From GemStone to HeroEngine: Simutronics CEO David Whatley on Putting the MUD back into MMOs

The MMO Gamer: So, you mentioned storytelling in that last answer, and to drag you off topic a bit here, that’s a subject very near and dear to my heart, being a writer.

Storytelling, from my vantage point, is something sorely lacking in MMOs these days. What does HeroEngine bring to the writer and designer to allow them to tell a story within an MMO framework?

David Whatley: Well, we’ve worked really hard in our Hero’s Journey design to create a method for developing unique storylines that are personalized to your character. One of the ways we do that is first we have quests that feature elaborate branching story lines, so there are always decisions to be made.

Do I go left? Do I go right? Do I give the item, do I not give the item? That kind of thing, rather than just following what you’re told to do. And whether you do something, or don’t something, or one of three or five different choices, they’re all valid. Or as I like to say, failure is an option.

It’s okay to fail a quest because that just leads down a different road. Now, the problem with that is that that creates a need to develop way more content than if you just have a linear quest line. Or two or three linear quest lines. Because every branch means that you now need to develop that branch.

To get around that we built a way of branching quests that tie back into themselves. And HeroEngine gave us the tools to be able to do this sort of thing. On top of that, we layered a special system which we call “quest tokens” it’s kind of an inventory system but you never see these items.

They are things that are recorded on your character that have influence later quests. One good example of that is the “nemesis quest token.” What happens is in some point of your life you’re going to come across a boss creature, and you’ll start fighting it, and there will be some randomness about it but it will decide that guy is your nemesis.

From this point on, you’re gonna be seeing him over and over again. And what’ll happen is later on there’ll be a quest that says “Insert Nemesis Here, if he has Nemesis Token” and what’ll happen is he’ll show up in that quest, and every time he’s more powerful than he was the last time, and he’ll be calling you out and stuff like that, and he’ll always make this grand escape right before you kill him.

Then, somewhere near the end of the end game you’ll get an opportunity to take him down or not in the final confrontation. That’s just one example of the things we do with the quest tokens.

It also does Fable-like stuff where you know, it’s keeping track of characters’ predispositions towards you and can cause quests to branch one way or the other.

I think there’s a fair amount of innovation in this system but really its the gestalt that matters, the gestalt of all these things that makes it interesting.

The HeroEngine is really great at allowing for this kind of innovation because as a tool set it allows you to develop specialized tool for your game and your game only, and what we did with Hero’s Journey is we created a very elaborate quest system that lets designers go in and specify stuff at this level of detail, all parametrically with dialog and drop down boxes and never have to get their hands into scripting, because it can all be done with very elaborate specifications.

The MMO Gamer: Right.

David Whatley: And then only when something comes up that no one thought of that needs to be done, does a scripter have to get involved and add a new node to the system with its own parameters and that sort of thing.

The MMO Gamer: With my luck my nemesis will probably end up being a fluffy white bunny rabbit or something.

David Whatley: We were going to have a giant rat be the most powerful creature in the game.

The MMO Gamer: So that would be a ROUS then, wouldn’t it? [laughing] Sorry, bad Princess Bride reference.

I don’t know if you’re allowed to get into any detail of other games using the HeroEngine but maybe we can talk generalities.

That all sounds very well and good, what you just discussed about the storytelling abilities, but it only really matters if people are actually using it.

I mean, are people looking at this and saying “Yeah, it’s nice, but I think we’re just going to stick with the old reliable box that pops up when you click on an NPC that tells you to go fifteen rats”?

David Whatley: Well, I don’t really know to what degree other people are doing this. And you know I have my own selfish desire that nobody else does it, right?

But I know every time we demonstrate HeroEngine, a fair number of times when we show the quest system they go “I also want that!” even though that’s a Hero’s Journey specific thing and not part of HeroEngine, that’s not what they buy.

I know that some of our licensees have duplicated some aspects of it when they are designing their own system. In fact, we allow licensees to use Hero’s Journey as a reference implementation.

So whenever, if they want to know how to do a quest system, or an inventory system, they can log into the Hero’s Journey instance and look at how we’re doing stuff as reference. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these things start to slip into those games.

The MMO Gamer: So we might start seeing Hero’s Journey clones, as opposed to EverQuest clones?

David Whatley: It may be. I know that you know the Star Wars game has really strong design from what I’ve seen, and will really stand out in the marketplace.

The MMO Gamer: I like to close out my interviews on a more philosophical note, as opposed to “What is your game, when is it coming out, and how many exclusives are you going to give me?”

So, why do you make games? Why did you get in the industry, why do you get up in the morning, go to work every day, and do what it is you do?

David Whatley: I was a late child, my brother is 22 years older than me. And my brother was a big fan of the Avalon Hill games, remember those? Hexes, Squad Leader, war games with rulebooks that had 2,500 pages.

Even though he had moved out of the house before I was born, whenever I’d visit him he’d want me to play one of these games with him, even though I was 22 years younger than him. So that meant he would mop the floor with me, right?

I was constantly being decimated as a child every time I played the game with him. We used to play a game called Starfleet Battles, and he used to call my ship the “USS Swiss Cheese” because he blew so many holes in it.

Somewhere along the line, I decided the only way I could possibly win was if I designed the rules myself. And I started, for real, making my own games, and designing those rules so that I could make him play with me, and it worked.

Then I got really interested in game design, and when I was knee high to a keyboard, we’re talking TRS-80 days, I started writing computer games for the Commodore 64, the Amiga, and then I was introduced to online stuff and that just changed everything, everything had to be online from that point forward.

Now I’m doing, personally I’m doing online games in my spare time. I’m writing iPhone games, I did Geo Defense which is shooting up the charts now. Had to put a plug in there for that. So I just love doing games.

The MMO Gamer: Available now from the iPhone store.

David Whatley: Absolutely. On sale.

The MMO Gamer: Alright, well thank you very much for joining us, we appreciate it, and we hope we can do it again sometime.

David Whatley: Thank you.

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