Fury Interview
Developer Auran has decided to jump
into the MMO genre with a game that blends fast-paced action with RPG
elements and chucks the mix into a pure-PVP environment. Welcome to
Fury.
Auran founder and CEO Tony Hillman describes Fury as the ultimate player versus player experience.
"We have set out to become the number one PvP game where people come to
test their skills as an RPG player", he's whispered in our ear.
And he's got plenty more to say on the game and indeed the MMO genre in
general, as we found out when we caught up with him for a chat.
Read on to find out what he has to say, and be sure to eye-up an
exclusive Fury trailer which is viewable via our video player...
Expectations the gaming marketplace now has for MMO games are extremely high. How are you meeting that challenge with Fury?
Tony Hillman:
WoW has certainly raised the bar when it comes to traditional MMOs. We
looked at their budget and success and decided we didn't want to
compete head on, so we said "What can we be best at?" That is when we
decided to focus on being the number one PvP game in the market.
So would you describe Fury as an MMO evolution or revolution? Why?
Hillman:
Our goal is to start a PvP revolution. However, I think Fury is simply
an evolutionary step. We have made Player versus Player combat the
central focus of our game. We have eliminated all the boring bits and
put all the rewards and loot into a PvP context, and surrounded that
with a backstory that motivates players to fight.
In Fury,
competition is key. In our focus on competition, we've taken lessons
learned from FPS games and brought them into an RPG style combat
system. It's similar but different, therefore I think ultimately we are
evolutionary.
The MMO space is becoming increasingly crowded.
Do you think it's expanding too rapidly and that many of the ventures
are doomed to failure? How are you avoiding this with Fury?
Hillman:
I hear this a lot and I don't get it. In the West, there are 2,000
games released a year and 10 of them are MMOs. How does that make the
space crowded? Of course making MMOs is harder and more expensive than
other genres, so there are certainly many failures along the way -
probably more so than other game projects.
Once again the key
is focus. If you create a WoW clone in a different world setting, you
have to ask yourself "Why will people give up their character? Why will
they give up their 1,000+ hour investment just to start again when they
play your game".
Fury is different. We're not
a full subscription game, and we expect that many people will play Fury
as "their other game". This is much like gamers do with an FPS they
play only at lunchtime or after work.
What would you say is the magic nut that's yet to be cracked by developers in the MMO genre, and why pick that?
Hillman:
The magic nut is a mass market "game" that appeals to a broad range of
people. The Sims achieved the magic nut offline and someone will crack
the nut online. I'm pretty sure it won't be very "game" based (The Sims
is more of a sandbox) and I think it will involve music, chat, cool
clothes and all that type of stuff - certainly no goblins.
There's
an opinion amongst certain MMORPG developers that what I'll call the
current generation MMORPG feature set - as seen in World of Warcraft,
etc - has reached its peak and that it's now time to move on and
innovate in the genre. Would you agree or disagree with that - what's
you're own opinion?
Hillman: I 100 percent agree - Fury is the future!
Seriously though, WoW will be around for many, many years to come and
so will the traditional MMORPG genre. What we will see more of, is new
MMO genres such as MMOFPS/MMORTS/MMO .
Online play is a way of life and RPG only won't sustain the demand or expand the online genre.
What does innovation in the MMO genre mean to you? In what ways would you like to see MMO games change?
Hillman: Another easy one to answer - innovation = Fury.
I was recently on a panel at the Austin Game Conference discussing
innovation. The consensus was that it's risky to stray too far from
what is tried and true. There was also a feeling that done right,
innovation was the path to a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
To me, innovation is about taking the broken bits of current games and
trying to fix them. With Fury, we said that there is too much downtime
in many MMOs today, so what would happen if we got rid of all the
travel and FedEx questing and replaced it with fast, fun combat.
Whether that step is too innovative for some, time will tell.
|
