Hi-Rez’s CEO Interviewed

Today (7th of January – 2010!), KingSlade of Mongbat was fortunate enough to get a quick interview with Erez Goren, Global Agenda Chief Designer and Hi-Rez Studios CEO.
What that means, is there is NO ONE higher on the totem pole for the development of GA than this gentleman.
This interview will be part of an ongoing Game Development section here at Mongbat where we talk to the makers of our favorite games out there, and ask some questions you usually won’t see in a magazine.

1. We’ll start with a serious one. What are your favorite couple games ever, and why? (there are few more important questions to a gaming community)
My gaming now spans over 30 years, yes I’m an old gamer 
Favorite Old games: Robotron, M.U.L.E, Populous, Age of Empires, Street Fighter
Favorite MMOs: City of Heroes, World of Warcraft
Favorite Shooters: Battlefield, Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty MW2

2. Was there a specific game(s) that inspired you to want to actually develop games?
After I started playing City of Heroes I became very interested in developing a game (again, since I made some games while in college).  I enjoy playing with a good community and enjoy the character progression, but I also had a couple of major  issues: 1.  There was nothing significant for my top level characters to do, and 2.  tab targeting felt very artificial.

3. If there were no GA, and you had the choice of two projects- would you rather have helped design the best Multi-Player FPS of all time, or the best MMORPG of all time?
That’s a hard question because to me the best Multi-Player FPS of all time would have MMO features and the best MMORPG would have multi-player FPS features

4. From a development standpoint, were there any aspects of the making of GA that surprised you guys? Any unforeseen roadblocks, etc?
All software products tend to take 2x the amount of time you want/expect them to take.   There are many small roadblocks and limitations that you need to work around but no one single major issue.

5. Within your studio, if Random Joe the background artist has a great idea for a gameplay function, are the boss’ open to that, or do people generally stick in their own cubicles because they know the decisions have already been made?
Many people have ideas and some get incorporated into the game, the general problem is usually having too many ideas and finding the few that do make sense for us to implement.

6. Speaking to that, and the question before it- how different is GA now from how it was originally thought of/conceptualized? How exciting is that evolution of a game for the people working on it?
The core game is about what we expected (in fact if you look at the early design thoughts it’s fairly close), the implementation of those concept went through hundreds of iterations and those do tend to take a toll on people.

7. Other than devilish charm and Disney prince good looks, what are some key qualities for a person who wants to make games for a living? Is it all in the imagination? Discipline? Father’s bank account?
Making a games for a living is not much different then most other ’software’ type jobs.   Having good work habits is the most important quality since you can get experience in a fairly short amount of time.

8. Let’s talk to the YOU of January 2008. What advice do you tell yourself about what’s coming up at Hi-Rez? (and I’m not talking about the twinkies Travis laced with laxative…oh that Travis)
…If the question is what we would do differently, then the general answer would be dozens of small things that we learned over time about everything from performance considerations to art pipeline.

Now more GA focused:

9. Is there anything that you can speak to, that you personally wanted to fit into the game but just couldn’t get to work, or didn’t have the time/resources for?
There are dozen of small things I would like to add, but all the key elements are in the game.  Given the MMO nature we should be able to add those over time.
Some examples would be more PvE content with different fights, more achievements and stat tracking, a more polished UI system.

10. MMORPGs work. FPSs work. Why did you guys feel the need to make a whole new genre? Was it marketing, or is it something you think gamers actually crave?
It’s something that I personally craved and had the resources to make happen.

11. Now that closed beta is finished, are you pleased with how you structured it? Did it all go how you hoped?
The closed beta was generally what we expected.

Here’s one from a member of our community-

Bird asks:

12. What is Hi-Rez doing to ensure a healthy life for their game releases (IE what measures are being taken to not end up like AoC, WAR, ETC)
We try to under promise and over deliver, we expect a fairly clean game release, we believe we have a good on-going game format (end-game) that will keep players interested.

13. If someone doesn’t belong to an agency… they smell funny or something- can they still experience all the game has to offer? Will they feel penalized for being a loner?
It’s possible to play all parts of the game without belonging to an Agency.  For AvA specifically, you would most likely not get the full ‘feel’ of it unless you were in some kind of group (even a small group with just a few friends)

14. I doubt it, but any last minute super secret announcements that you want to put out before the game launches?
We don’t keep too many secrets around here 

That’s all I got good sir. Thanks for your time.

What I leaned coming out of this, is Erez is making a game for the absolute best reason.  He saw what other games were missing, and wanted to make something that would fit to what he’d enjoy playing as a gamer.

…    there could be no nobler cause.

–Slade