This article was originally posted in our Staff Blogs section.

Two, maybe three E3s ago I wrote an article on a then upcoming title called Stargate SG-1: The Alliance. The game was cancelled shortly thereafter yet even now, years later, it remains our third most popular article. I opened it with the following words:

Sometimes it seems as if it's the flip of a coin as to whether a title based upon a film/TV show will succeed (more often than not, it's actually quality of the game), but science fiction as a whole has generally survived the translation. Perhaps it's the fantastical storylines, the often beautiful backdrops or, it could be that only those that are truly successful get made into games.

For political/budgetary reasons what appeared to be a promising action title wasn’t made. Yet, the continued popularity of the article would seem to indicate that Stargate holds a certain fascination with gamers – or at least with the readers of this site.

Stargate Worlds (SGW) has been in pre-production for two years and recently entered the production phase. As I write this, the first “playables” should have been delivered. A few miles down the road from my apartment the developers at Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment (CME) are stepping through the Gate into what is to be the first translation of a television show into a massively multiplayer game.

Because I live so close to CME, I’ve been privy to the knowledge there was going to be a Stargate MMO long before it was announced to the public. I am, well…I revel in all things Stargate to the point of being a complete nerd. That being said, as much as I look forward to my favorite television universe entering the online realm, I’m wary. I know how difficult it is to translate a movie/book/TV to game and vice versa.

Originally, this article was to be a preview of Stargate Worlds after the Game Developer's Conference. I was holding off because I wanted to place it along with a review of Sony’s Stargate Online: The Trading Card Game and Skyzone Mobile’s title, Stargate SG-1: Entropy. I thought they’d make a nice trilogy for the day. After returning home, pouring over my notes, following up with Cheyenne, playing the other games I realized – I can’t actually preview something I haven’t seen! Ok, that’s a new rule here at GamersInfo.

But, there was also this niggling voice in the back of my head. You see, I’m not “there” yet on the design of the game. I want to be. This is Stargate! And as a gamer and a member of the industry the last thing I want is to see an MMO not meet expectations – every one that doesn’t quite make it hurts the industry as a whole. I grappled with this for a while. A long while.

First, I thought it might be the fanboi issue. But, I do more than write for this site and I’m pretty good about keeping those two parts of me separate. So, I chewed on it; I talked to people who know me and asked if they thought it could be me; I talked to people who know design and (without mentioning the title) asked about the elements that concerned me. Then I chewed some more. What to say?

Let me first acknowledge that my knowledge of the game design is limited to what I’ve been told and what I can read/fact check with other writers. I have asked for more information, but due to time constraints, PR control or something I’m unaware of, none has been forthcoming. I would also like to acknowledge that no one has attempted to create an MMO based upon a television show, much less one with a 13- year history (SG-1 and Atlantis) before. This is an awful lot of “canon” to work with and with 2-3 million viewers per episode (US viewers only!) it has more experts than even Turbine had to contend with when developing Dungeons & Dragons Online. [1] At least Turbine had a rule set!

For the sake of brevity, I’m not going to go into detail about the Stargate Universe in this article. Wikipedia has a fantastic summary of the universe, the characters, the shows, the fans, the movie, the culture and on and on. However, where appropriate, I’ll be sure to explain specific show/game dynamics and how they apply to what I’m prattling on about.

Part of what makes Stargate appealing to the masses is the idea of exploration. In many ways, it’s Star Trek: The Original Series wrapped in a modern skin. In Star Trek, you had futuristic explorers who the viewer could identify with meeting alien cultures on a weekly basis. With Stargate SG-1, we have us, today, walking out into the unknown as explorers meeting “alien” cultures on a weekly basis. The humanizing part of the show comes from the setting: today; the characters: true chemistry among friends; humor; and the alien races: most are transplanted humans.

Of the four elements above the first and last translate very well into a game. Any game set in modern times is easy to design; you simply look out your window. Also, being set today makes it possible to add humor. Humor is difficult in a game but humor in a fictitious time period or setting is doubly so.

Having primarily human races is great for initial design but can get boring after a while. It will be a saving grace in early production but where Cheyenne has a chance to truly expand the universe is with the development of non-human characters. There’s no better setting than a game to have cool or creepy aliens. When I spoke to Joe Ybarra at the Game Developer’s Conference, he assured me that along with those first playables was their first non-human race. Yes!

Stargate carries with it a quality found in most exceptional long-running media, be it books, TV or film – continuity. The shows are fantastic at revisiting storylines, characters and locations from previous episodes. But, let’s face it; you can only look back so many times before you lose the interest of your fans. And, well, a little unknown is part of life.

SGW has been given license to work with some of the unknown/unfinished storylines of the series. This may mean little to the non-fan but to the regular watcher, it’s gold. Sitting on the wall in the room where we spoke was a poster of a Tollan city under siege. Fans will remember a single broadcast from the Tollan as they were escaping a devastating attack from the Goa’uld and nothing more. Joe specifically stated they would revisit this storyline.

When I first wrote the above, I thought to myself “Hey, that sounds pretty good, why do I still hear this niggling voice?” Well, everything above is story. Story is fantastic when you’re making a television show. But, this is about a game. I’m giddy about the story elements, but every time I get down to the game play I hear that voice…

You don’t have to have played an MMO to understand avatar attachment, just a game with a character in third person perspective. Many people, women in particular, tend to identify with their avatar. People spend time collecting, building, developing, being that character and letting go can feel like a traumatic experience – particularly if it’s your first community.

A trend I’m not particularly fond of in MMOs is this idea of “end game” or maximum level. These are persistent worlds after all! The world should change so that the where the character is in its development isn’t critical; there’s always something more to do. But, we are human and humans by nature are competitive and therefore we race to this artificial measuring stick called “max level”. Because of this, sometimes, we miss part of the game. So be it; it’s the price we pay.

However, avatar attachment really is critical to reducing churn – the term used to describe the process of a player subscribing and then quickly cancelling. The more attached a player is to their avatar, the longer they’ll play – or at least pay. This is critical to the health of an MMO on a subscription system. The granddaddy of US MMOs, World of Warcraft, takes about 600 hours to meet that “level cap” for your character. This is enough time to become “attached”. And if you’re not, they’ve got other ways to keep you in game.

The X of Stargate Worlds

The current plans with Stargate Worlds are for players to reach level cap in 200 hours. For the hardcore player this will be two weeks; the casual player will reach it in 2-3 months. It’s hard to make a case for attachment in this period of time.

But, there’s another problem here – the system is designed using archetypes with alignment. So, to use an example, you have the Jaffa. You can be a good Jaffa fighting the Goa’uld or a bad Jaffa in service to the Goa’uld. Based upon which you choose, you’ll follow the class and skill structure accordingly. Ok, all is good there.

But you’ll also only see the content available for that archetype and alignment.

So, now you’ve spent 200 hours playing a character, reached max level and you’ve missed (there are 6 possible alignments) 5 story arcs. And we haven’t hit the classes within the archetypes.

You’ll also not see the story arcs within those classes.

How do you do this? You re-roll. And this is designed intentionally. I understand why this could be a good thing. There’s nothing more frustrating then re-rolling after many hundreds of hours only to experience the same content again.

But, if I don’t have any emotional investment in the characters I’m creating – and I’m going to have to create multiples in order to even experience the content – why is it I’m doing this? Why do I want to continually go through the same story arcs again and again even if they are from a different point of view? And if I’m not, if each and every alignment and class has completely separate story arcs, the resources that would need to be allocated to create this are unreasonable enough as to make this direction unlikely.

There’s also the converse. What if I’m a player who doesn’t rush to level cap, but I will reach the top. There are a lot of players like me – we become attached to our characters. It’s this situation that has forced games like World of Warcraft, Everquest, Asheron’s Call and others to cater to the high-level players (welcome to the reason for the 40-man raid!). Resources simply cannot be devoted to low and mid-level content. Those at the high end would leave the game and they’re what monetize the game. This negates the entire design of “re-roll to see other content”. A very common complaint of multiple MMOs is the lack of new mid-level content. When your design specifically intends for your players to rush to the top they’re going to want a lot to do. Expecting them to re-roll multiple times seems risky.

Key to the universe of Stargate is squad-based missions. Whether it be SG-1 or Atlantis, the most common group is no larger than 5 and often splits into smaller segments when completing various portions of the missions. To this, the design remains true – at least from the point of view of Stargate Command. I did not speak with Joe regarding what would be the “norm” of a player who is a Goa’uld or a Jaffa in service.

Entry through Stargates to new worlds, small squad-based missions – I’d think this would be ripe for really intelligent use of instanced areas. But I’m honestly perplexed and concerned that my notes say “few instances”. I thought I had them wrong. But, when fact checking I found both on RPGVault and in documents provided to the press when I was at GDC, the following, “Instancing will only be used when necessary for truly epic missions.” I fully accept they may have other dynamics in play, but this is where the franchise dictates design. There are very few epic missions in Stargate.

Without further explanation this statement concerns me. If I receive a mission for my squad and it’s not instanced because it’s simply a small mission, what is to keep another (or 3 or 4) squad from hitting the same mission? Will they building an infinite number of missions designed for an infinite variation of squads? (In this scenario, a squad can be a unit of one).

While I fully support and encourage new design, the MMO Anarchy Online did this right very long ago. You went up to a terminal (in this case General Hammond or Anubis or whoever), receive your mission, enter the Stargate and your instance - safe from grief - mission ready.

My final concerns have to do more with the tenor of the story design than game systems. Any title, MMO or otherwise, needs its fans to evangelize it to the masses. If you’ve never watched the series you won’t understand what I say when I mention that there will be no “Janet Frasier” class. (She’s the medical doctor). It’s OK, this isn’t key to the system design. But, Janet is integral to the universe and not having her mentioned throughout the game would be odd…fans would notice. The fans are necessary.

Part drama, neither Stargate SG-1 nor Atlantis deal in the world of black and white. Villains do good things; the heroes make bad decisions and sometimes, they do bad acts. This creates depth. By creating the dichotomous bad/good alignments for the archetypes they’ve left no room for middle ground. By forcing the story into these alignments there’s no room for the player to choose who the character is – unless the player chooses not to participate in the story. Sure, they can still complete the quests for the rewards (the next skill or weapon, for example) – but that’s a lot of empty game play.

The archetype system in and of itself seems strange to me. In the series, no single character is any “one” thing. And the archetype game design mixes races with classes. It leaves little room for choice. I questioned this. I was told they were going for the “typical” of each definition. I questioned this stating, for example, there are at least four Goa’uld scientists that I can think of off the top of my head – Nirrti, Ba’al, Thoth, and Nerus. Yet Scientist and Goa’uld are archetypes unto themselves. Nonetheless, because this won’t fit in with an archetypal system it is to be set aside.

Part of me wonders if it’s the Stargate fan in me that sees this as a concern. Then there’s the part that says, “This doesn’t leave much room for choice in character development or design”. Then I look at both statements and think – if I don’t like this idea as a fan, it’s just as big an issue even if my gamer instincts are wrong.

And there’s an inordinate amount of focus on PvP. SG-1 always introduced themselves to new cultures as peaceful explorers hoping to create alliances with new races. O’Neill repeatedly attempted to wound or stun enemies, not kill them. This is the US Airforce; philosophically, going out and killing for the sake of killing just doesn’t “fit”. Although capable, and all too often they find themselves in need of deadly force, it isn’t what they stand for. I’m all for game concessions, I really am. But the idea of reaching level 20 quickly so you can spend time in PvP - that’s not Stargate. Consensual or not, it’s a huge departure from a core ideal.

I’m simply confused by these seemingly pendulous changes in the essence of the definition of Stargate. And I find no explanation, though I do hope to. I’ll continue to contact the developers; I’ll continue to read the boards and announcements and other sites. Hopefully, this editorial will be seen and someone down the road will want to go to lunch and explain to me – then I can explain to you!

As much as I want to see my favorite sci-fi universe made into a great game, I’d really like to see a great game made, period. The setting is irrelevant. I want to have fun. And if I get to step through the gate along the way…things would be golden. Indeed.

[1] 20 million player estimation

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