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Imperial Wars Interview With Larry Dunlap
by David Tenemaza
I had the chance to interview the Creative Director of Intelligent Life Games. The interview is
about Imperial wars, a very interesting strategy game, so go on, keep reading!
David: Could you start by telling us about your company and introduce yourself to our
readers?
Larry: I'm Larry Dunlap, I'm the Creative Director and Founder of Intelligent Life Games
Also, the author of Imperial Wars (note: appellation author).
The key members of the development team are Bruce Dean, Art Design and Mike Kienenberger,
Lead Programmer and Michael Fawcett, Client Programmer. Bruce is a world-class artist, his
illustrations have been used on the cover of the SuperBowl and Rosebowl programs and he drew
one of the main stagecoach illustrations for Wells Fargo. His fine art hangs in collections all around
the world. Mike Kienenberger is a network guru, with experience babysitting Crays for the
Alaskan national site, Department of Defense supercomputing distributed resource center and
working at NeXT for a time on their development team. Michael Fawcett is an instructor at Full
Sail in Florida when he's not working with us. There is a pile of other people contributing, of
course, but that is the core dev team.
David: So how did you come up with the idea for Imperial Wars?
Larry: The concept for Imperial Wars really started almost 18 years ago. I was involved
in putting together a cable television entity that delivered computer games over cable. It was a
pretty big deal for a while and it looked like it was all going to work. Didn't succeed for financial,
not technical reasons. Anyway, we were primarily a channel for already published games. We
were looking forward to creating our own games, and the seed for IWars was born then; When
TGN (The Games Network, Inc.) didn't work out...., I had a lot of time to work on it further. Of
course, no television network anymore.
David: That's interesting, so getting into Iwars, the technical aspect, what's more difficult
for you to develop (graphics, sound...).
Larry: I think the hardest part is everything we're doing is new in some way or another. I
mean, we come from a different path to online gaming so; the models don't always work the same.
The network protocols are different. Can't use any middleware for it. Also, we wanted a
bulletproof backend so the foundation is really, really tight. We have a strategic partner in
OpenBase who has given us the opportunity to use a top-flight database product and Mike's
backend development is really awesome I think. The key to delivery of Imperial Wars is to deliver
the game without letting anything else get in the way. We have approached it pretty carefully as far
as graphics. As I said, this is a much different model. IWars was proven out in a non-online test
environment as just a game before we did any automation to it.
David: How long did it take you to get to the early stages of the game?
Larry: About 5 years ago, right after the launch of UO, a kind of seminal moment, I went
to an IGDA meeting at UCLA. I met Jessica Mulligan and Gordon Walton there. They were very
interested in what I told them about the project and supportive of my desire to get this done as we
are a "garage band"....
There was a lot of false starts, two programmer teams that didn't work out before Tony Evans
from Totally Games, through a friend, introduced Mike K to Bruce and I and we really got
started. That was more than 3 years ago. Since an IWars game takes about 4 months to play, the
first concept game was a hoot!
We finished that at the end of 2002 and felt that our engine was good enough to go forward. Since
then we have been working on beefing up all aspects of the game. The UI is coming last but it sort
of has to go that way. In most game developments, I think they are more likely to do that first.
Since we integrate so many web technologies together into a client-server environment, it makes
for some odd tech marriages so the backend has to work first.
David: 4 months to play? Could you explain that a little? Also for people new to the
game, could you briefly explain them what's the game about?
Larry: Probably should start with your second question first. Will you let me step back a
little into history, David?
David: ...sure go ahead...
Larry: Almost all of the immersive or persistent games have a background in wargaming.
Strangely enough, wargaming was first played in the form that we know it from a book by HG
Wells named Little Wars in the early part of the last century. When Tolkien met wargaming via
Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax in the 1970’s, Dungeons & Dragons emerged, with a splash of
Swords & Sorcery. Role-playing games have followed that model ever since. It is the major
influence that created the MUDs and computer games like Ultima. So the MMOG's or persistent
world games are direct descendents of this line.
IWars on the other hand, went a different route. It has a wargaming base but keeps the more
historical "campaign" persistency rather than the infinite persistency of the MMOGs, which are
really graphical MUDs. IWars is influenced by Science Fiction, for me, Isaac Asimov's
Foundation Trilogy is the main source, thought there are several others, like Herbert's Dune or CJ
Cherryh’s Merchanter Alliance series of books. All of these games, you'll notice are highly
influenced by speculative fiction, either fantasy or sci-fi. Also, IWars was influenced by PBM
games, which are one way to play campaign games and for me, a game called MegaWars III an
old CompuServe game made by Kesmai was a huge influence. A game called Starweb, a PBM
game had a huge impact on the way we do role-playing. As you know in a D&D role-playing
game, you have a certain amount of points that you spread through 6 characteristics to create your
character. So, to be wise, you have to assign points to Wisdom. With layered characters, the
actual character definitions create the differences. This is somewhat difficult to explain since its so
far out of the box we are used to but ... In the typical game environment, all the players are out to
do the same things...Get a bunch of planets or skills or whatever but they are all pretty much the
same.
In Iwars you have to think a bit differently. We have one player, a Philosopher character who
needs to not own anything except fleets. His fleets fly all over the place converting populations in
to his minions. He has to trade away his worlds as soon as possible and to convince other players
to let him fly around in their empires but still retain enough to secure his own stellar empire. If there
are too many minions on a world however, they will take the world from the original owner. So,
another player called a Terminator might be asked to come along and "prune back" the minions.
The Philosopher then gets martyr points.... Relationships between players are based on these
kinds of “layered” attributes.
Imperial Wars is played in an online field of 350 worlds, 300 starfleets, and 70 ancient imperial
artifacts. 16 players choose from 7 character types and play towards an endgame. There is
in-game email and electronic messengers. Diplomacy is a very major factor. The primary tension
comes from the need to cooperate to maximize your character and the need to compete to do well
in the game. So now, the first part of that question is a little easier to answer.
In a "campaign" style game, the diplomacy and player interaction are required over time for the
players to determine how they want to move. It is important to leave enough time for the
Metagame to take place between moves. However, the game will move as fast as the players
want it to so it is actually paced by how fast the player’s signal they have completed their
moves.
David: According to what you just said, Would you say the game is too complex?
Wouldn't people new to the game get scared of it?
Larry: There is a very big difference between complicated and complex. One of the
simplest games in the world, a Chinese game called Go, played on a simple cross-hatched board
with two sets of colored stones that cannot move once placed on the board. Complexity is a very
important part of a game, if there is no depth, there is usually little fun. The key is how it is
presented and yes, that is the most difficult part. The game must be easy to play, a graduated
learning curve, and still have the depth as you get deeper and deeper into it. The first moves are
simple and easy but if to expect people to come back and play deep into the end of the game,
even past the place where they know they can't win, you have to offer richness and complexity
with a minimum of confusion.
David: But I heard you have a rulebook that's as thick as a dictionary...
Larry: * ha ha*
Dungeon Seige and Civ III’s rulebooks are over 200 pages; I think ours is only about 80 pages
and though it will still grow larger, but it is not meant to be read at one sitting!
David: Oh that explains it.
Larry: Yes, it is actually hints, and reference.
David: Can people choose a skill level, so a newbie is not placed nearby a planet
managed by an expert...
Larry: Interesting question. The impetus of the game is so different that these issues are
usually not a problem. First of all, you will want to play IWars with the best players, we see that
happening now. You are so dependent upon meeting people who can help you, despite the fact
that you are competing with them, that you want your neighbors to be good players, or to help
them because the stronger they are the more help they can be to you. So, a veteran is likely to
help and to teach a rookie rather than to try to take them out of the game. Now, if the rookie
doesn't understand and is too aggressive, that can change in a hurry.
David: Of course it will. [ =) ]
Larry: What we expected to happen is, in fact happening... The Veterans of games
gather and try to entice each other into games. The rookies are trying to get to this status, to learn
how to play on that level so they will get invited into these “celebrity” veteran games.
David: What are your future plans for the game?
Larry: Well, the game rules are pretty well set and have been for a long time, though we
are tweaking character scoring and touching up balance issues, trying to improve gameplay. So,
the rules shouldn’t change much but... I'd say we're only doing about 40% of what I hope we'll
eventually do with this game. We're 2D, which is okay for this game, but there are places where
we need to be 3D. There are two aspects of the game. One is the game play, the moving of game
objects, etc. But the other, and probably more important part is the persistent metagame, where
all the Starlords in a Universe interact with each other. They can be available to one another 24/7
(as long as they're in the game of course) and our War Room in IWars needs to reflect that. And
we want to make clients that will work on every platform. Since we're a database game at the
bottom, makes no difference really, what platform a player uses. We want to localize it for
different languages. We want players to be able to play this on their PDA, or cell phone, and I can
tell you now, it can be done. We already have players who are playing the persistent part on
PDA's.
David: Awesome.
Larry: We have one player who gets notified on his Blackberry and responds wherever
he is. We ran into him at GDC and he was constantly checking for Iwars game mail and
responding while we were talking to him. So, there is so much to do yet. There are game variants.
This game is based on the restoration of the ancient galactic empire but there is also a variant
based on the destruction of the empire that we have never mentioned to anyone yet. There is a
backstory, very deep. There is already a braided novel started and a lot of fan fiction. Ok, so I
won't go further, but there is a whole lot to do. Especially when you're first into a game niche, the
Episodic Metagame, as we feel we are. Obviously, Iwars is not a game for everyone but I think
it’s really exciting for those of us who are into depth of play and the more intense reward of
delayed gratification.
[Some minutes ago, Gray, a U.K. experienced player of joined us.]
David: So Gray, what do you think of IWars?
Gray: I'm really impressed with it so far. I've found it to be a game that, once you get
your head wrapped around the game mechanics, is actually fairly simple to play. The complexity of
it is all down to the other players that you meet, and how much or how little you choose to interact
with them. So while it's a game that anyone can learn to play pretty quickly, it takes a bit longer to
learn how to play it well.
David: For the last question, is your company developing any other games besides
Imperial Wars? Maybe in a future?
Larry: ILG’s Imperial Wars database engine is a platform for these kinds of games. I
think we appeal to a very under-served audience. People like me. I wanted to play a really deep,
immersive game, but not waste a lot of time doing it. The most attractive part of the game play is
that it fits into a lifestyle instead of taking it over. As Gray says, the play mechanics are relatively
simple to learn Some times you can put in a lot of time and plan really carefully and spend hours
and hours with your friends and allies working stuff out. But when you don’t have time to play that
intensely you can still get your move in and get that paper done, or have a date, or do the other
things people do in their lives. So, I think there is a place for this kind of game even though it is a
new play pattern. The game engine will support many different scenarios so we'd like to explore
that. Also, I'd like to help others with similar sorts of game ideas get out there. We are having to
build our own online marketing and pr infra-structure. That is tough along with introducing a new
game. We're doing some fun and interesting stuff in this area but we're lucky to have a diverse
group and a lot of experience in business as well as games. So, if someone comes to us with a
cool game idea that works in the arena we're in, I'd love to be able to help that author develop it.
Also, I want to really explore the full integration of web and client. A lot of people have gone all
the way to browser-based games. Ok, but for real depth, you still need the client-server model I
think. And there are so many neat web technologies that have game application that integrating
them into a game environment is really the way to go. The Internet is still 60% used for email.
Communication is its main function. Online games need to fit into that concept and be
environmentally suited to the medium, I think.
David: Well, thanks for your time and I wish you luck in your future projects.
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