Jagex on RuneScape, MechScape and FunOrb Interview

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Eurogamer: That's a lot of people. But that's enough about RuneScape. Let's talk about MechScape! I read that you're planning a reveal soon. Let's not wait; let's do the reveal now!

Henrique Olifiers: [Everybody laughs] So MechScape started as a project three-and-a-half years ago, in January 2006, when the company convinced itself it was secure with MMOs with the success of RuneScape and said, "OK, it's time for us to try another one from scratch and make it the way that we always wanted it to be - learning from all the lessons and experience of RuneScape."

From the beginning we didn't want to make another RuneScape: it can't be another fantasy game, so no more elves no more, no more orcs, no more dragons.

Eurogamer: [Does victory fist.]

Henrique Olifiers: Right. So what's big out there? Sci-fi. Sci-fi is everywhere: TV, movies, comics, but not in MMOs. Why not? We started studying why sci-fi doesn't work in MMOs. We found out some answers and the result is MechScape, which is a sci-fi game, with game mechanics that are completely different from any other MMO out there.

Eurogamer: Can you give us an example of them?

Henrique Olifiers: I can tell you what it is not. For instance: we don't have XP, we don't have skills, it's all different.

Eurogamer: So how's your character going to progress?

Henrique Olifiers: Yeah! Wink wink [laughter]. We brought inspiration from the good old sci-fi games like Masters of Orion, Ascendancy - those games. What is the drive behind those games for the player? I want to search and conquer and explore. That's what we do in MechScape.

Eurogamer: So is it an RPG based around an avatar that goes off and explores? Or is it a spaceship-based affair with lasers?

Henrique Olifiers: We're talking about all of that in MechScape.

Eurogamer: What things did you learn from making RuneScape that will make MechScape better?

Henrique Olifiers: We found out that players are fed up with grinding, and most MMOs are built on top of that because they need to be a long experience. If you have a team of a thousand people who are working overnight, a player can still go past that content faster than they can create it. The only reason why RuneScape is always ahead of the curve is because it's updated weekly and it has nine years [of content] behind it. If you started playing it back then you will run out of content eventually. But the grinding mechanics take your time, keep you there and interested in the game. So we had to be very clever with that and find a way to remove it.

Another thing we found about the game was how the users interact to one another and, as strange as it can sound, in an MMO not everybody wants to play in a multiplayer environment. Most MMO players, they like the multiplayer environment, but solo. Why is that? What is the drive? How can we cater for that? All that we learned and applied to MechScape.

Eurogamer: You're hinting at a lot of clever mechanics hiding under the MechScape blanket. Can we have a peek under your blanket?

Henrique Olifiers: Oh, OK, let me see: one of the things that was very successful in RuneScape were player-owned houses and creating them. That was very big for RuneScape. And so that's something we need to start with. So all the players start with their own bases [in MechScape].

Eurogamer: Snazzy. MechScape also portends to be for a more mature gamer. But how is it aimed at an older audience?

Henrique Olifiers: We started by spending the first months of pre-production only writing the universe, the back-story that underlines the game, so we had a very very strong platform to build the game on. The game is sound and solid from a storyline perspective. It is accessible like RuneScape is; it's easy to get into. But once you are into that the storyline is very engrossing, the characters and the way they express themselves is much more adult and the possibilities that you have strategically as you play the game are more advanced and progress with time.

The gameplay components get very complex, but you can play them in a shallow way. If you want to master it there is so much stuff for you to tweak and experiment with. It enables casual players to engage with it and to understand what's going on, but it goes very deep, very deep.

Eurogamer: Isn't that a bit risky, given the accessibility of RuneScape? Are you narrowing your prospective audience?

Mark Gerhard: I don't know if we've narrowed it, but what we've definitely done is gone tangential. We don't want all our existing RuneScape players to graduate or migrate onto MechScape. We've deliberately gone for a slightly older demographic. And we don't feel a medieval fantasy MMO player will want to play a sci-fi MMO.

So to your first question: is it a risk? Potentially. Doesn't mean we're not going to do it. This is a great project that we're really excited about. In many respects we've pioneered our own way here, but we don't mind that, I think that's what we do.

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