MTV Multiplayer » one liner

One-liner: Why Wolverine Wears Indestructible Pants

Tracey John — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:00:50 +0000

"As far as the pants go, if you notice his shirt totally gets all ripped up. Well, we used to have it where it was just this [crotch area] -- we call it a 'no-zone' [area that doesn't get torn away]. But then seriously, within five minutes, Wolverine's just walking around in daisy dukes and it just looked weird. So we're like, you know what dude, let's just move the no-zone down to here [the calf area] and within five minutes, it looked like he had on clam diggers or capri pants. So we made it so that the pants actually don't get ripped away because it looked too strange. We actually went through a ton of iterations of that. It was pretty funny."

-- Raven Software producer Jeff Poffenbarger at a GDC demo explaining to me why Wolverine's jeans in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" never get badly torn away like his shirt

One-liner: Why There's No Cover Mechanic in 'Ghostbusters'

Tracey John — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:00:11 +0000

"We discussed this with the developer [Terminal Reality]. We all thought, 'When you have ghosts would it really make sense to have cover mechanics?' Because ghosts can go through solid objects! [laughs] So it would really kind of break the fiction that the Ghostbusters world sets up. If you went with a cover mechanic, it would make it much too similar to a real type of shooter out there. So we added the other things that would make sense. Like running really fast, having a sprint that's really accessible because they're going all over the place, and dodge mechanics because [enemies] have a lot of ranged attacks."

-- Atari senior producer Garrett Moehring during a recent demo on how the Xbox 360/PS3/PC version of "Ghostbusters" is different than other third-person shooters.

One-liner: Why Your Computer Can Handle the New 'Crysis' Engine Comic Book FPS

Tracey John — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:00:11 +0000

"The comic book world does not demand the realistic graphics that 'Crysis' does, so our game looks fantastic even when run in low spec. You don't lose much realism in a game that is not realistic to begin with. Another advantage that 'M.O.B.' has is that 'Crysis' was released a year and-a-half ago, so many gamers have upgraded to a more modern setup to run the latest games -- which become more and more taxing on the computer every year. We have done what we can to alleviate the burden on most computers, but if you haven't upgraded since Bush Sr. was prez, you're gonna have some problems."

-- "Merchants of Brooklyn" lead designer John Stookey on why his FPS running on CryEngine 2 will work on our PCs, from a recent interview with MTV Multiplayer.

One-Liner: Talking MMOs With Grandma

Tracey John — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:00:36 +0000

"Most of the [games] I play are older role-playing games with my favorites being the old 'Ultima' series (not the online version) and the 'Final Fantasy' series. As for online games, I've tried PoGo for a while, and 'Requiem Online,' but it isn't to my liking. ... My main character in ['Atlantica Online'] at this time is a level 99 Swordsman and is currently using Conqueror equipment, with a few mercenaries in my party being level 97+ using the same. However, I have one mercenary of each class (that I'm currently able to have) that I can use depending on the situation I'm in. I also have two other characters that I use as Mule/Test Characters, they are a Staff main and a Bow main, both lower than level 30. I use them mostly for storing items."

-- Mary Martinez, a 73-year-old grandmother who plays free-to-play MMORPG "Atlantica Online" with her grandson, answering my questions about her playing habits via e-mail.

One-Liner: 'Jumpgate Evolution' Doesn't Need A Million Subscribers

Tracey John — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:30:43 +0000

"I'm sure there's some overlap, but I really feel like what we're doing here is pretty different. This is a space shooter; there just happens to be thousands of players at the same time. Now those other [space MMOs] might all be very similar, and they might be more competition for themselves. ... But the reality is, we don't know what's going to happen. There are no space games anymore -- why is that? Maybe it's because nobody plays space games anymore, but we don't care. [laughs] We just made a game that we really want to play. We built this so that no matter how big it is, it doesn't have to be a million-user game for it to be successful for us to run it for a long, long time."

-- Scott Brown, president of "Jumpgate Evolution" developer NetDevil, on competing with "Star Trek Online" and other space-themed MMOs during a demo with MTV Multiplayer at New York Comic Con.

One-Liner: What's Japanese About 'Resident Evil'

Stephen Totilo — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:30:22 +0000

When you asked, what's Japanese about the game, I would say: 'All of it.' It comes right back to the first "Resident Evil" … what we were trying to create in that game is the same feeling we get in Japan of watching a Hollywood movie. It was a process of taking something from the West and finding something that reflects our experience.

-"Resident Evil 5" producer Jun Takeuchi in an interview with MTV Multiplayer after I flipped the expected question about Western influences on "RE5."

One-Liner: 'Wanted' Developer Describes His Passion For Beating The Competition

Patrick Klepek — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:00:51 +0000

"I'm really into outperforming. I succeed and I don't succeed in different in areas. I'm not saying I'm God of gaming or anything. I really enjoy trying to beat people at their own game, analyzing everything to s--t, really. That's all I do. I record everything and break everything down. If I play a game that has good weapons, I time everything. I have Excel sheets and movie clips, so that f--g gun? [I ask myself] why is it good? Why is it good? Because if I understand why, then I have that in my toolbox. I create my own toolbox, so when I make games, I can use that toolbox."

-- "Wanted" game director and GRIN co-founder Ulf Andersson responds to a question about what aspects of video games he'd like to improve.

One-Liner: Xbox 360 Dev Argues Downloadable Games Are 'Under-Priced'

Patrick Klepek — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:00:35 +0000

"I want to go on the record and say I feel like most downloadable games are under-priced. As a collector, I can relate to people who enjoy buying a game and having the game box, and manual. However, paying only 800 points (only ten US dollars) for a game as nice as 'Bionic Commando: Rearmed' or 1200 points ($15US) for a game as big as 'Castle Crashers' seems ridiculous to me."

-- "Weapon of Choice" Xbox 360 Community Game creator Nathan Fouts responding to how gamers view paying for downloadable games while he decided how to price of his own.

One-Liner: Blizzard Is Okay With Being Late To Console MMOs

Tracey John — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:00:43 +0000

"Right now our focus has been on the PC and Macintosh but in the future, if we develop a game that we think would work well for consoles, we're totally open to that. But no, I don't think we need to be first to do [console MMOs]. We don't really look at it like, 'If you're not first, you're behind.' We've had console development experience in the past. Activision has a ton of experience in bringing console products to market. And we know all the Microsoft guys anyway from the PC side. So I think we're in a fine position to be able to develop console games whenever we choose to."

– Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime's response when I asked if the company was falling behind by not having announced a console MMO like every other major MMO developer

One-Liner: What A Sith Lord Won't Do In New 'Star Wars' MMO

Patrick Klepek — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:00:04 +0000

"[After being hired] there [are] over three months after the multiple tests [you take] that you spend before you ever get to touch the game, just training to be a BioWare writer. And if you're writing a class, which is the most sort of sacred thing to be doing, you get stuff written all over your stuff constantly that says…you pitch a plot to me, and you're writing [a] Sith [quest] and I write on the board 'And then Darth Vader…helps a farmer…to save his tractor.' And then I point at it and then we mock you and then that doesn't go in our game."

-- "Star Wars: The Old Republic" lead writer Daniel Erickson on how he wants to avoid the mundane quests players normally find themselves involved in with today's MMOs; if it isn't epic or heroic, he doesn't want it.