Sitting down to my morning coffee this weekend, I caught a rare glimpse of the highly classified secret MMO being developed by mad scientists in Massachusetts at Curt Schilling’s new studio, 38 Studios.
You can catch the interview with the Big Schill yourself here in its entirety. The exclusive first look at the new game title can be seen at 1:16 in the three minute video.  The images are very limited, but we catch a glimpse of a horse and rider, that are graphically appealing, and lead me to believe we are looking forward to a fantasy MMO.  Also, Schilling mentions they will be working with a development budget of ‘greater than sixty million dollars.’  I suggest you watch the entire interview, because it is actually quite good.
P.S. Schilling plays a Tauren in WoW.
~Cyndre
I was a little disappointed to see the horse and rider, because unless they’ve really got a unique idea, its going to be Yet Another Fantasy MMO.
YAF MMO is fine. Its what I enjoy playing, and while I have daubled with all the out-of-genre games, I always stay longer.
Besides, I expect them to design something amazing, and who cares what genre if we get an industry defining or revolutionary title?
Hey, thanks for the post about the news piece. The animation shown was something being done during the phase we are now in, which is pre-production.
We are working with a few styles we have narrowed down to and running our styles through many different animation styles.
What he means is, “that may look completely different when the game comes out.” :)
Haven’t they been pretty upfront that it was going to be a fantasy MMO? I could have sworn it was on all of their press releases, plus when you add in the Salvatore angle … I guess I was just really surprised that you were surprised. =)
Either way, I’m certainly looking forward to it. I read Ryan’s blog and if he’s able to follow his MMO rules – and avoid the things he rants about – I’d say it’ll be a game I’d probably play. =)
Curt, thanks for stopping by! We are all very excited to see what the tremedous team you have assembled releases.
I thought that the genre of their game was mentioned in a few places as being fantasy already. I really don’t care about the setting that much, just make a damn good game. I’ve read every interview and article I could get my hands on and I really believe Curt is someone who “gets it”. I have high expectations for their game and I really feel they can exceed them. Too early to get whipped up? Perhaps, but they are saying and doing all the right things so far. Looking forward to seeing what you guys create for us to play.
The game competition is a great idea. That’s where things like Portal come from.
Well, I take it back.. YAF MMO might not be so bad… but I really do hope they can put a fresh spin on it and not just be another humans/elves/orcs game.
“The game competition is a great idea.”
Yup, yup, yeppers. Too bad it was restricted to the area, I would’ve loved to take a shot at it. :(
Is it sad that within 0.1s of the footage of him playing WoW, I immediately went “dude… that’s the AH in Orgrimmar?”
Is it sadder when you think that for 2+ years all my main characters were Alliance side, and I still recognize it?
With this team, I will not expect anything less than a Bioware/Blizzard/Square Enix caliber game…period.
Visual stylings of Todd, the storytelling of Salvatore…I cannot wait myself. And even though this may be “Another” fantasy MMO…it should leave the playground open if it is successful for other genres of play.
(Also, did you see some of the execs there, with the woman from TSR?…hehe…I am all giddy)
Cheers
Whatever we’ve seen from the video is extremely premature and mostly meaningless. The new studio will be total chaos for at least a year while they integrate the culture of their new hires and figure out how to be a actual functioning game company. I would even budget it: say an instant $10 million writeoff for startup chaos.
You know, hiring top people is not the same as hiring their entire department. Assembling a team from the ground up in a brand new company is not the same as running an established team successfully.
Hopefully, as Mr. Shilling is a gamer, we finally get that “game designed by a gamer” product, instead of the game designed by the investors product =)
[…I would even budget it: say an instant $10 million writeoff for startup chaos.
You know, hiring top people is not the same as hiring their entire department. Assembling a team from the ground up in a brand new company is not the same as running an established team successfully….]
Coherent, you seem to come from the Sigil Games school of business management. Smart business does not work like that. Real companies, built and run by winners, don’t have problems like you allude to, as they hire finance people and intelligent CEOs, CFOs, COOs etc., early in the process to prevent the creative overindulgence of something like the Vanguard debacle.
Brett Close and Bill Thomas don’t get mentioned much in the avalance of big names like Curt Schilling, Bob Salvatore, Todd Macfarlane et. al., but when all is said and done, it will be their contributions to the company that are the foundation upon which those creative minds can build a successful project, rather than an obesely creative pile of shite.
Real companies hire business people before designers. They create boring finance plans, design documents, thesis, business plans, long before they decide if there should be open PvP or item-centric advancement, skills or classes…
Many of us who are farmiliar with the industry spanning more than a decade or two, can spot a company that apears to be making all teh right moves from a mile away, vs., those that are doomed to fail. We aren’t always correct (see vanguard for me) but 38 Studios does appear to be building more than a house of cards, and thats what has us so excited.
Cyndre, I believe that experience counts. And even though they’re spending a LOT of money buying the best, that will STILL only represent maybe 10-20 people out of the hundreds that it will take to build a successful MMO.
I believe that culture counts. I believe that success comes from a process that allows the best ideas to rise to the top and get into the game. I believe that the reason WoW succeeded is that Blizzard created a winning creative ecology inside their company. An ecology that delivered victory.
So; I view 38 Studios with skepticism. You can’t just BUY the quality of success. If you could, big companies would do it every day.
We’ll see what comes out of 38 Studios. Sure, I have high hopes too. But tempered with realism. They have more money, true, but since when has spending more money guaranteed success? Sometimes it works, sure… and sometimes not.
I don’t come from the “Sigil Games school of business” or any other school. I just observe that they have hired people from disparate backgrounds, NONE of which have championship experience in the field that they’re now working in. I’ll be impressed when they hire the equivalent of Mike Morhaime. :)