Topic: Interview of Bifrost for MMO-Tv.fr

You can find there an interview of Bifrost about his job in Seed. The interview is in french so I will try to translate it:

http://www.mmo-tv.fr/modules.php?name=S … p;artid=10

1- Can you describe yourself and your work in Seed

Well, my name is Stephane and i was the project lead for Alchemic dream on Seed. My job was a mix of all and everything. We had very clear mission on Seed given by Runestone, the game devellopper. We were doing the supportn on line and mail support, we were also working on the localisation of the website in 3 languages: french, english and german. And our main interest was all the in game event, roleplay and give some life in game.

2- What was the range of your possibilities for player's project? (not sure about the translation please help me :'( )

For events we had a total support from the devellopement team, that mean, for them Seed was a Roleplay game, that mean for all the wishes and all the players roleplay actions we had total freedom to support them and to lead them to the end.
In particular, we had this story about the tree in game. In the begining it was a player who wanted to plant a tree and seeing what was possible to to to plant a tree, because the game was in a closed world with a very hostile outside. So the idea was: let's create some life inside. We eard about this ideas and about the reseash that was doing this player, we oriented her with more or less evident way, with some in game NPC, giving her some little clue or contacting her in private for some more important event, telling her about the way she could have... In fact she had some choice.
Then we contected the dev team, telling them "we need a tree" and so the tree was developped by the graphic team and one month later we had a tree in game wich was here by the will of a community player. In fact all the world in game was related to the idea and the advance of the player. We had some more project, we wanted to open some new zone that was still under developement by dev team, and we wanted to open them according the path chosen by the player.

3- I guess that the dev were really decieved of the path it took. How did they reacted and in what spirit did they end up the project? (translation by skanx wink

The dev were very disappointed by the way things turned out, but they were expecting it, since the time of the release; the game was released so early, that a failure was almost unavoidable.

Every effort was put into the project to try to make it successful anyway, but in the end, all they thought was "it needs to stop", "we need to know where we are headed, because as employees; we don't know if next month our company will still exist".

The day we could announce that the game was ending, and that the company was closing, was actually a big relief for the devs, because they knew they could do nothing more, that they tried everything. It was a good thing for them, since they could start looking for a new job.

4- Finally, what was seed? What was the difference with the other MMO?

Seed was a totally different idea and most of all it was very passionate people about this idea who were motivated to create something different and dedicated for roleplayer lovers. We really had an heteroclyte team , people who were coming from paper roleplaying game, from writing, from artistic creation and Runestone who was created around all them had a impressive synergy  and a wish to make something really different wich was a true personality.
I had the luck to met them, and they are really wonderful people.


5- Seed was in a way, victim of its release success, were the developpers expecting at such expectation from the player? And what were the things that made seed shut down?

Seed had a great potential, we had a great expectation from the community. The problem was that the game was not ready at the release.
There was a big putch from the investitor to continue to give money and this putch was too fast and too early. So there was a open beta who was not ready, the server was not optimised for that, so that ruined the game reputation in a few day. We had some great pic of connected, that was in a way what we were expected but not at this moment. That mean it was too early in the game developpement for this number of player.
The open beta was totally screwed up. And it's the sad reality of MMO, if you miss the open beta, it's very hard to ... *bad cut <<*

6- Is seed totally finished? Or is there a way for this game to revive in a way or another?
Translation by skanx:

Seed is now certainly finished, the dev team is now scattered , everybody's working somewhere else as Runestone backruped. There's still the IP, that is still in negociation with the tribunal. So there's still the hope that someone stable buy the project and put it back on rails. Now, the problem is that the Runestone team was really proficient, and it would be really hard to take over such a project without hiring the initial dev team.

On a side note, the people who put the project altogether, those who came with the first ideas, still have the passion to create a MMORPG, and may come back with a new idea, as innovative and unexpected as Seed, and I'm convinced that we'll hear good news from them in the future.

Re: Interview of Bifrost for MMO-Tv.fr

yay! thanks for the translation! smile

I still get sad when thinking about all this potential... but nice to read this anyway!

Re: Interview of Bifrost for MMO-Tv.fr

Woah Nuala, this must have taken you some time. Hate translation work myself smile Thanks!

Last edited by Darkhawk (2006-11-29 23:03:58)

Re: Interview of Bifrost for MMO-Tv.fr

Thanks for the work Nuala smile.
It's a nice interview, if the ending answer is a bit depressing sad.

-Norah/Liath-
"Do not follow! The milk is not ready, and you are not ready for the milk!"
-Psychonauts: Milkman Conspiracy area

Re: Interview of Bifrost for MMO-Tv.fr

Thanks Nuala, hope we can get our hands on the material sometimes.

Re: Interview of Bifrost for MMO-Tv.fr

Added the missing part of the translation, as asked by Nuala smile

Last edited by skanx (2006-11-30 21:22:06)

Re: Interview of Bifrost for MMO-Tv.fr

thanks skanx big_smile i add your translation to the first post

Re: Interview of Bifrost for MMO-Tv.fr

Kudos to both of you for making the effort of sharing this with us poor non-french speaking people :mrgreen:

Re: Interview of Bifrost for MMO-Tv.fr

Yay! Now I finally know what Bifrost was saying smile