Travis Baldree Interview Page 2

Did the announcement of Diablo 3, and the huge immediate interest in that sequel, make you feel Mythos was not up to the comparison or do you think the two games serve a different market? Were you encouraged by the potential interest in a good action RPG following the Diablo3 announcement?

Like everyone else, we watched the Diablo 3 videos avidly on release, and had long and intense discussions about their approach, and what we could learn from them. I think there are many great lessons for us in what they've done - but I think we all believe we need to differentiate ourselves from Diablo 3 to succeed. Since Diablo appears to be staying with the classic Battle.Net setup ( I'm sure with some great new features ), we felt that we should focus on our differentiating factors - a more social environment with a large shared space, and a free-to-play business model to lower the barrier to entry. I think we can definitely succeed as long as we make sure to forge our own identity.


Mythos always seemed to be something of the red-headed stepchild at Flagship, with the company's main focus on Hellgate: London. Did that hamper the development, or did you guys feel more freedom working on your own thing up in Seattle?

We had an enormous amount of freedom in Seattle - and I actually think it's very pleasurable to work with a smaller team under restrictions. It's rewarding to push against that sort of boundary, and to see how much you can do with the resources you have. We were never made to feel like less than a part of the group, even up in Seattle, and I've got nothing but thanks for Flagship for letting us start and continue our experiment up here.


You've revealed that the entire Flagship North team is now at Runic, along with Max Schaefer. Do you anticipate adding any more ex-Flagshippers? Are you hiring? Or is the group now on hand sufficient to develop your new project(s)?

At this point we're not in the hiring phase - we want to make sure that we get off to a good start before we build the team any further. There were some fantastic folks at Flagship though, and in the future if they want to move in this direction, I know we'd all love to hear from them. Mythos really relied on a lot of technology built at Flagship San Francisco, and a great deal of collaboration with Ping-0.


Is another Mythos-like game; an Action RPG with MMO elements and fast-paced, randomised gameplay, the sort of game you most want to make? Or is it just what you guys know how to do best?

I think we've all got a lot of interests - but the style of game we were making with Mythos is something we definitely believe in. There's also a feeling of unfinished business - we thought there was a real place for the product we were making, and we really want to get it to market. It helps that we love Action-RPGs too.


How has development on Mythos helped the development team now you are looking at new projects at Runic?

The simple fact of the team's existence is an immediate leg up - assembling a good team is extremely difficult, and we have a drama-free and open work environment that is better than any I've had the pleasure to be involved with. The fact that our entire team knew from the moment of the layoffs that we all wanted to stick together is pretty telling. The lessons that we learned about social play and how to structure that, and how very important the community is to the ongoing development of the game will be put to use right away.