An Interview with Jon Von [sic] Caneghem

CS: Let's start with a little background. What kinds of games did you play before you got into computer games? I notice you have a lot of board games, role-playing games, that sort of thing.

JV: My hobby is collecting games, so I was playing every game I could find. Did a lot of role-playing, mostly D&D. Also did a lot of wargaming, things like Star Fleet Battles. I also did a lot of Avalon Hill gaming as well. Went to all the game conventions and played in tournament after tournament.

CS: Win any?

JV: Yeah. I won Star Fleet Battles; I was the national champ in '86. Same with 1830; I won almost every time. It's an Avalon Hill game. And another one called Titan. I played a lot.

CS: So it was a natural progression from board games into computer games?

JV: Yeah, well, what happened was I was playing with a bunch of friends, D&D and some other board games, on a regular basis. As people got older and started to get responsible, getting together was more and more difficult. Then a friend of mine showed me an Apple II, and he was playing a bunch of simple games on it. I was just amazed. This was great! I could play any time I wanted and didn't have to wait for anyone to get together. So I immediately got one. For about a year and a half all I did was play games on it. The two I probably played to death were Ultima I and Wizardry I. I think I went through each one of those about seven or eight times.

CS: So how long was it before you started trying to figure out how they worked?

JV: About a year and a half. Then I started to get tired. Everyone started to tell me, You're always complaining about these games. Why don't you make your own? And I said that I didn't have the slightest idea how to program. But it intrigued me. I switched from being a pre-med student to a math and computer science major at UCLA and just started delving into my Apple II, absorbing every magazine and piece of information I could find. That was about 1983.

I started this undertaking of trying to write my own game, teaching myself all along how to program the computer, programming the Apple II. Everything I was learning at school was just ancient history as far as the computer was concerned, with punch cards and mainframes. There was nothing about personal computers. So I pretty much had to teach myself everything.

When I started on Might and Magic, my first project, I went at it from a gamer's point of view. I was trying to make this game and the computer was just getting in my way. I wasn't a programmer who knew a neat graphic routine and then turned it into a game. I think most people at the time, except for a few, came from that end of it—it was mostly programmers making games. I wasn't, although I pretty much became a programmer at that point.

CS: What game influenced you the most while you were working on Might and Magic? D&D keeps coming up…

JV: Yeah, that was a heavy influence. Wizardry and Ultima games influenced me a lot. They showed me that this type of game was popular enough to actually sell and make money doing it. That encouraged me.

CS: Did you write Might and Magic by yourself, or did you have other people helping you?

JV: I wrote the whole thing by myself. I did almost all of the computer graphics myself. Towards the end I had a friend help me with some of the graphics. But I'd say I did about 90% of it—wrote the story, did the manual, pretty much did everything. But it was a three-year undertaking.

CS: Did you self-publish Might and Magic?

JV: After about two years it was coming together, starting to look like something. I went to a bunch of publishers at a game convention, some of the big names now who were up and coming then. I asked them, "I have this game that I'm almost done with. If I gave it to you to publish, what would I get for it?" And they gave me these ridiculous hem and haw stories about, "Well, if you were an established author and you had two or three games under your belt, you might get as much as a dollar a game." and on and on. Pretty much made me say "Okay. Fine. I'll do it myself." So I begged, borrowed, and stole and took out a couple of ads in A+ Magazine, the Apple magazine at the time, with an 800 number, and had the phone installed in our apartment, and the phone started ringing off the hook. It just took off. This was around November of 1986. By the end of December I was getting calls from all the major publishers again, this time with a lot more lucrative offers, but by then I had got myself enough in debt that I couldn't take just an author's position on a product like that. I had already done so much in advertising and the packaging and production and everything else that being an author for someone wasn't that much of an option at that point.

That's when Activision called me. I was in the shower one morning and had a call from Chicago, from then-president Manny Levy, I think his name was. He said he loved the ad, and loved the product, and wanted to talk about his new concept—affiliated label distribution. I visited all the other publishers again, made the rounds, but wound up signing with Activision.

CS: So Activision helped bankroll you?

JV: Yeah. They gave us some help, both in getting the product translated to other formats like Commodore and IBM, and they also got us some huge pre-orders that we were able to go out and get financing for.

CS: And they could get you great distribution, too, since they are everywhere…

JV: Which made the difference between selling a few thousand units out of my apartment to going into the 100,000 category with mass distribution.

CS: It sounds like a real rags-to-riches story. Basically this all happened in a pretty short amount of time.

JV: Yeah. Like a roller coaster, or a rocket ship. It just took off.

CS: What happened after you became an affiliated label of Activision?

JV: We were with Activision for two years. Then they became Mediagenic. We left there rapidly after our deal was up. We joined Electronic Arts as an affiliate label. They were the best affiliated label situation at the time. We were there for three years and that started to deteriorate. It got too crowded. They got into cartridge games and signed up too many other developers. We left them in June of 1992 and signed on as an affiliated label with Broderbund. We've made the complete rounds now, and hopefully at some point in the near future we'll be able to do it ourselves.

CS: It sounds like you've done awfully well. What games besides Might and Magic do you produce?

JV: First there was Might and Magic, just called Might and Magic. Then we immediately started on the next one, Might and Magic II, which was done originally for Apple. Right after that we did a strategy adventure game called King's Bounty, a simpler game, although it turned out to be very popular. It's a little like Titan, one of the board games I used to play. That was a fun game to do. And we took on a project called Nuclear War.

CS: Was that based on the card game, Nuclear War?

JV: That's right. It was a very fun card game. A lot of our employees had met at game conventions and all of our roots were in gaming. At 5:30 the office would shut down and the gaming would start. Everyone was always there until all hours of the night, playing games. We were so hooked into board gaming that we wanted to get into it. So we bought a company called Task Force Games. We moved it out to California. They are the ones who did all the Star Fleet Battles projects, and that was the game that I was a fanatic about. We had that company for about two years. We really wanted to make a big deal in the board game industry. It just kind of muddled along for a couple of years. Didn't make much money, but it was certainly a lot of fun.

CS: When was this? Sometime in the late 80's?

JV: Yes. There was a decline in the industry, and cartridge games were just tearing dollars away from everyone from toys to hobbies to everything.

CS: Unfortunate timing for you to get into that.

JV: Yeah. It was fun, though. We really had a good time with it. I had a partner, Ron Spitzer, who signed on in 1987 when I joined with Activision. He was a friend I was gaming with at the time when I first released Might and Magic. He helped negotiate some of the contracts when I went from company to company in 1987. He was real instrumental in the whole Task Force thing. We also had John Olson with us. He was president of another board game company, GDW US (Game Designers' Workshop), and we hired him to come out and run Task Force for us. We had a lot of fun with it.

We really made a go at the board games, but compared to the dollars and profitability of software… There was just no comparison. It didn't make any sense. Task Force kind of sidetracked us from software during that period. So, at that time we had only one product coming out, which was Tunnels and Trolls, which again was another license from the board game business, and very popular. It was brought to us by our Japanese affiliate, Starcraft. Tunnels and Trolls was extremely popular in Japan. It's a huge success over there, all the books and the board games. They wanted to do a computer game, and we said we'd publish it for them in the U.S. if they did it. So they did the whole product over there, and the original T&T designers, Liz Danforth and Mike Stackpole, wrote all the scenarios. So we published it here. It didn't go over all that well. The technology for the product was a couple of years behind the times. I think that's been the story of our industry. If the level of technology isn't right, the strength of the game won't save it. That was unfortunate, because it was a really deep and involved product that the die-hard people really liked it, but it didn't have the whiz-bang goods that it needed the year it came out.

CS: Did it do well in Japan?

JV: Yeah, they did pretty well with it in Japan. For them it was a successful product. For us it was not so good. But, a lot of people liked it. Then after that we got rid of Task Force. John Olson took it back to Texas. Another dead Texas game company. But, he's revived it, and it's doing pretty well now.

CS: So after Tunnels and Trolls you went back to Might and Magic.

JV: Yeah, we went real heavily back into software. That's when I spent the time designing Might and Magic III, and that's when I was working initially a lot on Planet's Edge, which got to be too overbearing at the time so Planet's Edge got passed off to other people in-house. I just concentrated on Might and Magic III. Those two products were our next two catch-up releases into the world of technology and whiz-bang stuff on the PC. That was the first product I did that was originally designed for the PC. I think it brought us from a catch-up position back to a leading position in games and technology. Might and Magic III did terrific. It won a few awards. Might and Magic III has probably been the most successful award product I've had. Although we've had so many in so many different countries now that I've totally lost track of them. It used to be that I'd scan every piece of literature just for the mention of the name of Might and Magic and now there's just so much, you just kind of wait for the more important ones. Which is kind of sad.

CS: Actually, that says you're successful, that you know you're going to be mentioned fairly often, and that you are fairly secure in an insecure business.

JV: Right. I look back, and we've been around for a fairly long time in this industry. We've survived some real ups and downs. I started on this in 1983, but we didn't really launch a product until 1986. So that's like seven years from today. That's quite a long time in software.

CS: I noticed that you've got some Sega games here. Do you develop those yourself or are those licensed products?

JV: We've started doing a lot of Sega and Nintendo work, but not as a publisher. The economics just aren't right for a company our size to get into it. But we did things through Electronic Arts and a number of other Nintendo companies and Sega companies. We went ahead and either coordinated or developed products for them. So that's been pretty good. We've done six Sega cartridges and two Super Nintendo cartridges and one NES cartridge.

CS: Yeah, I noticed your Fairy Tale cartridge over there. The graphics look great.

JV: That one did pretty well. I was always a fan of David Joiner, who happens to be down the street. He's the original designer of Fairy Tale. When Micro-Illusions went out of business there was an opportunity. We picked up the title and put it on the Sega. And that was all fun.

CS: And then you came out with Might and Magic IV.

JV: Right. After Might and Magic III and Planet's Edge I had a parting of the ways with my partner, Ron Spitzer. The company had gotten to the size where there could be one head, and it was going to be me. We had a difference of opinion on direction. He saw a different future than I did for the company. So we had an amicable parting, and he went to Electronic Arts. That's when I kind of changed directions with the company in opening the doors more to outside developers, for us to be more of a publisher, and less of a giant development house, in doing everything internally. So we started to take on quite a few outside products, which are starting to show up now. You'll see a lot more this year and next.

CS: So now you have development groups working independently and then bringing their work to you to publish?

JV: Exactly. We did Spaceward Ho!, a strategy game that way.

CS: Who developed that for you?

JV: Some guys called Delta Tau, in San Francisco. A really neat, fun game. We shipped the Widows version in November of 1992 and the DOS version just this January. We just shipped Empire Deluxe. There was a famous game called Empire and I had been friends with Mark Baldwin, the original designer/programmer on it, for a long time. When Interstel went out of business he got the rights to it back, and I said, "Hey, let's do the next Empire." He said, "Great." So he developed Empire Deluxe and we published it and it just came out February or March. We did Vegas Games Pack for Windows with an outside developer. That's been doing really well.

As far as outside developers coming to us with products, it's been real exciting. I really like doing that. I like seeing people who are where I was a few years ago and this time being on the other side of the fence, I'm trying to be a lot more fair and a lot more giving towards them.

CS: It sounds like you are really getting things going now.

JV: Yeah. At the same time we're working with outside developers, internally, we're working on the Might and Magic series. We did Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen. I didn't want to use the number anymore. I felt strongly that everyone wants to see the next James Bond movie, but no one wants to see Rocky IX. So off came the numbers.

CS: So, what is the next Might and Magic game, the one after Clouds of Xeen, called?

JV: Might and Magic V is called Darkside of Xeen. It's something I don't think anyone else has done before. The story behind Clouds and Darkside is that one game's set on one side of the world and ones on the other side of the world, and if you put both games together on your hard drive, you can freely walk back and forth. There are extra quests that you can't complete unless you have both games and there's a third endgame that you can't get to unless you have both games. But you can play either one by itself. It's huge.

CS: I'm overwhelmed by Clouds of Xeen—its a big game.

JV: And we get so much criticism, both from the fans and the critics. I hear everything, from, "It was so short! I finished it in 35 hours. I felt disappointed." to "I've been playing it for 200 hours and I still haven't finished it." You have to say to yourself, where do you draw the line here? There's umpteen thousands of people playing it out there, and I've really found that every one of them played it for a different reason. There's no two people who have the same desire. So I guess you try to please as many of the people as much of the time…

CS: Do you still create the games to please yourself, the way you did when you started?

JV: Yeah. I think so. That's what I started out with—I wanted to make a game that I would like, taking elements of games that I liked and adding all the stuff that I thought of and putting it all together. I still do that now. In fact, the games are getting shorter because I don't have 300 hours to spend playing something. So if I can finish something in forty hours, I think that would be more enjoyable.

CS: So, what's the fastest play-though [sic] on one of these games?

JV: There's two ways of saying how you finished it. One is to say, "I got to the end game in fifteen hours or twenty hours because I knew all the answers." Or you can say, "I did everything in the game and it took me forty hours." Reviewers ask us about this, too.

I even added a feature when you first start the game where you're asked if you want an Adventurer game or a Warrior game. This was my wife's idea. She really liked the game, the adventure. But she wasn't into combat. She was like, well, you know, monsters are fun, but let's get on with the story. I said, "OK, well, I'm sure there's plenty of people out there, just like you, who aren't into the numbers and the hit points. They just want to get on with the story." There's a lot of quests, a lot of fun things to do. So I put the choice in, and what Adventurer does is it makes it easier to win all the battles. So you get through that part of the game a lot quicker.

CS: I was really glad you had that. Combat is great every once in a while, but there's other stuff to do.

JV: There's other stuff to do and we want to expand our audience, to bring in more and more people who wouldn't normally play this kind of game.

CS: What's in the future? Where do you see the company going in terms of new games?

JV: We'll keep doing Might and Magic as long as it's popular. It keeps getting more popular, so that's a good sign. We're mostly looking for outside talent now to develop product, whether it's just an idea or a finished product. Being a publisher with roots in game design and development can really help a lot of people. We have a bunch of groups now who are very talented and just never really got a chance to do an original. They were always stuck doing ports (conversions of existing games from one computer to another) to pay the bills. They have fantastic ideas, so I'm really trying to go with those people and give them a chance at it. I'm really excited at what's going to come out of it. We have a couple coming this year, and a couple in early 1994, as well.

We're seeing so much of the same old same old because the market is tight and in tough times and you can count on selling X units of Game XYZ 14, but how many units are you going to sell of some new Whiz Bang thing? Will it be the next Sim City, or will it be the next bomb? That's real tough. Still, I want the new guys.

CS: I think that sounds like a really neat place to go. We've got your background in terms of board games and computer games. In terms of fiction, would you say you have any favorites that you draw on, like Tolkien, or are you one of those classic computer game guys who didn't read.

JV: To tell you the truth, I was one of those kids who didn't read. I was a television kid.

CS: Any favorite TV shows?

JV: I'm the ultimate Star Trek nut.

CS: Old and new?

JV: Old. I've tried to force myself, but I just haven't gotten too excited over the new one. I've always thought it was the USS Loveboat with Captain Stuebing. To boldly run away from anything we find. But Star Trek was a big influence on me. I just grew up watching everything. All my background has come from B movies, before Star Wars.

CS: Comic books?

JV: No, no comic books. I'm not a reader.

CS: Not a reader at all. That's amazing.

JV: I don't have the patience. I was never a fast reader, which really bugged me. I could never get through. I would always start books, but cheat and skip ahead and read the start of each chapter and then the end and then I'd go on to the next thing.

CS: I bet you read the end before you started the book, right?

JV: That's right. I meet a lot of people who have grown up not reading very much and they have this same impatience with things that get slow. They are much more visually oriented than text oriented. Which is now lending a lot more to computer games. Text is not popular anymore. It's the TV generation who are buying these games, now.

CS: So Star Trek was a big influence—do you see yourself doing science fiction games or other non-fantasy games?

JV: Yeah. One of the reasons I did Planet 's Edge was because I was such a sci-fi fan. There was a game that took forever to develop and came out too late as far as technology, but… All these projects, we say "Yeah, eight months." Yeah. Two years later…

CS: Do you just reach a point where you're doing all this cool stuff and you have to fight it to get the game out?

JV: Yeah, that's what happens. Also, a lot of times we'll spec a product all the way out and we'll just start working on it. Six months into it you realize it will take two or three years to complete it. Too many worlds, too many things, too many characters you have to develop. You multiply it all out, and you go, "I need eighteen million man hours to finish this." To cut it is a real hardship because you've designed the whole thing, all those specs. It'll drive you crazy.

And when you're dealing with new technology you say "Eureka! Now we've got this new technology. What can we do with it?" It's pretty infinite. When we first moved over from Apple to IBM, it went over the top.

CS: Do you still support Apple at all?

JV: No. It's a shame, but I don't think we even have any in the office. We do support Mac. We do most of our product on the Mac. Might and Magic III was just released on the Mac. And it's doing real well. It's being received real well. We put most everything on the Mac. It's been a good platform for us but now our DOS products are getting to the size that it's not becoming practical to put them on the Mac, technology-wise and the size…

I'm just holding my breath until CD is the standard. I'm really pushing for it. I'm actually going to stick our neck out this year in putting out a title on CD, and next year we may release a title or two on a CD, that you have to have it. It may be a little early. I know people are talking 1995, but I think we are going to push it in 1994. Just cost of goods, with all the diskettes that we have to put in the box, is really hurting us.

CS: It's amazing to me that games take up an entire hard drive…

JV: With the CD you don't have that. We will finally recoup some of those supposed pirated copies that we all know about. No one I know pirates software, but I've heard estimates—it's two to ten times the number you sell. Sometimes you start to believe it. With CD's you don't have that, at least not initially, at least not until you make it cheap for people to duplicate them.

CS: What do you see, once you go to CD?

JV: For me the most exciting thing is going to be sound. Sound and voice. I think that's an area that's not too expensive to develop, yet can add so much to the experience of the game. A lot of people talking about promotions and having actors do that kind of stuff. I don't buy that yet. I don't think we can compete with TV and movies. I think there are other areas that we can do better in.

CS: So are you saying that you are not into interactive movies?

JV: No, it hasn't done it for me. I've seen a bunch of them now, and they just aren't good.

CS: How many platforms do you support in your games? With all the different PC sound boards and graphics cards, and memory configurations, I don't know how any software company manages to make stuff that can actually work.

JV: Just in DOS alone, the sound cards, the mice, the memory amount, the configuration, the clones—you have to spend zillions just to have enough equipment to test it on. A lot of people complain, "Your testing is terrible; your game didn't work on this machine or that machine." What do we have to do, spend two million dollars to buy every piece of equipment that's out there to test it?

CS: It sounds really frustrating. I've always had this fantasy that I could drop a CD in and it would run, just like that.

JV: Yes, that's what it should be like. That's why so many people love the cartridge machines, and that's why they do so well.

CS: So, is that where you guys are heading—simplicity?

JV: Oh, absolutely. The simpler, the better. The more they are actually playing and thinking, and the less they are dealing with the problems of interacting with the machine… My goal is to get away from huge manuals and have a player card tell you all you need to know to play—tell you the basic start-up stuff, and then let you play. That's what I do. I play a game and never look at the book. I start the game and start pushing. If I can figure it out, then it's a pretty good game.

CS: Do you ever feel trapped by your success? Do you feel that you now have an obligation to do things a certain way for players? Do you feel restricted at all?

JV: Not really, I don't think, not too restricted. About the only thing I feel is pressure to always work. It's been real tough relaxing after finishing a project. It's been like, I should be working. I should be thinking about the next one. I should be thinking about this project or that project. I should start designing because every day that I'm not designing the next product is another day it's not coming in. That, I think, has been the hardest.

Rampart:
Storytelling Flora -> Spirit Guardian

Inferno:
Eternal Effigy -> Deity of Fire

Necropolis:
King of Terror -> Soul Prison

Dungeon:
River of Blood -> Guardian of Earth

Stronghold:
Weapon Array -> Warlords' Monument

Rampart:

• Treefolk -> Dendroid Guard
• Briar Treefolk -> Dendroid Soldier

Tower:

• Apprentice Gremlin -> Gremlin
• Caliph -> Master Genie
• Naga Sentinel -> Naga
• Naga Guardian -> Naga Queen

Inferno:

• Single Horned Demon -> Demon
• Dual Horned Demon -> Horned Demon
• Pit Foe -> Pit Lord

Necropolis:

• Zombie -> Walking Dead
• Zombie Lord -> Zombie
• Nosferatu -> Vampire Lord
• Black Lord -> Dread Knight

Stronghold:

• Goblin Wolf Rider -> Wolf Rider
• Hobgoblin Wolf Rider -> Wolf Raider
• Cyclops Lord -> Cyclops King
• Young Behemoth -> Behemoth

Fortress:

• Primitive Lizardman -> Lizardman
• Lizard Warrior -> Advanced Lizardman
• Copper Gorgon -> Gorgon
• Bronze Gorgon -> Mighty Gorgon

Castle:

• Gier -> Orrin
• Rislav -> Valeska
• Desslock -> Edric
• Hester -> Cuthbert
• Galdwyn -> Sanya
• Engle -> Caitlin

Rampart:

• Clova -> Uland
• Kyriell -> Malcom
• Rugard -> Josephine
• Khem -> Iona

Inferno:

• Aragorn -> Rashka

Чудища на Энроте, вполне вероятно, тоже с другого плана. В ММ8 мы видим, что в Измерении-между-Измерениями вместе с Ужасами и прочими неприятными порождениями царящего там Предела психоактивного (по всей видимости — что не первый прецедент в сеттинге, план Магии, открытый Тарнумом, также психоактивен) хаоса — тусуется линейка планаров Plane Guardian/Plane Protector/Plane Overlord (и их почти ничем не отличающиеся сородичи — Chaos Guardian/Chaos Protector/Chaos Overlord)… весьма знакомого вида.

А пещера чудищ-то в Цитадели — светится. Причём если красноватое свечение неулучшенной ещё можно представить себе "естественным", то улучшенная совсем подозрительна.

Гоги, кстати, не "умирают как обычные существа", из них вырывается небольшая вспышка огня (но тушки, да, остаются целыми — что логично, они из измерения Огня, но, подобно птицам грома (да, троечные цитадельские птички грома тоже планары, или по крайней мере, живут также и в измерении Воздуха) или драконьим черепахам, не обязаны состоять только из него). В Героях, видимо, её посчитали слишком несущественной, чтобы моделировать на тактическом уровне, не вписывающейся в дизайн (по балансу или по избытку абилок на низкоуровневое существо) или просто придумали эту деталь уже после завершения работы над Возрождением Эрафии.

Jon Van Caneghem, Heroes of Might and Magic 2 Designer
Heroes 2 is by New World Computing Interview by: Chad Hanson and Richard Gershwiler

How did the Heroes of Might and Magic genre come about? Was Heroes the creation of one mind, or many?

The basic goal was to create a compelling strategy game which utilized the monsters and characters from the Might and Magic series. We wanted to bridge the gap between the 'classic strategy gamer' and the 'classic FRP gamer'.

Was the overall atmosphere of Heroes I and II something that came about naturally, or were there ideas for different kinds of atmospheres?

The Heroes atmosphere was always fantasy-based, being an offshoot of the Might and Magic series. Fantasy settings are compelling to a broad range of people; they make the simplest settings for people's natural escapist tendencies. What's difficult about a fantasy setting is making it cohesive, making it make sense. You can't just throw a few dragons into the woods outside your house without providing a logical means of defeating them. As an example, J. R. R. Tolkien made Smaug a powerful creature, but gave him a powerful weakness that could be taken advantage of.

Was the music for the game produced in-house or externally? Was it composed by one individual or many? If produced in-house, what kind of technology was used?

The music was produced in-house by Rob King, our full time Sound Engineer. He has produced the sound tracks for most of our titles over the last few years.

What development software was used to create Heroes I and II, and how would you compare the development of these titles?

Microsoft Visual C 4.0 (for the Windows versions), Watcom 10.0 (for the DOS versions), Miles Sound System, DirectX, and Smacker were our primary tools. All other tools were internally developed. Heroes I took quite a bit longer to produce than Heroes II, for a number of reasons. We had fewer people working on Heroes I, and all of the content had to be developed from scratch. With Heroes II, we only had to make tweaks (some minor, some major) to the content. Another element, though, was that the original programmer on Heroes I left the company a little less than halfway through the project. Most of his original code had to be scrapped because it was poorly written. Interestingly, even though Heroes I contained about 85,000 lines of code and Heroes II had about 165,000 lines of code, Heroes II took only about a third of the time to develop as the original.

What major improvements were you going for with Heroes II over Heroes I? How successful do you feel you were?

The major focus for Heroes of Might and Magic II was: MORE, MORE, MORE. We wanted more game play, more re-playability, more multi-player support, more monsters, more towns, more battles, etc. I guess we really were just trying to give the gamer more fun. Yeah, I think we were successful but that's not really what matters; what matters is whether the public thinks we were successful.

Is NWC going to try its hand at a real-time strategy game any time soon?

We're already well into development on one right now.

Are there plans to use the basic Heroes gaming environment and adapt it to another theme, like Blizzard's StarCraft cropping up from WarCraft?

We've played around with the idea, and have been contacted by several outside developers wanting to do just such a thing, but we haven't found the right concept/design that we want to put the engine into. As for a Heroes of Might and Magic III, we really want to improve upon the whole game, not just segments of it.

Are there any patches available for the game, and what plans do you have for future patches/add-ons?

Yeah, we have a patch that fixes some minor IPX and sound problems, and we've added a 'random map generator.' We are releasing an expansion pack (Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Price of Loyalty) which will add 4 new campaigns and a ton of new stand-alone and multiplayer maps. The expansion may also add a new unit type for each hero. I'm really hoping to see a slew of gamer add-ons in the form of posted maps.

Are there plans for more games in the series? If so, can you give us any details about the next project?

Heroes of Might and Magic III really needs to have that "quantum leap" feel to it. We're floating ideas around the office right now as to what the leap should be and how it should be implemented, but we don't have anything set in stone yet.

What can we look forward to next from NWC in general? Where do you see NWC going as far as computer gaming in the future?

We have several pending releases, including two action games and a realtime action/strategy title, and we're working on a Christmas 1997 release for Might and Magic VI. As for the future, we're not Microsoft. What we want to do is make games that are fun to play, not dictate the entire future of the gaming industry. We will continue to develop our technology base and hone our game design skills. And along the way, try to make the majority of gamers happy.

Gamezilla wishes to thank Jon Van Caneghem and New World Computing for making this interview possible.
Interview Posted 1996.

Desslock's RPG News Interview with with... Jon Van Caneghem, President and Founder of New World Computing and Designer of the Might and Magic series

conducted by P. Stefan Janicki ("Desslock")

About the Plot :

Desslock: I understand that plot of Mandate of Heaven begins in the Kingdom of Enroth with the Ironfist Dynasty on the brink of ruin. Floods, earthquakes, demon invasions - You're having a bad day. Can you give us a few other plot tidbits concerning Mandate of Heaven? Does the story begin shortly after the end of the Xeen games?

Jon Van Caneghem: No. The world of Enroth and the world of Xeen are two distinct worlds in the same story "universe". Some of the same elements that were in previous Might and Magic games are retained in Might and Magic VI, and veteran Might and Magic players will know what I mean by this. I don’t want to spoil the surprise for newcomers to the Might and Magic story by describing them here!

This Enroth, however, and the Enroth of Heroes of Might and Magic are the same world. The story takes place roughly ten years after the Succession Wars of Heroes II, and things are not going well for Roland’s kingdom (Yes, the good guys won). Disasters, floods, demonic invasions, all these things have caused the people to question the legitimacy of the Ironfist dynasty. People have begun to say the Ironfists have lost the "Mandate of Heaven"—the divine right of kings to rule.

Desslock: One of the more interesting aspects to the storyline of Mandate of Heaven is the potential for the plot to branch in different directions depending upon the actions of your party. Can you elaborate on how your party's actions will affect the development of the plot?

Jon Van Caneghem: As with all previous Might and Magic games, the Mandate of Heaven will permit players to go pretty much anywhere they want in the world, even if their characters aren’t up to the challenge. Obviously, we can only create a few endgame movies, but there are many legitimate ways to finish the game. Players are pretty much free to be good or evil and to pursue their own character development goals at their own pace.

Desslock: Will there be multiple endings to the game?

Jon Van Caneghem: Yes! Besides death, there are three distinct ends to the game. More, I cannot reveal at this time.

Desslock: Will there be any characters, locations or items that will be familiar to Might & Magic veterans?

Jon Van Caneghem: Actually, the most familiar characters will be the ones that have shown up already in Heroes. There will be some story elements that will put in an appearance for this game that have been used in the past. Specifically, Guardians come to mind as the most memorable story element we’ll be using.

Desslock: Does the game take place entirely within the Kingdom of Enroth? Will time travel or science fiction elements play a role in the story?

Jon Van Caneghem: I can tell you the Mandate of Heaven story takes place entirely within the Kingdom of Enroth. I can also safely say we do not intend to use any time travel. More would be spoiling our secrets.


About the Gameplay :

Desslock: Have you made any significant changes to the character creation system compared to the Xeen games? How much of an opportunity will gamers have to individualize their four characters?

Jon Van Caneghem: Gamers will be able to pick faces, classes, skills, and distribute statistic points for our standard seven character stats. We’ve taken a step away from the recent gaming trends in that not all characters will be able to do all things. Knights, for instance, will never be able to cast spells, and sorcerers will always suck when it comes to fighting.

Desslock: I've got to admit, I'm particularly impressed with the manner in which you intend to breathe "life" into the non-player characters ("NPCs") featured in Might and Magic VI. Can you elaborate on how NPCs will interact with your party and pursue their own "autonomous agendas", as your press material has stated?

Jon Van Caneghem: NPC’s will have knowledge on topics that are appropriate for their professions, and will receive and transmit news about topics they are "interested" in. They will in many cases be willing to hire on and follow you around, or let you hire them to go and perform a specific task. They have personal schedules and travel itineraries, close their shops at the appropriate times, and refuse to speak to people they don’t like. Some of them are willing to take bribes, or are susceptible to begging or threats. Some only talk to characters with high fame or rotten reputations. We have all types.

Desslock: I understand that up to two NPCs will join your party. How much choice do you have over which NPCs tag along with you?

Jon Van Caneghem: It is possible to have more than two followers, but if you have more than two, the excess will be quest NPCs that you are escorting or rescuing or arresting. You can hire up to two NPCs on a weekly basis. These hirelings will have some sort of benefit for having them along (usually) and you can fire them any time you like.

Desslock: I understand that there will be over 300 NPCs in the game? Will there be different types of NPCs (i.e., relatively static, minor ones as opposed to "major" characters)?

Jon Van Caneghem: Absolutely. Our basic rule is this: Anyone walking around can be hired and is expendable as far as winning the game is concerned. Otherwise, it would be possible to ruin your game by killing an important NPC before you got to talk to him. On the other hand, many NPCs that you will speak with in what we call "town events" will be indestructible because we have no combat in such areas. These are the ones who will hand out important quests and be given complex text.

Desslock: I understand that certain NPCs may treat you radically differently depending upon the nature of your previous actions in the game. Can you elaborate on the manner in which your actions can affect the behavior of NPCs?

Jon Van Caneghem: If your reputation is low, or the NPC you are speaking with has actually seen you commit some heinous crime, that person may refuse to speak with you unless you strong-arm them somehow. If you are known to be a horrible mass murderer of innocent peasants, most people will attack you or run from you on sight. Exactly how they react will be dependent on their personality, their profession, how powerful they are compared to you, and whether they are good, neutral, or evil.

Desslock: you elaborate on the manner in which M&M VI will be playable in "real time" mode, as opposed to traditional "turn based" mode (which is also available)? Is the default the "real time" mode, which essentially can be stopped and played "turn by turn"?

Jon Van Caneghem: The default is real time. Whenever you want, you can quickly hit the enter key and start turn based mode, which means that you don’t have to make combat decisions based on reflexes alone. Unless you are rather powerful, you won’t want to fight monsters in real time because you won’t have time to react to their attacks with anything but readied spells, bows, and swords.

Desslock: Can you elaborate on some of the changes you have made to the "skill based" character development systems?

Jon Van Caneghem: Our character development system is, in my humble opinion, simple, yet elegant. Characters begin the game with a few skills appropriate to their class and a few development points to spend on them. To get one rank in a given skill costs the same number of development points as the rank you’re advancing to. For instance, increasing your skill in Swords from rank three to rank four costs four development points.

Skill ranks are used to make all sorts of calculations. Everything from the chance to hit with your sword to the damage you do with a fireball is covered. It is also possible to become an expert or a master in a given skill (independent of skill rank). Expert or Master status comes with additional abilities, such as being allowed to use a dagger in your left hand and a sword in your right, or repair magic armor, or expand the radius and duration of your fire spells.

Desslock: I understand that you hired an architect to help you design some of the layouts of the dungeons and certain other locations in the game – an outstanding idea, by the way. One of the worst aspects of some role-playing games is the manner in which dungeons and other locations are strewn together illogically (but of course that orc wants to live next to that gargoyle, next to the skeleton, next to the dragon, next to Richard Simmons, etc.), ruining the immersive nature of the gaming world, in my opinion. Can you elaborate on the contributions of your architect?

Jon Van Caneghem: One of the primary level designers has a background in architecture. And, we hired two graphic design specialists with lots of CAD experience, and they’ve helped quite a bit with getting the look of the dungeons and towers up to snuff. We’ve had a lot of experience designing dungeon levels, so rest assured that we won’t be putting the dragons next to the Richard Simmons’.

Desslock: How many different enemy or monster types do you anticipate including in the game?

Jon Van Caneghem: There are a total of more than 180 types of monsters. This does not include different kinds of "human monsters" that you’ll run into, such as bandits, bounty hunters, and other kinds of miscreants.

Desslock: How many spells do you anticipate including in the game? What changes have you made to the spell system since the Xeen series?

Jon Van Caneghem: There are 99 spells in the game, and the spell system is very different from previous Might and Magic games. There are 9 schools of magic (fire, air, earth, water, light, dark, spirit, mind, body) that are accessible to different classes of spell users, and it is possible to know each school to different skill and expert/master rankings. There are no material components necessary to cast spells, and your spell points regenerate after a sound night’s sleep. By sound, I mean at an inn. Camping is worse, and being hungry when you rest is worthless.

Desslock: Can you elaborate on how the new combat system will work?

Jon Van Caneghem: That’s a pretty broad question, but I’ll take it to mean "How does your turn-based combat system work?" Taking any action in combat requires a short period of recovery. Skill in the weapon will shorten that period of recovery and better your chances to hit. Different characters will be allowed to take actions at different times, depending on their individual speed statistics and how slow their previous action was. Monsters will attack on their turns based on their own speed and recovery rates. There are no real "rounds" in our system—combatants simply take actions when it’s their turn. Quick fighters will eventually end up taking more actions than slow ones, and this can get as extreme as taking three dagger attacks to every one axe attack. Spells are considered attacks under this system, so each spell has a recovery rate associated with it. Sometimes expert and master status can reduce the recovery penalty from a weapon or spell.

The real-time combat is more of the twitch model using whichever default attack you have set for your characters and their speed is dependent on their rate of recovery.

Desslock: How interactive is the world of Mandate of Heaven? I understand that certain buildings will open into 3d environments, while others will simply "open" to a graphical depiction of the inside of the building. How detailed is the object interactivity in Mandate of Heaven? For example, will there be 3d objects you can interact with, such as bookcases with real books?

Jon Van Caneghem: We really have three places you can be in the game. You can be outside using our Horizon engine (similar to a flight sim engine), you can be inside using our Labyrinth engine to explore dungeons, or you can be in a shop or other special location that is a simple graphical representation of a place. If you are in the either of the game engines, you are able to pick up and manipulate any reasonable item. Physics are modeled accurately for purposes of falling objects, light casting, and objects bouncing off one another. Opening chests and cabinets will give full pictures of the inside of the containers with objects resting properly within them.

Desslock: I understand that your characters will both have an "actual" reputation, based upon actions they've done, and a "perceived" reputation, based upon NPCs knowledge (or perception) of your characters' actions. Please elaborate on the role reputation will play in Might & Magic VI.

Jon Van Caneghem: True. Sometimes a NPC will not have heard of your crimes or your good deeds before you speak with them. This means that it is possible to outrun your reputation, although eventually everyone will have heard about the things you’ve been doing.

Desslock: I understand the "word based puzzles" from the earlier Might & Magic games will be making a return in Might & Magic VI. How big a role will they play in the game?

Jon Van Caneghem: Yeah, you should expect to see at least a few word games in Might and Magic VI. Word games have always been a hallmark of the series, and we wouldn’t think of not including some in this game.

Desslock: You have indicated that the world of Might & Magic VI will truly be "dynamic", with locations growing, becoming re-inhabited, etc. Can you give us a few details concerning how the world will change throughout the game?

Jon Van Caneghem: Just because you clean a dungeon out doesn’t mean that some other enterprising monsters looking for a new home won’t move in at some later date. Also, we will have weather, fluctuating shop prices, and a small population of traveling NPCs. Time marches on with or without you, so quests given out will sometimes go sour if you wait to long to finish them.

Desslock: How many hours of do you anticipate it will take the average gamer to complete the main story in Mandate of Heaven?

Jon Van Caneghem: We have been pondering that ourselves as all of the elements are coming together as a whole. With the new real-time aspect of the game we really won’t know until we get a chance to play a complete build. Previous Might and Magic games have had broad ranges that have taken people anywhere from 30 hours to 200+ hours. We are shooting for 50-100, but it may take longer to complete it, depending on the player’s skill.


About the Graphics, Sound and Interface :

Desslock: Might & Magic VI features not one, but two new 3d engines, the Labyrinth engine (for indoor locations) and the Horizon engine (for outdoor locations)- both of which look very impressive. Can you elaborate on the differences between the two engines? What are the relative advantages of the different engines? Will the change between engines change the manner in which your characters interact with the gaming world?

Jon Van Caneghem: The Horizon engine allows us to do tricks with the terrain that we otherwise couldn’t have done with a single engine. I think the biggest difference this engine makes is allowing us to have complete towns that you can walk through without having to do some sort of simple town representation on the map. The Labyrinth engine permits a much more constricted viewpoint than the Horizon engine would allow, so it permits us to build dungeons with it. As far as the player is concerned, however, there is no real play difference between the two.

Desslock: You've been demonstrating some pretty impressive AVI cutscenes with Might & Magic VI. What's the role of these cutscenes in Might & Magic VI? Do they occur just as part of the Introduction and at the Ending?

Jon Van Caneghem: No, there is one other place in the game where we use a lengthy movie scene. In other circumstances, we use the same technology that created the movies to illustrate shops, temples, throne rooms, and other miscellaneous, complex scenes with animation, only more conservatively.

Desslock: What kind of music to you anticipate including in the game? Will it be Midi or CD digital? Any particular type or style of music?

Jon Van Caneghem: CD digital, of course. And the style is medieval or classical using the same musician who did the Heroes II music. No opera this time.

Desslock: There's no doubt that between the Labyrinth and Horizon engines, Might & Magic VI will definitely be the most graphically impressive game in the series. I noticed at the e3 that weather effects, animated water effects and dynamic lighting were all supported. One of the things which gamers may not appreciate from looking at screen shots is that there's virtually no pixelation of the objects in the 3d environment. What trickery is this <grin>? How'd you do that?

Jon Van Caneghem: We use big textures and we don’t allow the player to get so close to a texture that pixels blow up enormous size. We also mip-map (resize) distant objects and textures so they appear better at long, medium and short ranges.

Desslock: I understand it that the engines will create a true 3d environment although, like most games of the genre, the monsters, etc. will appear as quot;sprites", and not polygonal objects?

Jon Van Caneghem: Correct. We don’t think monsters and objects look good enough as polygonal objects to build an engine around that yet. When that technology finally catches up the quality of a simple sprite, then we’ll switch over.

Desslock: I understand that Might & Magic VI will include a detailed automap feature. Is there any "note-taking" feature to keep track of conversations with NPCs?

Jon Van Caneghem: Of course. If an NPC says something significant, notes will be taken automatically. Maps, as in all Might and Magic games, are also handled automatically.

Desslock: I'm sure you realize that you just can't have a first person perspective game these days without getting asked the following question (even though it is more appropriate in respect of action based games with lots of polygons): Are you contemplating any support for 3d accelerator cards? If so, will you support specific cards or general APIs such as Microsoft's Direct 3d?

Jon Van Caneghem: Yes. We will be supporting Direct 3D and through it the cards Direct 3D supports. [Editor's Note: Since the interview was conducted, 3DO has decided to nix the 3D accelerated version.]


Finally...

Desslock: What are two features (perhaps among many) which you believe will set Might & Magic VI apart from other computer role-playing games?

Jon Van Caneghem: I would say the most important feature is the technology of the two graphic engines. With this split in focus, we are able to get excellent models of both the indoor world and the outdoor world. Most first person games have to choose to focus on the outdoor world or the indoor world (usually the indoor) and the depiction of the other suffers.The second item is our skill system. We think that it smoothes out the progress of the game so that it is nearly equally difficult to play all the way through. Often a game is either very easy or very hard for certain levels of characters—usually very hard in the beginning and then ridiculously easy at the end. Might and Magic VI won’t suffer from this.

Desslock: How close is the game to commercial release? What is your current target release date?

Jon Van Caneghem: March ‘98

Desslock: Hey, what's with that Minotaur king guy we keep seeing around?

Jon Van Caneghem: Marketing seems to like that monster a lot, and I guess we in development are notorious for resisting their persistent requests for more graphics…so they reuse it a lot. I guess.

Desslock: You’ve announced that you’re working on Might & Magic Online. What do you have planned for this ambitious project?

Jon Van Caneghem: Not ready to talk much about Might & Magic Online right now. What I can tell you is that it is a collaborative effort between New World and the Internet group from 3DO that have been working on Meridian 59. We are excited about the project given the expertise at 3DO and the RPG expertise at New World. The combination, we anticipate, will lead to a phenomenal "massively multiplayer" FRPG experience. Stay Tuned!

Desslock: One last, long question coming up, which ties into the theme of this RPG article on upcoming games. Deep breath: A lot of role-playing game fans are concerned that there have not been many RPGs produced over the past several years. After all, it has been several years since the release of the Xeen series, for example (although you've made two very well regarded Might & Magic strategy games), and there hasn't been a release of a core "Wizardry" or "Ultima" game for several years either.

One of the reasons cited for the recent dearth of role-playing games is the perception that such games only appeal to a limited, although devoted, number of gamers. In other words, the commercial market for traditional style role-playing games is perceived to be smaller than the potential market for computer games of other genres, such as first person action games or strategy games.

Given the fact that you've decided to go back to the core Might & Magic series and create another role-playing game in this environment, what did your development team do in order to entice more gamers to try a role-playing game?

Jon Van Caneghem: We know the role-playing audience is unhappy about the low numbers of good games aimed at them. There is a feeling that role-players are a small audience and some game companies think there isn’t much money to be made selling to them. We think the role-playing audience is quite large. You just have to make a game that people want to play. Build it and they will come. So we’ve done that. And we make no assumptions that our players have played a role playing game before. We obviously want to draw in as many new players as we can while holding the interest of the veteran RPGer’s. It’s a tight wire to walk, but it can be done. Wish us luck!

Desslock: Thanks again for taking the time to consider these questions.

Jon Van Caneghem: No problem! Always happy to answer a few questions.