Eddy Wang
Skarlet scientist
"Mortal Kombat is one of the most popular names in the video games, its also one of the eldest, with such traditions and history, we talked with two veterans: The Art Director Steve Beran is two decades working with MK and Netherrealm Producer, Hans Lo. They talked about the series's legacy and how things works in the studio."
PRO: In MKX we're seeing a different art direction. More colors, characters we've never seen before, which route the team decided to take for this game?
Steve: With this game, we're bringing a more realistic approach, with so many tools at disposal such as illumination, its almost as we could take the game as a great movie, as if we worked on a great movie production. One of the most invigorating things to us, is introducing new characters, something we haven't been doing for a while.
We even put Skarlet in MK9, but that was a reunion of familiarized characters. In MKX we have things like Torr, we didn't knew if it would be basically possible to handle 2 in 1 character archtype in the game. Besides he is just as big as a Boss Character, which was a big challenge. He was one of the first characters we created and we were thinking often "hopefully we can put him into the game!". (hopefully they put the sisterhood as a 3 in 1 char in the game too, after reading this it feels like its possible).
In general we want to leave everything more realistic or "mature". We don't do purple skies anymore or stuff like that. We want to show you that you're in another dimension in outworld but with both feet on the ground.
PRO: How do you keep the feet on the ground? The days of the Pallete Swap ninjas to trick the hardware limitations are gone, and today you guys can do basically anything you like with the new consoles.
Steve: We walk on a thin line. Mortal Kombat has millions of dedicated fans that knows everything about the franchise, we know what they want to see, but at the same time we also know we should go to unexplored places. We can only hope they decide to come with us. (take me, take me).
Hans: Since the beginning we had a vision of how the visual style of the game would be. Steve and his team always wonder "does this makes sense with the rest of the dimension?", and this left us with the feet in the ground, to not come back saying" Look, we have purple skies again!" we didn't want to come to that.
Steve: This was one of the first conversations i had with Ed (noobde), about how we should go back a little and do something people could relate more to instead of having weird talking trees or things we have done before.
PRO: but that is something classic!
Steve: Yes, it is classic! And still exists, but we wanted to give a more cinematographic touch with these new technologies.
PRO: Speaking of talking trees, Mortal Kombat has a lot of adult fans who have a strong nostalgia for the classic part of the franchise, how do you guys deal with this? Between the "We need to have this" and "This can go away"?
Hans: Some things are in the characters, like Scorpion for example, he is such a classic character, he has a Spear, he has to have that spear. Or Kung Lao, he has to have the Hat and the Spin, we know we have to keep that. What we won't do is something like take a move from twenty years ago and put in the new character model. The Classic details? Sure, we try to include to keep everybody happy, but at the same time we think about what we couldn't do in the past and... "i dunno
" (yes he talks like this) maybe take a move we could never implement in the past and introduce it in a different manner.
Steve: I think that one of the most awesome things on the team is that there is a lot of people that are here since the beginning of the franchise. Veterans who worked together for a long time. The beauty of Netherrealm is that we hire a lot of new people which ends forming a mix between the old and the new. There is a lot of new ideas, but we also kept loyal to the more die hard hardcore fans. Looks kinda cliche but that's it. (Doge)
PRO: In the team opinion, what does it make the people coming back to every launched game after so long, and what keeps the franchise relevant until today?
Hans: In the MK9's case the motive of the game being so popular it was due the back to the roots. What made the game popular back then, the elements that left people excited when they played on the arcades for the first time. So we took that, add some ideas and we experimented. In MKX everything goes by twenty and five years after the MK9 events and that guided us. Before we used to think on how to update the Goro's models or things like that. Now we have a whole new era for a story we never explored before, and we can call everyone who enjoyed the last game and say "Here is this new universe you've never seen before". Things that were only mentioned in the story of other versions can be be shown in MKX.
We have new enviroments that never made part of the story before, but that now we have ideas of how to present them, thing that we never though about it before.
PRO: How do you guys filtrate the returning fans (what kind of question was that lol)
Hans: Obviously we have a meta when we start a game, but we also listen to the what the players have to say, in example this is a much more faster paced Mortal Kombat than the previous ones, this was something the people enjoyed and asked to keep that way, we pay a lot attention to these arguments.
We brought more pro players to have opinions about the way each character can play, for the more technical players of the franchise (us yay). There are thing that its told to us that it doesn't work so we discard them, and we also want to inovate on our own to excite even more the players.
PRO: Mortal Kombat is different from the other games of the same genre, in the sense that casual players like it much more than other games, do you have any idea of why does this happens?
Hans: That is not a mere coincidence. During the development we made sure that the game is accessible and easy to play for anyone. I think that its because of this that the non so hardcore players like it so much, because we do that anyone can play and execute special moves easier, this gives them an easy rewarding sensation, and that is wow they keep playing. We also listen to the more technical players and we add a more depth layer so they can explore more the characters and adjust their playstyle to the way they like.
Steve: I think that what makes my job more fun and hopefully the game too, are the character variations, fighting styles and stages, you get to explore other worlds, there are Military characters, but there is also Ninjas, Gods and Sorcerers, and in someway they all mix pretty good.
Hans: Has i said, we have all these veterans who are here since the beginning. They have the legacy, they're the one who had the idea of how the universe should be. And we also have all this new people who grew up being a Mortal Kombat fan, to them is the chance to make the game they always wanted to do, they have the passion to keep us with the eyes open and not step over the course, we have people that is fan since the first game and people that grew up playing, i think this reflects to the final product.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ed Boon Interview:
Ed boon works in the Mortal Kombat Franchise for 22 years and he still looks excited to keep doing it for very long years.
PRO: MK has been focusing a lot in the single player content in the last games. What have you learned since MK Deception, the date you guys started with this tendency?
Ed Boon: As much as fun as the online Multiplayer can be, its not for everybody. We always tried to improve the matchmaking so that players can match players of the same skill, but at any point someone will match against an excellent player, and this someone will be annihilated and won't want to make part of that again or ever again. So we found out that there is a lot of people that enjoys the single player content we do since MK Deception to MK9, which was when he had an incredible answer about the story mode, about being their favorite characters being part of a plot. This is very positive to keep doing these stuffs. (Stay positive).
We're also increasing the multiplayer options like the "King of the Hill" in the past game and the "Team Tag", but certainly there is a positive response for single player.
PRO: The story mode of MK9 is considered by many the best ever made on a fighting game, do you guys feel any obligation of impressing the people again?
Ed Boon: Yes, and you can only surprise people in that way one single time, we can't just repeat the formula, in fact this wasn't the first time we've done that - We had a minor version in MK vs DC, but we did a much better work with MK9 and also Injustice ( i agree). In each one we added something to be a little different, but the first time you play it has to feel special.
PRO: Will the Story take the same route as the last Mortal Kombat?
Ed Boon: Its much bigger actually.
PRO: Do you think the fraction system will attract more the hardcore players or who normally doesn't like to play online?
Ed Boon: I think it will attract more the players who can't compete at the highest level when they play online, but they can join and compete.
Those challenges that you can do, will be completed mostly by the players who aren't hardcore, and there is the towers, if you and i are just "ok level" in the game, i can send in a challenge and you try to complete it, and we don't have to stay online trying to compete and getting destroyed by better players (bruh!), there is alternative ways to compete with other players.
PRO: The hardcore players will really have to deal with the matchmaking problems, lags and such things, what are you guys preparing for this part?
Ed Boon: In every game we have a meeting where we ask "what can be improved with the online mode? What can improve with the matchmaking? People running, ragequits, all this stuff can generate a negative online experience, and we have some nice cool ideas to fight these stuffs that i think everyone will like it, we haven't announced what it is yet, but people will like it. But to the hardcore players the main thing is the character's variations, they will dissect that, for sure. There is this thing we call matchup, Raiden can be a good matchup against Scorpion, but now you have 3 Raidens and 3 Scorpions, and B e C can be a good matchup against A, and it becomes much more interesting.
PRO: Balancing the game must be a nightmare, with all this variations, no?
Ed Boon: It is, and we have to keep our Quality Control always evolving, we bring people that competes in evo and let them play a lot to help us with that.
PRO: To you, what is the most important aspect in this generation's fighting games? Many talks about improving Online.
Ed Boon: In the Mortal Kombat's case, what i think that sets it apart from the rest aside from the graphics, is the number of modes and things to do, i think there is no other fighting game that tells a story in the same way we do, that has parallel activities as our towers, i don't think no one gets near MK in that aspect. And we always try to top the previous launch because we want be the leaders of this category.
PRO: Will we have specific tournament rules? Like eSports rules? The More devoted players are always saying the online is not a "true game" yet, this always ask this type of thing.
Ed Boon: Playing online really is not like playing side by side. We do what we can to minimize the lag, but in any fighting game the online experience is not the same, but i think we're getting closer.
PRO: Do you think that this happens because the technology hasn't achieved the right level yet?
Ed Boon: I don't think that is much about the technology, it has to do more with the Internet, sometimes there is two guys with great connections and you think: "Wow, this is almost there!" but inevitably you will find a dude who is playing via Wi-Fi from the basement and the router is somewhere else, and there is no way to control that.
So maybe the solution is to make as much as possible that you won't connect to those people, but somehow the technology ends up influencing it.
PRO: How is the character creation process? Do you think in some guy that is missing? Or the Story dictates that?
Ed Boon: We let everyone free to come up with ideas, not only the art team, generally arts and scraps surface and call attention of everyone. The first time we saw Ferra/Torr everyone though that they should be playable, so is basically anyone coming with a history.
Well that's it, it took me some hours to translate all those, hope you enjoy it, i haven't read the article that speaks more about online, yet i think Noobde gave a good breakdown on what's going on, i will read it later, if by the fact there is any information that is relevant, then i will translate it.
The page that talks about Kung Lao and the Challenge tower and the Portal Stage is already translated, if you haven't seen it here:
http://testyourmight.com/threads/brazillian-magazine-giving-information-about-kung-lao-the-challenge-mode-and-a-portal-stage.47802/
Note: The Tarkatans collum refers to the Portal Stage, not about Baraka or Mileena being in the game.
@Swindle is tagged because he wanted to read this
@PainForge gave me the pages and @Youphemism re-uploaded into smaller parts to ease the load time and translate it.
Anyway, if @STORMS @RM Gammerblake or @Juggs decides to front page this, its up to them, have a good read guys, i'm tired now and i've been reviewing this since 6 am, its 10 am now and i have other stuffs to do. Later.
PRO: In MKX we're seeing a different art direction. More colors, characters we've never seen before, which route the team decided to take for this game?
Steve: With this game, we're bringing a more realistic approach, with so many tools at disposal such as illumination, its almost as we could take the game as a great movie, as if we worked on a great movie production. One of the most invigorating things to us, is introducing new characters, something we haven't been doing for a while.
We even put Skarlet in MK9, but that was a reunion of familiarized characters. In MKX we have things like Torr, we didn't knew if it would be basically possible to handle 2 in 1 character archtype in the game. Besides he is just as big as a Boss Character, which was a big challenge. He was one of the first characters we created and we were thinking often "hopefully we can put him into the game!". (hopefully they put the sisterhood as a 3 in 1 char in the game too, after reading this it feels like its possible).
In general we want to leave everything more realistic or "mature". We don't do purple skies anymore or stuff like that. We want to show you that you're in another dimension in outworld but with both feet on the ground.
PRO: How do you keep the feet on the ground? The days of the Pallete Swap ninjas to trick the hardware limitations are gone, and today you guys can do basically anything you like with the new consoles.
Steve: We walk on a thin line. Mortal Kombat has millions of dedicated fans that knows everything about the franchise, we know what they want to see, but at the same time we also know we should go to unexplored places. We can only hope they decide to come with us. (take me, take me).
Hans: Since the beginning we had a vision of how the visual style of the game would be. Steve and his team always wonder "does this makes sense with the rest of the dimension?", and this left us with the feet in the ground, to not come back saying" Look, we have purple skies again!" we didn't want to come to that.
Steve: This was one of the first conversations i had with Ed (noobde), about how we should go back a little and do something people could relate more to instead of having weird talking trees or things we have done before.
PRO: but that is something classic!
Steve: Yes, it is classic! And still exists, but we wanted to give a more cinematographic touch with these new technologies.
PRO: Speaking of talking trees, Mortal Kombat has a lot of adult fans who have a strong nostalgia for the classic part of the franchise, how do you guys deal with this? Between the "We need to have this" and "This can go away"?
Hans: Some things are in the characters, like Scorpion for example, he is such a classic character, he has a Spear, he has to have that spear. Or Kung Lao, he has to have the Hat and the Spin, we know we have to keep that. What we won't do is something like take a move from twenty years ago and put in the new character model. The Classic details? Sure, we try to include to keep everybody happy, but at the same time we think about what we couldn't do in the past and... "i dunno
" (yes he talks like this) maybe take a move we could never implement in the past and introduce it in a different manner.Steve: I think that one of the most awesome things on the team is that there is a lot of people that are here since the beginning of the franchise. Veterans who worked together for a long time. The beauty of Netherrealm is that we hire a lot of new people which ends forming a mix between the old and the new. There is a lot of new ideas, but we also kept loyal to the more die hard hardcore fans. Looks kinda cliche but that's it. (Doge)
PRO: In the team opinion, what does it make the people coming back to every launched game after so long, and what keeps the franchise relevant until today?
Hans: In the MK9's case the motive of the game being so popular it was due the back to the roots. What made the game popular back then, the elements that left people excited when they played on the arcades for the first time. So we took that, add some ideas and we experimented. In MKX everything goes by twenty and five years after the MK9 events and that guided us. Before we used to think on how to update the Goro's models or things like that. Now we have a whole new era for a story we never explored before, and we can call everyone who enjoyed the last game and say "Here is this new universe you've never seen before". Things that were only mentioned in the story of other versions can be be shown in MKX.
We have new enviroments that never made part of the story before, but that now we have ideas of how to present them, thing that we never though about it before.
PRO: How do you guys filtrate the returning fans (what kind of question was that lol)
Hans: Obviously we have a meta when we start a game, but we also listen to the what the players have to say, in example this is a much more faster paced Mortal Kombat than the previous ones, this was something the people enjoyed and asked to keep that way, we pay a lot attention to these arguments.
We brought more pro players to have opinions about the way each character can play, for the more technical players of the franchise (us yay). There are thing that its told to us that it doesn't work so we discard them, and we also want to inovate on our own to excite even more the players.
PRO: Mortal Kombat is different from the other games of the same genre, in the sense that casual players like it much more than other games, do you have any idea of why does this happens?
Hans: That is not a mere coincidence. During the development we made sure that the game is accessible and easy to play for anyone. I think that its because of this that the non so hardcore players like it so much, because we do that anyone can play and execute special moves easier, this gives them an easy rewarding sensation, and that is wow they keep playing. We also listen to the more technical players and we add a more depth layer so they can explore more the characters and adjust their playstyle to the way they like.
Steve: I think that what makes my job more fun and hopefully the game too, are the character variations, fighting styles and stages, you get to explore other worlds, there are Military characters, but there is also Ninjas, Gods and Sorcerers, and in someway they all mix pretty good.
Hans: Has i said, we have all these veterans who are here since the beginning. They have the legacy, they're the one who had the idea of how the universe should be. And we also have all this new people who grew up being a Mortal Kombat fan, to them is the chance to make the game they always wanted to do, they have the passion to keep us with the eyes open and not step over the course, we have people that is fan since the first game and people that grew up playing, i think this reflects to the final product.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ed Boon Interview:
Ed boon works in the Mortal Kombat Franchise for 22 years and he still looks excited to keep doing it for very long years.
PRO: MK has been focusing a lot in the single player content in the last games. What have you learned since MK Deception, the date you guys started with this tendency?
Ed Boon: As much as fun as the online Multiplayer can be, its not for everybody. We always tried to improve the matchmaking so that players can match players of the same skill, but at any point someone will match against an excellent player, and this someone will be annihilated and won't want to make part of that again or ever again. So we found out that there is a lot of people that enjoys the single player content we do since MK Deception to MK9, which was when he had an incredible answer about the story mode, about being their favorite characters being part of a plot. This is very positive to keep doing these stuffs. (Stay positive).
We're also increasing the multiplayer options like the "King of the Hill" in the past game and the "Team Tag", but certainly there is a positive response for single player.
PRO: The story mode of MK9 is considered by many the best ever made on a fighting game, do you guys feel any obligation of impressing the people again?
Ed Boon: Yes, and you can only surprise people in that way one single time, we can't just repeat the formula, in fact this wasn't the first time we've done that - We had a minor version in MK vs DC, but we did a much better work with MK9 and also Injustice ( i agree). In each one we added something to be a little different, but the first time you play it has to feel special.
PRO: Will the Story take the same route as the last Mortal Kombat?
Ed Boon: Its much bigger actually.
PRO: Do you think the fraction system will attract more the hardcore players or who normally doesn't like to play online?
Ed Boon: I think it will attract more the players who can't compete at the highest level when they play online, but they can join and compete.
Those challenges that you can do, will be completed mostly by the players who aren't hardcore, and there is the towers, if you and i are just "ok level" in the game, i can send in a challenge and you try to complete it, and we don't have to stay online trying to compete and getting destroyed by better players (bruh!), there is alternative ways to compete with other players.
PRO: The hardcore players will really have to deal with the matchmaking problems, lags and such things, what are you guys preparing for this part?
Ed Boon: In every game we have a meeting where we ask "what can be improved with the online mode? What can improve with the matchmaking? People running, ragequits, all this stuff can generate a negative online experience, and we have some nice cool ideas to fight these stuffs that i think everyone will like it, we haven't announced what it is yet, but people will like it. But to the hardcore players the main thing is the character's variations, they will dissect that, for sure. There is this thing we call matchup, Raiden can be a good matchup against Scorpion, but now you have 3 Raidens and 3 Scorpions, and B e C can be a good matchup against A, and it becomes much more interesting.
PRO: Balancing the game must be a nightmare, with all this variations, no?
Ed Boon: It is, and we have to keep our Quality Control always evolving, we bring people that competes in evo and let them play a lot to help us with that.
PRO: To you, what is the most important aspect in this generation's fighting games? Many talks about improving Online.
Ed Boon: In the Mortal Kombat's case, what i think that sets it apart from the rest aside from the graphics, is the number of modes and things to do, i think there is no other fighting game that tells a story in the same way we do, that has parallel activities as our towers, i don't think no one gets near MK in that aspect. And we always try to top the previous launch because we want be the leaders of this category.
PRO: Will we have specific tournament rules? Like eSports rules? The More devoted players are always saying the online is not a "true game" yet, this always ask this type of thing.
Ed Boon: Playing online really is not like playing side by side. We do what we can to minimize the lag, but in any fighting game the online experience is not the same, but i think we're getting closer.
PRO: Do you think that this happens because the technology hasn't achieved the right level yet?
Ed Boon: I don't think that is much about the technology, it has to do more with the Internet, sometimes there is two guys with great connections and you think: "Wow, this is almost there!" but inevitably you will find a dude who is playing via Wi-Fi from the basement and the router is somewhere else, and there is no way to control that.
So maybe the solution is to make as much as possible that you won't connect to those people, but somehow the technology ends up influencing it.
PRO: How is the character creation process? Do you think in some guy that is missing? Or the Story dictates that?
Ed Boon: We let everyone free to come up with ideas, not only the art team, generally arts and scraps surface and call attention of everyone. The first time we saw Ferra/Torr everyone though that they should be playable, so is basically anyone coming with a history.
Well that's it, it took me some hours to translate all those, hope you enjoy it, i haven't read the article that speaks more about online, yet i think Noobde gave a good breakdown on what's going on, i will read it later, if by the fact there is any information that is relevant, then i will translate it.
The page that talks about Kung Lao and the Challenge tower and the Portal Stage is already translated, if you haven't seen it here:
http://testyourmight.com/threads/brazillian-magazine-giving-information-about-kung-lao-the-challenge-mode-and-a-portal-stage.47802/
Note: The Tarkatans collum refers to the Portal Stage, not about Baraka or Mileena being in the game.
@Swindle is tagged because he wanted to read this
@PainForge gave me the pages and @Youphemism re-uploaded into smaller parts to ease the load time and translate it.
Anyway, if @STORMS @RM Gammerblake or @Juggs decides to front page this, its up to them, have a good read guys, i'm tired now and i've been reviewing this since 6 am, its 10 am now and i have other stuffs to do. Later.
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