provides players with more time to think about their decisions and prevents games from becoming ‘twitchy’ but on the other hand accepts that certain games are better suited to real-time combat – games like Fable 2, for example. Muzyka also feels that both combat modes will continue to be viable in the future, and developers can opt to tell their stories using one, or allow the player to choose as they are with the battle system in Mass Effect.
With prominent proponents of both the eastern and western RPG design mentalities sitting on the panel, it was inevitable that the discussion would touch on the on-going debate between the linear and non-linear schools of thought. Interestingly, it was the two western developers that expressed the most disagreement over the issue. While both Molyneux and Muzyka agreed that player characters should naturally evolve and develop over the course of the player’s progression through the game, and that different actions should have different ramifications on the game experience, the two had different ideas as to how players should be guided through the experience. Molyneux believes that being able to talk about a certain shared experience in a game is important to the appeal of the game and that players should never be robbed of an experience because they made the ‘wrong choice’, while Muzyka believes that it’s far more exciting if no two players have the same experience. Sakaguchi was fairly quiet during this segment of the discussion as the language barrier prevented him from jumping between the sparring westerners. He did however add that the focus of any RPG should be to provide a great story, which judging by the linear narratives in his games to date seems to oppose the more nonlinear thinking of his Western compatriots.
Interestingly, despite his response to the previous question, Sakaguchi responded enthusiastically to the prospect of creating another MMO, which would of course have no story at all barring the general context for the world players would be role-playing in. This enthusiasm leads to a humorous impromptu exchange with Microsoft’s Shane Kim, where Sakaguchi puts Kim on the hot seat in front of a crowd of journalists and asks him if he could make another MMO. Kim laughs and responds ‘anything you want’ at which point Molyneux asks if he too can work on an MMO, prompting a repetition of the same answer. Muzyka drags the discussion back on topic with his answer, stating that the potential the MMORPG genre presents is truly exciting since players are basically making their own stories with each other. The idea of trying to blend the rich narrative of a single-player RPG with the social interaction of an MMO is exciting to him, and that’s a concept that the new Bioware Austin studio is working on.
