Red 5 MMO is evolving, time-based

By Oli Welsh Published 5 January, 2009

Crumbs of info on WOW creators' next.

The heads of Red 5 Studios - a developer formed three years ago around a kernel of ex-Blizzard, ex-World of Warcraft staff - have given told Gamasutra a little about what to expect about their mysterious first project.

WOW team lead and chief creative officer Mark Kern said that the game - long in development, but still under wraps - would be more concerned with creating a world that would change over time based on player's actions, rather than a huge geographical space.

"We want players to actually change the state of the game over time. Time is a very important concept to our game," Kern said.

"We play with it in any number of ways. It is probably our key form of persistence, more than, say, geography... It's more about how this world evolves over time, versus how big your world might be."

Kern promised that the much-anticipated MMO would finally be revealed "in the coming months" and that the company does "intend to have a game that appeals as much to the East as it does to the West".

Chief executive Michael Weingartner added that the company wasn't worried about the difficulty other games, such as Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa and Warhammer Online, are experiencing launching against WOW - and implied they weren't in the same league as Red 5's title.

"We always think there is a market for a strong, triple-A title," Michael Weingartner. "I don't think that any of the titles you just listed really fall into where we're going, where our interests are. So, that said, I don't think the current trend... worries us too much."

Either way, Red 5's pedigree means that MMO watchers will be keeping close tabs on the game, along with the unannounced projects at fellow Blizzard refugees Carbine, and 38 Studios, formed by baseball player and EverQuest nut Curt Schilling. Expect all three to be revealed this year.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (8) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Eraysor #1 3 years ago

    There's no point in assaulting WoW on its own turf, so any rivals are either going to have to be very different or extremely rich (in Star Wars' case).

  • Gurrah #2 3 years ago

    I think the problem is that developers are trying to recreate what WoW is, a mainstream product. And, without ever having played it, I think it does that very, very well. There should be more experiments and niché products like EVE to cater all the people who do not want to run around dressed like a chupa chup.

  • VashNL #3 3 years ago

    I believe that the phased areas they introduced in WoW are completely different compared to what Red 5 will do. I believe that the change they are implementing are for everyone. And I don't think it's just building up the resources to open up a new area, as they did in WoW, but groundbreaking changes (from what I can tell) like the destruction of an entire village (which is then desolate for a while) and subsequently rebuilding it over a period of time which then introduces new possibilities. Of course, this is only a mere thought.

    That would really change the virtual world for everyone, not just the way you perceive it.
    Edited by 1 at 05/01/09 @ 17:19

  • qoobah #4 3 years ago

    I do believe that they are onto something, with player-controlled world. After all, the main difference between MMO's and regular games is the fact that you play with other people, a lot of people, that you are a part of a society. So socializing is one thing that differentiates MMO's from regular games, and capitalizing on that is paramount to the evolution of the genre.

    EVE does that, but it's too hardcore for it's own good if we agree that "good" in case of MMO's is "getting the largest playerbase possible". WAR was/is near the concept with player-controlled battlefront, but it's poorly implemented, and the "player-controlled" notion isn't as exploited as it could be.

    I honestly believe that WoW, being a brilliant game it is, is getting seriously outdated on the gameplay front. Capitilizing on the fact that MMO's are Massive and Multiplayer is the way to make the genre alive and shining. That's why I cheer for these guys, and at the same time am worried that SW:TOR, an MMO set in my favourite franchise, will fail due to focusing on the wrong part of gameplay design.

  • Daxside #5 3 years ago

    I wish MMO's would just piss off.

  • Nill #6 3 years ago

    Bla bla bla bla bla...

    Didn't really say anything, did it? Nice, an article about nothing.

  • levitate #7 3 years ago

    It's going to take more than a brilliant, astonishing, amazing game to lure the WoW players.

  • WARGold #8 3 years ago

    Time will tell if this actually holds water and not another rehashed WoW clone. They've got guts saying that the other Triple A titles were not in their league. For one thing, I think this is gonna be vaporware.

    Even Star Wars played the 'WoW killer' card. Seriously, they'd have to do better than that to beat WoW. Just look at the number of subscribers, the demand for wow gold, the number of Wrath copies sold - do they seriously think that a new IP can go that far?

  • wowgoldpaladin #9 3 years ago

    Hmmm.... Yeah! Good luck, dude! Most of the wow gold reviews say that it's very hard to establish new MMO game today. First, WoW released the new expansion. Second, WarHammer is also a hit.