WarHammer Online's Paul Barnett Sits Down With AbleGamers - Part 1

While AbleGamers was at GDC, we had a chance to sit down with the Creative Director of Warhammer for Mythic Entertainment, Paul Barnett. Now you do not have to be a Warhammer fan to like this guy. If you are a lover of games, you need to watch this interview; he is known to be an expert on MMOs and technology, working in gaming for most of his adult life, going all the way back to his MUD development days.

Take a moment of your time and watch it sitting down.  This man is responsible for many of the best additions to MMOs to date.

MR. BARLET:  I'm going to try to just let you talk all you want about this.  It's really important for us, as disabled gamers, to just want to hear what we consider people that are in a thought position . . . where you speak a lot on MMO's in general and not just War Hammer.  So we want to know what your thoughts are.  So one of the first questions we had was, the MMO space is a very crowded space, so what is setting War Hammer apart right now?

MR. BARNETT: Well it is a very crowded space, because what's actually happening is the concept of the game being online, the concept of the game having multiple connections and multiple players is becoming more and more mainstream.  And so, I think space that everybody used to occupy, the sort of "geek fiefdom" of only people with modems and only people who understood "online" and only people who were willing to put their credit cards into systems . . . that's all changing.  There are like three generational steps.

So, my mum is hesitant to use a credit card, because she's of the opinion that there's probably evil that it's a credit, which is given to you by the devil and if you buy something "on credit" what happens is people will come and chop off your arms and they'll take away your house.  I come from the generation that realizes that buying anything online means that someone in Albania ends up being able to book tickets to travel first-class to Swaziland.  I actually (inaudible).  But, if I try to buy anything online I get robbed and someone tried to do "identity theft".  But then there is a generation below me who can't get it through their heads that people would ever want to go to a shop to use that money thing.  Like my boy just assumes that buying things online is the thing you do.  In fact, he does it fearlessly because he hasn't got a problem.  So those three stages represent, sort of, what's been happening on online games.

Originally it was the people who knew what it was to speak in minimalist "tech-speak", who understood why you have to have backslashes on every command, that the amount of data you send had to be minimalized because it costs a fortune.  Those people . . . they're sort of like the people who get into bands and really like them and then the band becomes popular and they start going . . . Well, I liked them before they were popular!  They're also the people who think . . I like them before they sold-out.  They're like really early adopters.  Then there's the middle strata, which is basically the WOW people.  The reason WOW is so popular, apart from being slick and well produced and a good game, is it came at just the "crest moment" for a massive increase in people going online and playing spaces.  When they came along they blew away the online numbers.  300,000 was a solid subscriber number, but they just got millions and it made no sense.

Well, we're past that now.  We're now into this next generation, where people have got iphones, they're downloading applications.  They're from all generations and all (inaudible).  They think nothing of it.  It's completely natural.  For a game to come out and for it not to have any form of online is now considered bizarre.  So I think the "online space" is actually not growing, but just become more aware and more rounded.

What does that mean for games like ours?  Well, I think the games we make, asset-heavy games, are more and more going to become rarer as they take too long to make.  They cost too much to make and they require too many people to make them.

So what you're going to see is a lot of asset-light games.  That's basically what the iphones do, is bringing out games that don't require a lot of graphics, that don't require a lot of work, but are fun to play, and asset-light games are good, but they're quite a "condensed experience".  They're actually quite good for grinding, so that sort of "grind mentality" of doing things again and again and again.

Tetris is a great example of an asset-light game.  There's a heavy "grind" it but still has a compelling nature.  A lot of the early arcade games were like that.  So Pac-Man is asset-light and has a grinding-nature, but it has a "compelling nature" to it.

So I think in the modern era you're going to see more and more asset-light online games.  You're not going to see as many asset-heavy online games, purely because they cost too much money and I think that that's how the market is going to diverge.  So you're going to have people who do things like . . they want to play Fishing online, asset-light.  They throw the rod with their iphone.  They really knock in buy using their little finger and they catch fish and they feel very happy, and it's a sort of very shallow, very quick game and it doesn't really take much effort.  You play it maybe for a total of maybe 5-hours in your life but you play it in 2-minute chunks.  There are going to be more games like that . . . fun, interesting.  Imagine a game like that, that triggers during a horse-race.  So there you are, at the horse grounds, making your bets . . . And they're off!  And at that point you can trigger a little game and play it only for the time it takes the horse-race to finish, but it's enough to keep people who are obsessed with horses and betting and that . . . it gives them something else to do.  That would be quite interesting.

And then I think there will be asset-heavy games, which have got much more to them.  What I think is going to happen is we're going to see much more "time control".  So the one thing that the current games are very bad about is "time control".  They basically work as "time syncs".  You're sort of like in MMO time, where you slow down and life's things go around you and you forget to eat your dinner and you forget to do your homework and you forget to say hello to people you love and then before you know it . . . it's 4-o'clock in the morning!  While that's great for the earlier adopters, it's lousy for most people because most people have to do boring things like go to bed so they can get up for work.  Like remembering to leave the house to go to the cinema to meet their friends or put the kids to bed.

So I think "time control" of asset-heavy games is going to happen and in some cases you see that already where people have like . . . We're going to do a raid because it takes an hour.  We're going to do a scenario because they flip every fifteen minutes.  That sort of compartmentalization of . . . I really don't have time to play it 12-hours a day, which is how the old games used to work.  So I think "time compression" is important.  I think being able to give people "dip-in and dip-out games plays" is going to be important.  Asset-heavy, rich, environmental, big texture, long-game play, costs a lot of money, requires a big investment . . .  And then, asset-light, quick turnover, quick game play, fire off again, buy and burn, I think, is going to happen.

What does it mean for our game in total?  I think as long as we come to continue to show that that we love and we care and we're willing to pour resources and heart and soul into it, then I think our core users will stay.  As long as we come continue to embrace the changes in game play, the cutting down of time sessions, being a little bit more open to people who have never played these games and dropping the complicated lexicon we keep using, then I think we should see sustainable and maybe even expandable growth for our game for a very long time, much like EverQuest I, Ultima Online, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars Galaxies.  These games have been around for a long time and unless someone pulls the plug out on purpose and is willing to give up on the income they're generating, (inaudible) being an example, I don't think they'll go away.

Comments (4)

Steve Spohn

May 22, 2009

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Amazing interview. It will be interesting to see if in the next five years everything this guy says comes to pass. I bet most of it will.

Mark C. Barlet

May 22, 2009

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Steve, I think Paul is one of the smartest guys in the room when it comes to game design and development. You can tell in this whole interview that he LOVES gaming. He is also a Robo NERD too!

Deewe

June 15, 2009

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That was a really interesting interview.

What I like is Paul is able of being very serious and also knows when to have fun.

Also you can clearly see he has a vision.

Lehtality

June 22, 2009

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I'm not sure he's truly talented, just motivational.

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