Click to enlarge

An interview posted at RPG Planet talks with Todd Coleman, VP of sales and marketing for Wolfpack Studios. The Q&A discusses his work on the upcoming massively-multiplayer online RPG Shadowbane. They cover a number of topics, so even if you're a jaded fan it will be worth a read. Here's an excerpt about "feature characters" in the game:

RPGPlanet: In all Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGS), customer service and in-game support can either make or break the game. How will these work in Shadowbane? Will we be seeing god-like Game Masters (GMs) running about the world?

Todd: We haven't actually made any of our support plans public yet, but we have drawn a big dividing line between our "Feature Characters, " which deal primarily with ongoing plotline and game content, and "Technical Support," which will serve a role more similar to other online games.

Our Feature Character program exists for one primary purpose: to enhance the immersiveness of the game by providing quests, plots, and political involvement for our playerbase. They're going to consist of actors and actresses hired by Wolfpack to take on interesting roles within the game world and further the background story by interacting with players at the guild and nation level. We're treating this process much like an ongoing television show, only with an interesting twist - we can't be sure exactly how the players will act, so the plotlines have to be open enough to allow for a number of different outcomes.

The great thing about our Feature Character system is that no one has ever attempted something like this on such a grand scale before, so it's going to be really, really interesting to see how it unfolds over time.

RPG Planet Shadowbane Q&A

Shadowbane Web Site

Wolfpack Studios (add to watch list)

Shadowbane (add to watch list)

Search for other Mac games news stories or browse our Mac Games News Archive.