I-Wei Huang talks to Andy Robertson

It’s easy to assume that big business success is achieved through making insightful and difficult decisions at the right time, spotting a gap in the market and committing to filling it. OK, so there is some truth in this, but another essential piece of the puzzle is the creative and technical talent of individuals that go into really great products.

I’ve been impressed with Activision’s commitment to Skylanders; this has undoubtedly made it into a bigger, better and more enjoyable experience. However the real excitement for me was when I realized that these characters were not the product of a corporate machine but from the creative juices of some talented individuals.

One of these people is I-Wei Huang, a character designer at Toys for Bob who also has a hobby of making steam-powered robots and sculpting things out of clay. This led to a happy synergy of hobby and work as he took a lead in creating the characters for Skylanders.

Sitting down to talk to him last year about the process, and now with new LightCore Skylanders in mind, I was taken aback by the level of ownership and simple craft that went into each toy.

It was really interesting to hear Huang talk about struggles of preconceived ideas in the toy industry about what sort of characters boys would play with. Although they were told that all the Skylanders had to be boys, that “you just didn’t give them a good female character for boys to buy,” Huang pushed back, saying “you just haven’t given [boys] good enough girl characters to play with.”

In my family this seems to have worked as Hex and Stealth Elf are still two of the most used Skylanders. My kids are also keeping their eyes peeled for female Series 2 Skylanders characters once the new game is released. It will be interesting to see how these gender issues are applied to Skylanders Giants. Again we are looking forward to seeing what Huang and the team dream up for us.

Brian M. Bendis is one of Marvel Comics’ most prominent writers, best known for his Daredevil and Avengers runs. Greg Rucka’s had acclaimed runs on DC’s Detective Comics, had what many consider to be the definitive Wonder Woman run, brought the new Batwoman to prominence, and has written Marvel’s Punisher and Wolverine.

Rucka’s new novel, Alpha, his first new thriller in a decade, came out this week. As part of the promotion, Alpha‘s publisher, Mulholland Books, has posted a conversation between Bendis and Rucka in which they talk about novel writing, comics work, interacting with readers and fatherhood. Here are direct links to part one and part two.

I think we may safely call both men geek dads.

Google Doodle for 23rd May

Wow, Google has really outdone itself with today’s doodle. We’ve had plenty of great ones before featuring great writers, artist, scientists and, er, snowflakes, but this one features some of the best interactivity I can remember in a while. Today would have been the 78th birthday of Robert Moog, and the doodle honors him with a fully playable version of his famous synthesizer, complete with lots of knobs to twiddle and tweak the sounds just like the real thing.

You can play the keyboard using the number and/or QWERTY keys on your actual keyboard and use the cursor arrows to move between and adjust the Mixer, Oscillators, Filters and Envelope to make all sorts of crazy squelchy synth sounds. The Moog website has a quick start guide on how to play it. And there’s more – that funny looking thing to the right of the Moog is a “Tape Recorder” (look it up on Wikipedia) and if you hit the red button you can record a short section of your masterpiece, then play it back and record another three tracks and also share your song on Google+ or grab a link to it.

Bob Moog, 1934 – 2005, courtesy moogmusic.com

Moog was born in New York in 1934 and was building and selling Theremins with his father from 1954 onwards. In 1963 he designed and built his first modular synthesizer with voltage-controlled oscillators and amplifiers, and other controllers that turned sounds on or off and could change their pitch and modulation rates. He graduated with a Ph.D. in Engineering Physics from Cornell in 1965 and shortly after founded a company to start selling his Moog Modular Synthesizers.

You will have heard the sound of Moog synths in pretty much every form of music around since the ’60s – from movie soundtracks such as Midnight Cowboy, to artists such as Herbie Hancock and Stevie Wonder, right the way through to Heavy Metal rockers like Ozzy Osbourne, and any self-respecting electronic musician today will have at least one Moog in their arsenal of vintage synths.

Although Bob Moog left the company in 1977, he continued to create pioneering audio devices for other companies, including a version of his famous synth for the Commodore 64, and continued to develop theremins and theremin kits. Moog, the company, continued to produce various synthesizers and gradually built new features into them such as MIDI controls and sequencers. Eventually, the two Moog entities recombined in 2002 and re-released the famous Minimoog, amongst other things.

Bob Moog died from an inoperable brain tumour in 2005, and after his death, Bob’s family started the Bob Moog Foundation with its goal “to ignite creativity at the intersection of music, science, history and innovation.” Their MoogLab Student Outreach project, “brings Moog instruments into schools to teach children the science behind electronic music and inspire them to create and innovate in their own ways.” Man, I would have loved that when I was at school!

The company that bears the Moog name still continues to innovate. In addition the fantastic hardware synths, theremins and even guitars, they have embraced the today’s app ecosphere with the stunning Animoog for iPad and iPhone – and to celebrate their founder’s birthday the iPhone version is just $0.99 until the weekend and the iPad version discounted to just $9.99. I can heartily recommend both of them: even if you’re not very musical you can have so much fun just playing around with the noises they can generate.

Pixar has been making feature-length computer-animated films since Toy Story in 1995, and all of them have been artistic and popular successes; the latest is Brave, which is notable for being both Pixar’s first “fairy tale” (in other words, a magic-based story set in a mythic “once upon a time” past) and first female lead role. Like its predecessors, Brave is notable for the filmmakers’ dedication to detail and quality; every element is carefully researched and designed, and the crew-members took multiple trips to Scotland to study the environment and history. In early April, I spent three days in San Francisco as Disney/Pixar’s guest, where I saw several demonstrations of various aspects of this process. Over the next couple of days, I’ll be sharing these stories with you.

We met with story artist Louis Gonzales for a presentation called “From Page to Screen,” in which he explained the process by which a movie is developed. The process does not begin with a written script. “Everything is a work in progress,” Gonzales explains. “Everything is always moving forward, and we’re trying to build this thing. We explore ideas that never make it into the film, because it seemed like it was something that had potential, whether it was really funny, and we decided that we don’t need funny at that moment. We might feel like we need a heartfelt moment, so we cut that funny scene in order to get something that makes the story work as a whole.” The story is developed visually by a team of artists drawing a series of sketches showing the “beats” of the story as they might appear in the finished film. Brave had over 110,000 such drawings created, illustrating about 100 possible scenes; only about 35 of them made it into the final film. Most scenes require between 200 and 500 drawings, though some short segments may only need 15 or 20. The story artists each produce about 100 drawings a day.

Once the basic story is worked out, attention turns to research, which sometimes adds new elements or changes existing ones. Research can take many forms, from bringing in books, movies, or experts to teach the staff about particular skills or traditions. Gonzales says, “we try and gather as much information as we can. You know, we’re good students around here.” Sometimes the research includes visiting the locations where the story takes place; for Up, the crew visited the jungles of Venezuela, while for Toy Story 3 they went to the local dump. For Brave, they went to Scotland. “What we’re looking for is to soak up as much of Scotland as we can, everything, from the smallest detail to the biggest castle.” The crew studies “architecture, things of that nature, old castles, new castles, vast landscapes, very particular landscapes.”

The research trips provide more than just landscape; the real benefit of visiting these locations is the intangible qualities, the culture and people. Gonzales told of one incident that occurred, and then showed the scene that resulted. “One of the most special things happened on my birthday. I know everyone says that; ‘my birthday is special,’ but for real, a night happened that actually even found its way into our film. I mean it’s something that affected all of us, really, not just me. We were having my birthday dinner, and we come to find out one of the waitresses that was helping us was this award-winning Gaelic singer, lullaby singer, more specifically. You know, I didn’t know that existed. It’s not in my culture. And we begged her and begged her, please, would you sing to us? And she was very humble, and she was like okay. So she finally broke down and sang us a Gaelic lullaby. And it was the most amazing thing ’cause, you know, it’s kind of the thing that makes these trips really important; it’s the unexpected stuff sometimes that is more hard-hitting than the expected stuff. Castles, we know we’re gonna see. We could see that in a book, but it’s good to walk around, get an idea how they work. Landscapes we can see pictures of, but it’s this kind of cultural stuff that we saw that affects the film – the kind of the honesty of what we’re trying to bring to the film.”

There is a scene in the film in which Queen Elinor comforts a young and frightened Merida during a thunderstorm by singing a Gaelic lullaby. It’s a very sweet little scene that helps to define the relationship between mother and daughter, which is the core of the story.

Is this what D&D Next will look like? (Image courtesy of Wizards of the Coast)

If you’ve been following role-playing game news, you know that the fate of Dungeons & Dragons is somewhat in peril. Many younger gamers flock to video games, not table-top games. Some old school gamers have abandoned the hobby entirely, or else they play outdated (but perfectly playable) versions of the rules. Others prefer Pathfinder and other fantasy RPGs. Factions squabble over what edition of D&D is the best.

Getting fans of the various rules — Original D&D, Basic D&D, AD&D, 2nd Edition, 3rd, 3,5 and 4.0 — to all agree on how to run a run-of-the-mill combat with a band of hobgoblins, how magic is used, or how much authority the Dungeon Master has to improvise when your character want to do something not explicitly covered in the rules  … well, good luck with that.

Against this complex backdrop and into an uncertain future, Wizards of the Coast, which makes D&D, has embarked on an effort to redraw the rules once again. As was widely reported in January, Wizards is giving D&D a makeover, its first overhaul since 2008, when 4.0 was released and, some say, further fractured the fan base.

The project to create D&D 5.0 — or what Wizards is calling “D&D Next” — has been a cause for both bickering and hope. But the company has promised to listen to players. They hired game designers from previous editions, such as Monte Cook, Bruce Cordell and Rob Schwalb, in an effort ”give a voice to the different generations of D&D.” They initiated a multi-phase playtest. Some months ago, I had a chance to play an early version of D&D Next, Dungeon Mastered by none other than the man heading up the revamp, Mike Mearls, senior manager of Dungeons & Dragons research and development. Then came a “Friends and Family” play test phase this winter and spring for a select group of D&D players.

Now, this week, the general public playtest will kick off, beginning Thursday, May 24th. You can sign up to play here. On the eve of this new phase, I had a chance to ask Mearls some questions about the state of D&D‘s evolution, if he could reveal any sneak peeks into D&D Next and what challenges remain.

Gilsdorf: Please bring readers up to date (especially any newbies reading this) on the process to date — the previous “Friends and Family” playtest, the overall schedule, and where in the process the game design revision stands now.

Mike Mearls, senior manager of Dungeons & Dragons research and development (Image courtesy of Wizards of the Coast)

Mearls: The first concepts for the game arose about a year ago in a series of limited tests and proofs of concept. We also played through each edition of D&D to get a sense for how the game has changed. In the fall, we started to do more work in earnest, with that material making up a closed playtest that began around the start of 2012. We used feedback from that test, along with games run at the D&D Experience convention and PAX East, to shape the next round of design. The game right now is functional within a limited array of levels. There are a few things we know that will change in short order. For instance, monsters still need some work, and the starting character hit points are a bit inflated to account for that. At this point, we’ve created a few different scenarios we can follow for new content based on player reaction to the first round. Depending on how that goes, we can figure out if we should debut new content or go back and revise classes and races that have been tested before. The big thing is that we’re ready to take as much time as needed to get this right.

Gilsdorf: Can you characterize the general sense of where the game in progress stands now? Is it more like classic D&D, more like 4.0? How have the rules and philosophy changed?

Mearls: In general, we’re pushing more power into the DM’s hands to run the sort of campaign that he or she prefers. For instance, we just talked today about a rule that lets DMs hand out bonus hit points at first level. The DM gets to determine if adventurers in the campaign are lucky, blessed by the gods, or otherwise destined for greatness. I’d say that in general, the game has the open-ended nature of AD&D, the character flexibility of 3e, and the clarity and ease of DMing of 4e.

Gilsdorf: I imagine you did a lot of reading into D&D‘s history to think big picture stuff. How far back did you delve to get good ideas/best practices?

Mearls: We started at the very beginning, looking back at the original version of the game and even what information we could find on the games that inspired D&D. When we played each edition, starting with the original, we had a chance to see how the game evolved. The most interesting thing we learned was that the original game held up very well, and the best parts of D&D — creativity at the table, the DM’s ability to create a unique game — were consistent in all editions.

Gilsdorf: Can you talk about which older editions were most inspirational and what about them did you like or try to incorporate into D&D Next?

Mearls: Basic D&D, the version released in 1981 and assembled by Tom Moldvay, is a big inspiration. It’s a complete game in 64 pages and covers the essence of D&D in a compact package. The original game has the basic concept of an RPG, with the idea of the DM as a combination world builder, storyteller, and umpire. AD&D added more flexibility to characters, 3e created a logical framework of rules, and 4e created a math framework for the game. All of those things are steps forward for D&D and every edition has contributed to this new iteration.

Gilsdorf: I think a lot of older gamers expressed concern about the direction 4.0 was headed vis-a-vis the balance of combat vs. storytelling and role playing. Do the new rules dictate how much role playing should be incorporated into the game? How much storytelling? How much combat?

Mearls: We’re very hands off with that stuff, instead leaving it up to the DM. We tend to give characters a mix of combat, exploration, and interaction abilities so that players feel that all of those areas of the game are important. The big thing I want to do for DMs is create a flexible core of rules that they can apply and modify as they wish.

Gilsdorf: In the new rules, will there be any fresh instructions on how to role play and tell stories, to help inexperienced players who might come to D&D from video games understand how to play a character, or how to DM? Or at this point is it just the rules framework you are focusing on?

Mearls: That’s the kind of thing we’ll tackle as we start thinking about final products. For now, we assume that players and DMs are at least familiar with the basics of the game.

Gilsdorf: So you have this feedback from the “Friends and Family” playtest. How did you tabulate and incorporate all of it? It sounds like a monumental task.

Mearls: We have a great team of people at Wizards who have tabulated everything, making it much easier for us to zero in on issues. We also rely on surveys to collect information, so we can take a look at the raw numbers. There are two ways we’ve looked at feedback so far. Sometimes, specific issues leap to the top of the to-do list because we see less than stellar feedback. In other cases, we use the results to help shape our discussions for revisions. For instance, if we have an idea for a new way to handle magic items we can check on the playtest data and see what players had to say about the current rules, then use that information to help us make our revisions.

Gilsdorf: How much feedback did you get? In the thousands of responses?

Mearls: That’s hard to tabulate. We kept our closed playtest small, with a little over a thousand people participating. They were given survey questions but also submitted written feedback. The real test will come when we begin to receive feedback from the public playtest.

Gilsdorf: My understanding is the next phase is the public open playtest. So really anyone will be able to play?

Mearls: That’s right, though as in the case of any public beta there is a play test agreement you have to agree to.

Gilsdorf: How is this handled? Do folks download materials from the D&D site?

Mearls: The materials will be available online via the D&D web site at www.dndnext.com. All you need to do is create an account on the site – if you already have one you can skip that step – and agree to the playtest terms. Once you do that, you can download the files and start playing.

Gilsdorf: How will you solicit feedback and what form will it take — surveys? Open comments on forums?

Mearls: We’re are focusing on surveys as the primary method but also hosting Live Chats, continuing playtests at key events, panels, and also paying close attention to the conversations that are coming out of our weekly articles. Surveys make it as easy as possible for people to contribute. A survey also lets us focus in on the key issues we want to examine, though of course people will have a chance to write out their thoughts and impressions. We want to give players as many outlets as we can to give us feedback.

Gilsdorf: There’s been a lot of talk about the the departure of Monte Cook from the team working on this project. I’m sure you’re restricted on what you can say, but I wonder if you care to comment or respond to some of the internet chatter about what this might mean for where D&D Next is headed. What did Monte bring to the team and has he been replaced?

Mearls: Nothing has changed in terms of big picture ideas. The core concept behind the game was in place about a year ago, so our direction remains the same. Monte has a good sense for what makes for a fun RPG, and his big role was providing his experience on third edition. We’ve also been relying on other team members to provide the same kind of expertise in all editions so that we can put together the kind of game that all D&D players will enjoy and appreciate.

Gilsdorf: Can you tease some of the major changes for D&D Next? (e.g. Is combat super complex with feats and super powers, or is the system more streamlined? Class? Races? Spells?)

Mearls: Here’s something people might like — we’ve created a new mechanic for rogues called schemes. Schemes tell you what sort of rogue you’re playing. You might want to be a thief, the classic D&D rogue who can sneak, steal treasure, and disarm traps. Or, you might want to play a charlatan who excels at deceit and, through trial, error, and practice, learns how to use scrolls, wands, and other magic items.

Gilsdorf: Biggest challenge thus far?

Mearls: The biggest hurdle has been trying to make sure that we can encourage more creativity, immersion, and flexibility in DMs and players. We want to have a solid set of rules, but at the same time I think D&D is at its best when the game is about the DM’s rulings rather than the actual rules. The rules are a tool that a DM uses to keep the game moving and inform decisions. The rules don’t make decisions for the DM, unless that’s how the DM wants the game to work.

Gilsdorf: Any other cool surprises in the new rules you can share now?

Mearls: I mentioned the rogue schemes earlier, but here’s another tidbit. Character backgrounds dictate the skills you receive, rather than your character class. Right now in the rules you could play a fighter who is also a thief, a wizard who is also an explorer, or any other combination you want.

Gilsdorf: When I contacted you last fall, you and your colleagues at Wizards spoke about how the major goal for this rules revamp was big picture, brand and relevance stuff — how to unite all the warring tribes; end the editions wars; get older, lapsed players to play again; and get younger generations excited about D&D. The changes you’re talking about here seem a little smaller-scale. Can you point to some bigger-picture ways you are addressing these issues?

Mearls: The really big questions are, in some ways, still up in the air. Right now, we’re sort of heads down, focusing on small details for the playtest. We have some fairly big ideas we’re working on in terms of RPGs as a whole, but that stuff is still fairly far off on the horizon. Right now, we really are down in the weeds in terms of details, and you’re right that the stuff we’re talking about right now is fairly small in terms of the big picture. However, that big picture still isn’t in focus. I think a mistake we made in the past was to try to make these big, grandiose statements, but in doing that we lost track of the core elements of what people enjoy about RPGs. We also ended up touting things that we couldn’t actually execute on, and no one wants that to happen again.With all that said, we’re definitely thinking big picture. That work is taking place, but it’s not ready for prime time.

Gilsdorf: How are you holding up, personally? Leading this rules revision for D&D Next must be exhausting and stressful. Lots of folks wanting this to go right. I can only imagine.

Mearls: It’s definitely stressful, but it helps to have a great team of designers and editors. Plus, my wife and our menagerie of pets – two dogs and three cats – help to keep me grounded. The best thing, though, is actually playing the game. It feels good to play through a new iteration and have a good time, or spot issues that we know we can fix. In some ways, there’s some security in having a public test. If people hate it, we are listening and make changes along the way. The biggest thing I have comes down to my attitude toward whatever my current project might be. I’m sort of like a parent who pushes a kid way too hard and expects straight As every term. I just want the game to be absolutely awesome!

Gilsdorf: Anything else you’d like to add?

Mearls: We’re really looking forward to having people try out the playtest materials and give us their feedback. People have asked why they should care about this version of D&D when there are other versions out there. This is your chance to play a role in the development of the rules. If there has ever been anything about D&D that bugged you or some new thing you wanted in the game, now is the time to be heard!

The D&D Next general public playtest begins Thursday, May 24th. Sign up to play here.

This weekend is a major first for me. I’m not talking about my first trip to San Francisco, which has been awesome. I am talking about my first Maker Faire, and I couldn’t be more excited. The anticipation is palpable, and I imagine this is what Charlie Bucket felt like before he passed the gates into the great Wonka Chocolate Factory.

Most GeekDad readers at least know about Maker Faire and what it is all about. For several years now I’ve watched the tweets, reports, and videos from various Maker Faire events and this year I decided that I would watch from the sidelines no longer. So, what am I so excited about?

Innovation – I adore innovation. The innovation seen at Maker Faire is astonishing, and since innovation is contagious I will see the seeds of next year’s great projects.

Creativity - Similar to innovation but distinct. I have never seen myself as being very creative, at least not in the way many of the makers at the Faire can get that spark of inception. I can be innovative but I have trouble being truly creative. Maker Faire is a great place to see this creativity and will give me tons of creative fuel.

Wow - The pure wow factor of the displays. When you have Tesla coils tuned to play music, and that is just one of the items that rates high on the wow-index, I see myself saying “Wow!” a great deal this weekend.

People – In addition to hanging out with other great members of the GeekDad and GeekMom crew, I will be surrounded by people who get it. The “it” being the three factors I mentioned above as well as all of those things that I can’t even put into words.

If you’re going to be at the Bay Area Maker Faire this weekend, come by the GeekDad booth in the Expo Hall. If you won’t be, check out my tweets this weekend and watch for articles after this weekend as I predict I will get plenty of article fodder. Also, the Bay Area Maker Faire isn’t the only Maker Faire, so check out the website to see the other Faires and mini-Faires and try to get to one near you. I know this won’t be the only time I come to the Bay Area event and won’t be the only Maker Faire I attend. This is just a start for me.

I’ve got a Golden Ticket…

Dennis Rivard
Michael C Carter
Nathan Jessen
Courtland Funke
Jason A. Monroe

Keep an eye out for boxes coming your way soon!

I suppose I had it coming. Ever since I wrote those critiques of the archery in Brave, Hunger Games, and most infamously, the two about Hawkeye in The Avengers, I’ve had lots of people ask me my opinion of the archery in a great many movies and TV shows past and present. Arrow is just the latest, and I’m only writing this so people will stop asking about it.

So what do we have here?

The actual archery isn’t bad; he’s got a decent form, though he might want to work on rotating that elbow away from the bow a bit. The big fail here is the equipment. Starting with the dusty old crate: who stores their bow in a big wooden crate? Why not a regular bow case? Second, of course, is the fact that the bow has been stored still strung; nobody who knows anything about archery would ever do that. It’s bad for the bow, and can result in a bow that shatters at some point down the line. Third, what kind of bow is that? To me, it looks like a modern take-down recurve that somebody has stuck a bunch of pseudo-steampunk brass fiddly bits onto for no good reason. More importantly, it looks like a child’s bow, maybe 46″ long or so. A bow of that size is suitable for a kid up to about age 10 or four-and-a-half feet tall, whichever comes first. For an adult, it’s much too small. It looks like they put a shorter string on it to give it a deeper profile, but that doesn’t help anyone either.

Unless you’re using exotic gear such as a Mongolian Horseman’s bow, the bow should be at least another 16-20 inches taller than the one we see here. Most likely this is a case of either the director or the prop-master going for a bow that they thought “looked cool,” probably over the objections of an archery expert they hired to ignore. It’s quite possible that somebody involved picked up an old copy of Green Arrow Secret Files & Origins from 2005, which describes Ollie’s bow as being 46″ long (I demolished that nonsense at the Suspension of Disbelief blog years ago), and decided that it was the right bow to use, because that’s what the comics said. The actor does the best he can with ill-fitting equipment, and aside from a lack of follow-through (he drops the bow as soon as he releases the arrow, which is sloppy), he looks pretty good in his shooting, but he’d have better arm extension if they let him use a grown-up’s bow.

Back in 2009 Paizo Publishing released Pathfinder, a table-top roleplaying game that extended the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 ruleset. Pathfinder has gained considerable popularity in the ensuing years, and now the team at Paizo is embarking on a new project, Pathfinder Online. By means of Kickstarter fundraising, Chief Executive Officer Ryan Dancey and his team at Goblinworks plan to develop a technology demonstration of a MMO version of Pathfinder. Adams was good enough to talk to us about their new Kickstarter campaign and the forthcoming project.

Adams: What made you want to take this project on?

Dancey: I have been interested in migrating from the tabletop to the digital RPG business for many years. In 2007 I had the chance to join CCP, publishers of the EVE Online MMO as Chief Marketing Officer, and that was my first formal position in the videogame industry. My 3 years at CCP reinforced my belief that MMO is the most exciting new storytelling medium in my lifetime, and I am committed to staying active in MMO projects.

Lisa [Lisa Stevens, CEO of Paizo] and I worked closely at Wizards of the Coast and after leaving CCP. She was one of the first people I approached to talk about taking a tabletop property to the MMO market. There are extremely important aspects to the Pathfinder property that will make for a successful MMO – the most important (to me) is the large and engaged community of support that Pathfinder has already generated. Having a large base of potential customers is a leading indicator of success in the MMO field. Pathfinder has that box thoroughly checked.  :)

Adams: You’re a week into your Kickstarter campaign and you’ve already raised $30k more than your original goal of $50k. Can you tell us what stretch goals you’re considering for the next few weeks?

Dancey: We’re focusing on ideas that add value to the pledges people have already made to create incentives for backers to become evangelists for the project. We’re as interested in the number of supporters the project has as we are of the funds it has raised. So we’re going to be doing things that reinforce the community aspect; we want to create incentives for people to get their friends involved with the Kickstarter by giving them goals that trigger enhancements to the value of the rewards they’ve already been promised when we hit various supporter milestones.

Our first stretch goal has been announced. When we hit 2,000 supporters, the Thornkeep product will gain additional value by having more content added than the original reward indicated.

Adams: What age levels will the Pathfinder MMO eventually target?

Dancey: Like all Paizo/Pathfinder products, it will not have the kind of content that would be considered overtly sexual or excessively violent. You can expect the content of the MMO to be similar to that found in the Pathfinder tabletop RPG materials.

The systems of a sandbox MMO can be complex. There’s no real “age range” that we’re targeting, but we do expect players to have an interest in the way a large number of game systems connect and interact – just like a mainstream tabletop RPG or CCG does.
Adams: You mentioned that the players will build kingdoms and will be the storytellers. That’s pretty exciting and quite challenging. Are you going to have the players actions change the world in real-time, for other players to experience? What details can you go into?

Dancey: Yes – that’s the heart of our design objective.
Much of what the characters do in the world will be persistent. When they build a structure, all the other characters will be able to see and interact with it. When they tear a structure down, the other characters will see that too. When they clear out a dungeon, that area will become somewhat safer, and if they let an infestation of monstrous creatures grow unchecked, that area will become more dangerous.

Most of the objects in the world will be crafted by characters. Characters will harvest the resources, process them into intermediate components, and finish them by crafting arms, armor, clothes, magic items, building materials, food, and a wide range of other types of item. The tools they need to do this harvesting, processing and crafting will also all be created by player characters.

There will be some over-arching storylines that are seeded by the development team. How those storylines resolve will be extremely driven by player activities. We’ll use many of the same techniques pioneered by Legend of the Five Rings - the developers will create branch points in the story, and take their cues as to how those branches unfold based on the actions of the players. Sometimes the players will surprise us by creating outcomes we didn’t even envision and that’s when the best combination of community and developer storytelling happens!

But the biggest and most important stories will be those created by the player-run Kingdoms. Taking and holding areas of the map, developing them, protecting them against invasion and monsters, and engaging in diplomacy, trade, and warfare with other Kingdoms will create an amazing and epic tale.

Our most important design guideline is that we want to always work to maximize player interaction.

Adams: Have you had any conversations with potential investors? Are there any targets (people subscribed or funding raised) that they’re looking for to prove this MMO viable?

Dancey: Yes, we’ve talked with a range of potential investors. So far we haven’t found the right fit. Because MMOs are larger and more expensive projects than most other kinds of digital game they require a high degree of sophistication on the part of outside investors. We need funding from a source that is as committed to the goal of delivering an MMO like no other as we are. Luckily, things like the Kickstarter project are letting us raise awareness of what we’re trying to do in ways that would have been impossible just a few years ago. I’m confident that we’ll find the right partners to make the project a success, in large measure due to this kind of heightened exposure.

Adams: Will there be any connectivity between the MMO and tabletop games? Character crossover, modules for tabletop play represented in the MMO, things like that?

Dancey: It is much more likely that materials that originate in the tabletop game will regularly appear in the MMO. Since the MMO will be so focused on the actions of players and their characters, it will be hard to take content from the MMO and make it generally useful to players of the tabletop game.

However the sheer size and scope of the MMO also means that we’re going to be producing content that could have a universal application. Thornkeep is an example of that kind of cross-pollination. I could see future supplements like Thornkeep being a regular feature for the tabletop game, just not a high-frequency feature.

Adams: You believe you can develop the Pathfinder MMO with a fraction of the time and resources of traditional MMOs.  What will you be doing differently to realize these savings?

Dancey: The first big savings comes from the middleware revolution. This effect has not really been felt yet in the MMO space; even the games that have shipped that used a middleware layer did so before the middleware was really mature. Star Wars: The Old Republic, for example, uses a version of the Hero Engine that is several iterations removed from the software made available today to new games.

In the past, a substantial part of the time and cost of making an MMO was just making the tools and the support system. Building a billing system, for example, isn’t sexy, but it has to be done right, and it has to be able to perform under tremendous load. Getting it right is critical. Luckily, most of the problems in that domain have been solved, and have been reduced to off-the-shelf solutions. Today, we have the luxury of comparing many solutions that are being used in real-world environments and we can compare features and costs without having worry if they fundamentally will work at all.

The same goes for the server-side technology like databases, account management, logging, customer service, and networks. These were areas of tremendous challenge for MMOs – many games that might otherwise have been successful foundered on the sheer technical challenge of these aspects of live game operation. But again, the problems are well understood, and the solutions available are now battle-tested so that our confidence in them is quite high.

And of course the client-side tools are just amazing. This is an area where the MMO middleware has benefited from parallel evolution with other kinds of game. Advances in rendering engines for graphics, sound engines for music and effects, UI tools and a wealth of other aspects of client-side software have been improving rapidly and those advancements are making their way into the kinds of middleware that we’ll be using for the game. Not having to spend time and money developing those systems is a huge advantage.

The second big change is making a sandbox rather than a theme park game. With a theme park, you have to deliver a nearly feature-complete product on day one. The speed that some players will consume that content is breathtaking. It is possible, for example, to hit the level cap in most theme park MMOs released in the past couple of years in less than a month.

That means that before you can ship, you have to have completed development and test on thousands of hours of content, hundreds of locations, dozens of game systems, and the individual material needed for many different race/class combinations.

It creates what I call the “development mortgage.” The more content you want in the theme park, the bigger the mortgage becomes. That creates a tough feedback loop, because in order to recoup the development mortgage, you have to attract more and more paying customers. The more customers you need, the larger the theme park must be to satisfy them. At some point it just becomes impossible to justify the budget on the basis of a realistic projection of revenue. That’s why a lot of MMOs never see the light of day.

Sandboxes are totally different. If we do our game design job right, the players will have an unlimited source of new material to challenge them: each other. Instead of having to design, test, and deliver a series of self-contained theme park experiences that players experience in sequence, we have the ability to focus on a “system” level approach, and each system that we deliver expands the way the players can interact exponentially. A much, much smaller number of systems can thus generate a vastly larger potential series of experiences for players.

The team needed to develop sandbox features is much smaller than that needed to develop every part of a theme park game. We can keep our overhead reasonably small, in comparison to the number of players we’re supporting, and that strips a lot of the cost out of the equation.

And last, but certainly not least, is that we’re going to move fast. We just don’t think it’s right to let an MMO incubate for many years of development. We’ve got the opportunity to hire people who have already worked on several MMO (or other large-scale open-world style) projects. They bring with them lessons learned and techniques mastered that we don’t have to spend time re-inventing. We can focus, from day one, on the critical path that leads to releasing our game, cutting out the detours that derailed a lot of previous MMO efforts.

The quicker we get the game into the hands of the players, the smaller the budget we need to raise to fund the project.

Adams: What target date are you talking for release of the MMO?

Dancey: It’s too soon to announce a specific date, but it will be much, much sooner than most traditional MMO development schedules.

Photo by Alan Light; used under Creative Commons license.

It’s been 22 years since the world lost Jim Henson, and I still can’t think about it without tearing up a bit. His death at age 53 was sudden and catastrophic, like being hit by lightning on a cloudless day. Along with countless others around the world who had never met him, I felt like a close friend was gone.

Five of my fellow GeekDads and I put together this article two years ago as a tribute to his memory on the 20th anniversary of his death. On the following pages are our thoughts on that anniversary of his passing, and at the end are videos from his memorial service in 1990, which are some of the saddest and most wonderful things you are ever likely to see. Please take a few minutes to read and watch, and then add your own tribute in the comments.

Photo by Jonathan Liu

This is my now-six-year-old, back when she was about 2 1/2, at the Children’s Museum in Portland, Oregon. They were having a Sesame Street exhibit, and in one of the stations, kids could dress as a furry Muppet. There was also a bit with a blue screen behind a brick half-wall, so you could appear on the TV with various Muppets, just like other little kids from the show. My daughter at this point hadn’t watched much TV before, but she loved being on TV and it didn’t seem to bother her at all that there wasn’t an actual Muppet next to her.

I remember growing up with two Sesame Street books in particular: The Monster at the End of This Book (starring Grover) and Cookie Monster and the Cookie Tree. I managed to find copies of both books when my daughter was little, and I loved reading it to her and doing the voices. (I can manage a pretty good Grover and Cookie Monster, sometimes Ernie, and I get by on the rest.) More recently, when I was helping with an after-school program and trying to read books to second- and third-graders, I discovered one day that the only thing that got them to sit still and listen was when I read a book as Grover. They were immediately hooked.

— Jonathan Liu