And here we are at part three of the interview. This one is shorter than the other two, but I really felt like things were getting a bit long and I needed to cut the end off somewhere.

In this shorter piece we finish Mr. Barnett’s thought about GDC, look at Warhammer’s future from a big picture perspective, talk class balancing, and then break the fourth wall of the interview process.

As he requests, I’ve got a few words on what he had to say in the interview at the end of the piece, and I hope you’ll keep reading after the funny guy with the English accent stops talking. To give you added incentive to read to the end, the link to the audio of our conversation is at the very bottom of the post.

Happy reading!

[The conversation here picks up just after - "And! Mom will be impressed." in yesterday's portion of the interview.

Paul Barnett: That's where we need to go. Not GDC - Though, I don't actually mean GDC itself, I mean the concept of going to a computer games conference.

MMOG Nation: Right.

Paul: Sorry -

MG: No, no - that very, very answered my question.

Paul: So, try not to make it sound like what I actually said was, "GDC is horrible, go to a different conference." I say don't go to any of them - carry on.

MG: Okay. It's the middle of next year, Warhammer is launched, what's the next step?

Paul: For who?

MG: For you guys.

Paul: Oh, the big picture. Firstly we need a successful launch, let's hope and pray we get that, right? Let's assume that our servers cope with the massive influx of players that people are logging into it and going, "Actually it's a bloody good laugh, and I'm really enjoying myself!" About six months prior to that, the team will already have started on the first expansion. Mythic's got a huge history of issuing huge expansions, for free. FOR FREE, for god's sake. What on earth were we thinking? It has something to do with customer service, apparently. So we'll be working on the new expansions, we'll be working on making the game even better. The trouble with these games are, when you put a thousand people in it you find all sorts of curiosities. Put ten thousand in and new, weird problems arise. Soon as you put two million in, oh all sorts of craziness rears its ugly head. All of sudden standing on one leg, wielding a fish, while walking backwards, allows you to kill the giant. So we'll be fixing all that crap.

The most important thing is not to nerf people. We go on and on and on about this. I hate the fact that games come out, and people can't live with the fact that a certain class is powerful. I say to hell with it. If you haven't figured it out by the time you go to launch, leave them alone. So what if they're very powerful? Balancing games is a lie!

MG: Oh - okay. Could you expand on "˜balancing games is a lie'?

Paul: Because games will self-balance. A great example, right? Imagine for a moment you have a game, doesn't matter what the game is. Now imagine you have two types of classes. Doesn't matter what they are. Now imagine that you have five thousand people playing both types of classes. Now imagine that one of the classes is too powerful. Well, it's just too powerful. Let's say you figured it out. Let's say you've got logging software, let's say you've done lots of analysis. Now we'll say that the first class, we'll just call them Class A is - I dunno - twenty percent too powerful. We figured it out, we can prove it, our designers can prove it on their crazy abacuses. So some bright spark says, "I know what we can do, we can nerf that class, that's what we need to do." And you nerf them, because you think you're balancing it, right? It achieves several things, that.

[update: There's been some confusion on this point around the internets. Paul provides a clearer picture of what he means on his MySpace site.]

Thing number one: ninety percent of the people playing Class A have no idea that they were unbalanced. They had no idea that they were cheating. They had no idea that they were having an easy run of it. All of a sudden they log in and find that their character’s crap. Their character is crap, and yet they did nothing to justify that. They were just paying you money, and playing the game. But because some la-di-da clever designer went and read the message boards, and found out that four people playing Class A were able to kill the dragon “Sparklers” while walking backwards waving fish, these people suddenly have their characters crippled. Right? So that’s one of the problems.

The next problem you get is, all of a sudden the people who were cheating with Class A just move to Class B. And they find a new exploit with Class B. And your balancing people, with their oh-so-pretentious Bibles of Truth, suddenly start saying, “We need to balance Class B!” And Class B gets balanced. And what do you know, you cheese off a load of people who are playing Class B. And you know what they do? They move to Class A again! And on, and on, and on, and on. This relentless need to balance things. There is no such thing as equality across character classes for god’s sake. Who cares if that character class is better? That’s what Beta testing is about, that’s what your designers are supposed to do. Throw fridges at their heads if they can’t figure it out. The only balancing you should do is if there is something that fundamentally breaks the game.

It’s like racing games, right? So what if the red car is faster? So what? Let them drive the faster car! What do you care? What bloody business is it of you? Maybe I want to drive a slower car, maybe I want to drive a truck! Who cares? Leave me alone! Stop trying to dictate my bloody game experience. And stop trying to change my game experience just because two percent of my userbase are motherf#ckers!

MG: [Laughs] Um - all right. Well, you’ve been very kind. I just have one more question for you. You’re really good at the big picture stuff, so I’ll throw that at you: What’s the “˜take home message’ for Warhammer?

Paul: It’s not going to be crap. It’s going to be great. We’ve figured - some of it out. It’s going to be interesting. It’s war! War is everywhere! We’re not rubbish. Emm - what else? - Marketing is looking at me weird. They don’t like the Englishness, right? The problem they have with English is -

Steve Perkins (Mythic PR Guy): You lie, so much.

Paul: When people ask me stuff, I always think from an English perspective. And the English is, “Well at least it won’t blow up. At least it won’t be crap.” Where as the Americans go, “It’s fantastic and will cure cancer, and take you to the moon!” Ultimately we’ve got a plan, we’re on target, it looks like we’re going to have something pretty bloody good when we get there.

MG: Excellent. Well, that’s all I had, sir. Thank you very much for your time.

Paul: Can I ask you a question?

MG: Sure, shoot.

Paul: Okay, right, so - you’ve listened to me twaddle on like this, and I really have no understanding of how this works. So I’m just going to ask the question since we have the marketing people on; Is what happens, right, do you take what I said and like type it up, and then send it to these people and they look at it, or do you effectively just type it up, add your sort of editorial spin, and you just publish it be damned.

MG: Well, actually what I was planning on doing was just typing it up and putting it up as is. I don’t really like to spin things.

Paul: Wow. Can you be nice about my swearing?

MG: [Laughing] Of course!

Paul: It’s only because my Mum likes to read everything that’s out about me?

MG: Gotcha.

Paul: So I’ve got a couple of favours?

MG: Sure!

Paul: Can you put a “Hello” to my Mum and Dad? Paul would like to say hello to his Mum and Dad.

MG: Alright.

Paul: And can you be benign about my swearing?

MG: Of course!

Paul: Stars will do, or something - a bit like Nixon with his tapes, you know? Black lines through it.

[Errr, sorry about this one, Paul. I kind of forgot what you meant with this until I was getting the audio ready for posting on Thursday night. Oops! Like you said, you have to swear so people will pay attention, right?]

Paul: And try not to make me sound too crazy.

MG: No, no. I - actually, I have to tell you, the reason that I’ve been laughing through this entire thing is because, the reason I wanted to talk to you about this sort of thing - these “˜twaddlers on the websites?’ I would be one of them, and so I find your honesty about this sort of stuff extraordinarily refreshing.

Paul: I think I’m probably one of the most despised designers by other designers on the internet. I think they’re all going to read it and they’re going to go, “Sanctimonious son of a bitch! Don’t go to GDC, other designers are rubbish. We should find him, hunt him down, and kill him!” They’re never going to talk to me again!

MG: Well - yeah, but - in the meantime it will make for some great reading!

Paul: Can you do me a favour then, can you either put a piece either at the front or the end with like an opinion of what you think of it?

MG: Sure, of course.

Paul: That’s what I’m interested in. I’m not really interested in what the internet says about me, I’m only really interested in what the people I’ve actually talked to say about me.

MG: Sure, not a problem. Actually, you’ve commented on my blog before, so I’m sure you’ll see it when it goes up.

Paul: Which blog is it?

MG: M-M-O-G Nation? MMOG Nation?

[Paul tries to remember this crappy site he posted on like three or four months ago.]

Paul: Wow, what did I say? Was it any good?

MG: I think you commented on the interview I did with Mark Jacobs. Just did a little clarification.

Paul. Oh right. He’s a very wise and clever man who’s much richer than I am.

MG: Indeed.

Paul: I have a feeling that when this interview is terminated, I’m going to get hit with sticks.

Steve: In many ways Paul is unlike any designer, in many ways he’s like a designer in that he likes to blame everything bad on marketing.

Paul: That’s because it’s true. And only reasonable.

Steve: That is one upholding of the games industry cliché.

Paul: The reason people use cliche’s is because they’re true. Well, it was very nice talking to you!

MG: Indeed. Thank you very much, sir.

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Face the Nation: Paul Barnett - My Thoughts

As I said in my last post, my secret purpose for setting up this interview was to ask Mr. Paul Barnett about things no one else would bother to ask him: specifically, his thoughts on advocacy for the games industry. I’ve found this to be an easy tactic for getting an ‘in’ with designers. Nobody wants to talk about the game they’re working on because of marketing stuff, but everyone is willing to jaw about their own opinions. Game designers are opinionated folks, and it’s wonderful, and I love it.

As should be obvious from the reams and reams of words posted to the site in the last three days, Paul’s enthusiasm could not be contained on any subject we talked about. A few times on the recording, you might be able to hear me quietly snickering, or trying not to laugh. There are two reasons for that. One: He’s a humorous guy. Two: This interview has essentially been the realization of everything I wanted out of this website. I started it as a little piece of the interwebs where I could talk about stuff that I found interesting. As many of the comments on the last two posts have stated, Paul is an inspiring guy. When he talks, the way he phrases things, it’s hard not to get excited about them. Given that he’s selling the WAR concept most of the time, that’s a big plus for Mythic.

Here in this interview, though, you’ll note that we spend the majority of the time not talking about Warhammer at all. I think that may be why he asked how I was planning to ’spin’ this, because we hadn’t really touched on any of the big concepts he usually gets asked about. And that’s exactly what I wanted. When I sat down last week I really just wanted to hear Paul wax philosophic about the industry at large, design, and the process of doing so. I knew he had opinions on these topics given what he’s posted in the video blogs on the Warhammer site, but it’s hard to get excited about a thirty second long video clip, you know?

So that’s the interview overall. As to the content … as an outsider, I certainly find GDC and the like more useful than Paul does, but that’s only understandable. I use them as networking opportunities, and to touch base with fellow journos I’d almost never get to see otherwise. His statements certainly echo other things I’ve heard industry workers say. Many of the design statements he brought up reminded me a lot of what I and other folks in the blogosphere have been jawwing about for the last two years, and so that got a big ‘hell yeah’ inside my head. He certainly says them more cogently than I ever could, which is why he’s got the good job and I’m writing on a blog. He’s also speaking from the position of, you know, real experience. Again: blog wankery vs. good job.

On the whole, his candor makes me wish that more designers and developers had or could find the time in their day to share a bit more of what they do. Again, we don’t need details. There are loads of people who are enamored of the games industry process, and couldn’t care less about what actual gameplay elements you’re putting in. If you’ve never read Prima Publishing’s Raising the Bar, about Half-Life 2, it’s a beautiful example of how I’d like to see some of this come across. A discussion of what decisions led here, and what decisions led there … good stuff.

For me, the takeaway thing Paul said was at the end of the second post:

“Just that bit where you go, ‘For god’s sake lads, and girls, if we want to talk up the industry then we have to learn to be joyous and outward faced.’ Let’s stop talking about C++, let’s stop talking about our new clever way of doing a design, and let’s start talking about the fact that we earn quite a lot of money, that we pay the bills, that we’re interesting people, that we’ve got a career, that you can do it, that we can all do it. And if we all work together, we can have a bloody good laugh. And! Mom will be impressed.”

My mom is my only real parent in the world, and so you just have to love a guy that wants to impress his mum and dad. But more directly: ‘you can do it, we can all do it.’ His message essentially is that if you’re creative, if you’re smart, if you have passion, you can work on games. It’s not a rarefied field, it’s not brain surgery … while twaddling about RMT may be a waste of time, he is implying here that the blog discussions we’re having player to player, and forum conversations community to community are useful in their own way. And that’s damned exciting and interesting to me.

Moreover, it raises the thought in my mind: Maybe I wouldn’t be a terrible designer. Who knows? :)

Mostly, I had a great time speaking with an intelligent man with expansive ideas on a subject that I find fascinating. Thanks again to Mr. Barnett, Eddiemae, and … Steve the PR Guy from EA Mythic. It was great.

As Paul threw a question out to me, now I throw one out to you: What did you get out of his interview as ‘the takeaway concept’? What did you think he was spot on with, and what was ‘rubbish’?

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The Interview Audio

If you’re keen on listening to our conversation, which you should be because Paul is a great public speaker even to an audience of one, you can download the file in MP3 format. It’s about 15 megs big. Paul’s voice sounds more than a bit tinny. My voice sounds great, and very, very loud. The reason for these problems is that I conducted the interview by putting my nice microphone near my cell phone while in speaker-phone mode. Please excuse the occasional pop, hiss, or ugly sound. I don’t have a lot of experience editing audio, and what I had to work with wasn’t that great to start with. If you can ignore those problems, I highly suggest you listen. In case the text didn’t give it away, Warhammer has itself one damn funny creative director.

<=== Go back to Part 1.

<=== Go back to Part 2.