Neverwinter Interview

Ten Ton Hammer has provided us with the results of a brief interview they conducted with Cryptic Studios’ Jack Emmert on the show floor of PAX East about Neverwinter. There isn’t a whole lot to quote, so I’ll just go with one question and answer:

Ten Ton Hammer: Has that help you refine your approach to the pacing of content as well? For example, originally Neverwinter was going to be more of a co-op game, before the decision was made to expand the game to be more of a full MMO, yet even in its present form Neverwinter still retains that very modular feel to gameplay.

Jack Emmert: Absolutely. You should be able to play for half an hour and accomplish something. That means finish a quest, maybe do some crafting, and feel like you’ve made some progress. All of our games have that basic principle.

One of our biggest concerns with MMOs is time commitment. So it’s about being able to create a system where you can just get in and have fun, or get some XP even if you only play for half an hour. You shouldn’t need to play for six hours for things to happen. I remember EverQuest, and I was there for DAoC, but I couldn’t possibly play those games now because I just don’t have that kind of time to invest. But I still want to play MMOs, so we create these experiences that we call (bite-sized fun).